The Roads

Roads in Lima:
2 words= Ridiculous!! Traffic is crazy. Drivers are crazy. It's all stress and no fun!

Roads to Chavin:
We live about 9 1/2 hours North of Lima, the first few hours of the drive are so-so. You pass through Lima (thumbs down), through the desert (thumbs down), and eventually get to the Andes (thumbs up). The final 2 hours of our drive is a combinations of heaven and hell. The views are incredible/heavenly. We see snow capped mountains, mountain lakes, and the occassional llama. The road itself is a completely different story. I'm pretty sure the road to hell is a little less bumpy. After 2 hours of that mess, you need a good chiropractor. Unfortunately, there aren't any in the bustling metropolis of Chavin. I'm not complaining, I'm just not signing up for that drive very often.

Roads in/around Chavin:
We have paved roads in town. To get to the towns higher up we have to travel the dirt roads. They vary in width and roughness. Friday I travelled the first road that actually got my adrenaline pumping. I had to use the good ol' 4WD (4L to be exact). Praise the Lord no other cars needed to pass because that baby was only one lane wide with very few "wide" spots. In the rainy season that road will be impassible so I better plan ahead.

#2: Jordan and Trevor

Man, these 2 little guys are awesome!!! They are adjusting to the "Chavin life" very well. Since day one they have been making friends and spending a lot of time outside playing and riding their bikes in the park in front of our house.

Jordan- He has a natural gift with languages and can basically communicate anything he wants to in Spanish. He has really learned a lot since we've been in Peru. He spent this morning walking around with me and another gringo from TN inviting all the kids in Chavin to attend a sports camp. He did all of the talking and passed out all of the invitations. He lead our closing prayer in Spanish at our Bible Study this afternoon and afterwards, the 3 Peruvians began to brag on him to eachother. It was pretty cool!
He is excited about his upcoming tenth birthday, anxious about the start of homeschooling, and can't wait for his friends (the Bredbenners) to arrive from Costa Rica. They'll be here in mid August.

Trevor- Regarding Spanish, he is doing way better than I thought he would. In Costa Rica he was very shy about speaking Spanish and I thought it might be an issue here, but he has really opened up and makes an effort to talk to other kids. His personality has really been coming out since arriving in Peru. He cracks a lot of jokes and is becoming very quick witted (you have to be to survive in this family). We catch him dancing and shaking his booty quite often. He's been known to watch HS Musical with subtitles so he can sing along. He told me the other day that donkey poop was yellow on the inside. When I asked him how in the world he knew that he said, " Because I used a stick to break one open."
Duh...why didn't I think of that???
He loves to play Lego Star Wars on Wii, practice light sabers in the backyard with his brother, watch the same movie several days in a row so he can learn to quote the funny lines word for word, and play LEGOS with dad and brother.

I think they are adjusting just fine and we have a lot of fun in our home!!

Update 1 of Many

Confucius says, "The fool who doesn't update his blog for 2 whole months will have a lot of catching up to do!" Actually I can't prove whether he actually said that or not but the wisdom is still true. Since I am that fool, I decided to play catch up over the course of the next week or so. My plan is to write a short entry about different topics relating to our life in Peru. Hopefully that way I can inform you a little at a time without writing a super long entry that I myself probably won't even read.

I'm not sure in what order I'll address these topics but I'll cover the Quechua culture, daily life in Chavin, the people, difficulties/ struggles we've had, victories we've had, culture shock, ministry, Jordan and Trevor's adjustment, funny stuff, random stuff, diarrhea (oh...wait, thankfully we don't have much to say about that one yet), etc. Anyway, you get the idea. If I was type-A, I would give you a schedule of the order I would be blogging these topics. Actually, if I was type-A there wouldn't be a 2 month lapse in blogging thus requiring a catch-up calendar. But praise the Lord I'm not type-A because man that just doesn't sound nearly as fun!!!!

Now THAT'S a Tea Party

I know I'm basically a 7th grader trapped in a 35 year old body, but come on- Who doesn't think this is funny?

Up, Up and Away

We've been cleared for take-off. My leg finally responded to the medicine and now it is healing nicely. All the gross blisters have dried up and the swelling is gone. Thank you for your prayers.

Our plan is to leave Lima on Sunday morning. We will drive about 7 hours North to Huaráz, where we will spend the night. We will take some time on Monday to learn the city because we will travel there often for supplies, groceries, etc. It has a population of about 100,000 people, compared to our town of about 2,000.

Monday afternoon we will travel to Chavín (our hometown) where we will meet up with a team of volunteers from Liberty University. They will be working in the villages around Chavín for about 10 days. At the same time, another missionary couple will be working on remodeling/ making our house liveable. We will be needed in both instances. Therein lies the problem. Ideally, we would have a chance to know a little bit about the community, know where the store is, meet some people, help our kids start adjusting to rural living BEFORE we got committed to so many things at once. BUT the Lord saw otherwise. So please be praying for us and especially Jordan and Trevor that they don't feel overlooked in such a huge life transition.

Hurry up and wait!

Just a quick update on the leg issue. It is getting slightly better but still has some yummy, juicy blisters around the ankle. Today the doctor said continue the course of treatment and we'd talk again on Monday. Thanks for your prayers, I am seeing some signs of improvement.

We were able to pass our online driver's license exams on the first try (which is virtually unheard of based on stories we've heard). Jenn studied pretty well and you know me, I looked over some stuff and prayed that the Lord would be gracious. He was and it came down to my final question: get it right and pass, get it wrong and take that 10 hour drive back to Lima to take the test again. THANK YOU LORD FOR YOUR UNDESERVING MERCY!!!!!!! For some reason the Lord said YES to that prayer and now we can drive legally in Perú. Now we just have to learn how to drive in a wild city where it is totally acceptable to make a left hand turn from the far right lane. Now ask yourself, "Why wouldn't that be normal?"

Oh yeah, we also have to learn how to hug the side of the mountain as we drive up over 15,000 feet to get to our new home. YIKES!!! Can you say, Scary? The missionary who is helping us get settled in has told me about the necessary things every vehicle in the mountains should have. For example, a shovel, a pick axe, blankets, water, tow chains, etc. My man should have included some clean underwear in that list cause I'm gonna be wetting my pants when I have to pass a big truck on a narrow dirt road hanging off the side of the flippin' Andes Mountains!!! I'm just sayin'!

The Latest...Finally!!!

After a 2 month 'siesta' I thought I would share the latest information related to the Pennington family. We finished out our year of language study in Costa Rica and graduated on April 24. Interestingly enough, I thought it would be funny to jack my ankle all up so I could walk with crutches for our final week in Costa Rica. So, on the 21st I rolled my ankle playing basketball.
On the 25th we flew to Lima, Peru (crutches and all). We were supposed to stay in Lima for a few days in order to get a ton of paperwork completed BUT.... I thought it would be funny if that ankle got some kind of jungle-rot/cellulitis/watery-blister infection/allergic reaction that would slowly convert into a giant CANKLE!! Since I was succesful in accomplishing my task, we have been in Lima for 11 days and counting. I have another appointment on Wed, May 6th so feel free to pray for me and that the doctors will figure this thing out.
It's fun to be a missionary!!!
At some point in the near future we will be moving to Chavín de Huántar located at about 10,500 feet altitude in the Andes. We are looking forward to the big change to rural life and are curious to see what God has in store.