Filling in the Gaps

OK, so a couple of "days" have passed since I last blogged. I guess a lot has happened and I could fill you in on some of the details.

• Jenn and the boys are well into the school year. Jordan and Trevor are excelling in their studies and they have an excellent teacher.
• Ministry is getting done. Things don't happen very quickly here, but we have seen the Lord working in our area.
• Our team members, Courtney and Lindsey, finished their terms in Chavín and have since returned to the US.
• We spent Thanksgiving with our great friends the McLambs, Holemans, and Bredbenners. That was 8 adults and 10.5 niños (McLambs are expecting a girl to add to their 3 boys).
• Someone stole the glass out of the passenger's side mirror on our truck. Apparently, there is a market for that kind of random junk in Perú.
• I watched a sheep get slaughtered. A 12 year old girl was petting the belly of the dying animal as its unborn baby squirmed inside. Several other disturbing things were observed during this process, but I don't want to make you puke on your laptop, so you'll never know (unless you ask me).
• I saw a chipmunk get punted across the street by a teenager. Afterwards, I was told that chipmunks actually eat/kill the people's guinea pigs (i.e. their dinner). Can't have that!
• A bunch of other things happened, too.

Life here can be a "little" random. I don't always think to report such "strange" details, mostly because they are part of normal, everyday life around here. The next time I go days...errrrr, months without updating the blog, check out my Facebook. I find that I'm on there more frequently.

One of the Perks

I have a really cool "job" if you will. That is, I get to share the love of Jesus Christ with people who do not know him personally. Because of the generous mission offerings given by Southern Baptist Churches, I actually get paid to do what Jesus commanded each of his followers to do.

There are many positive things about my "job." However, I am experiencing one of my favorite perks this week. I have the privilege of working with a group of volunteers from Idaho for 5 days. They have been here for 3 days already and we have seen the Lord do great things through the team.

My favorite part is watching how the Lord changes and molds the hearts of volunteers during their mission trip. He especially has been impacting the lives of a few of the members of the group this week. He has called them out of their comfort zones and they have responded in faith. One overcame the fear of travelling on a very steep and narrow road (which actually brought her to tears) to be blessed by the many children and mothers that were waiting for us at the top. She said that God was really stretching her this week, but in a good way. Sometimes the road is tough but it always seems to be rewarding when we travel it by the Lord's side.

This group has experienced several "firsts" during their time in Chavín. Obviously, they have had many new experiences, but I'm referring to a different kind of "first." They are the first volunteer group (as far as I know) to travel up the scary road and minister in Rúntu. They are the first group to hear the Quechua ladies in one of our Bible Studies pray out loud from their hearts instead of recite a memorized prayer (one even prayed in Quechua). Tomorrow, they will be the first group allowed to teach English and share the Gospel in the elementary school in San Marcos. God has really allowed this great group of volunteers to take part in some amazing things. I'm thankful I have been able to share these experiences with them.

Jordan's Birthday (Chavín Style)

Jordan turned 10 yesterday!!! We loaded up the truck and headed out to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate. We pulled out of the driveway, passed 2 donkeys, a small flock of dirty sheep, and ran over a few cow patties before we realized that the closest thing to Chuck E was probably the mouse crawling around in the attic. (Obviously that was made up, except for maybe the mouse part)

Actually, today we had a little Chavín style celebration. Well, more like our style (which just happened to take place in Chavín). Jenn made 1 1/2 dozen cupcakes with chocolate icing and candy sprinkles. Jordan told a bunch of the neighborhood kids to come over to play and eat 'queques'. Jenn was a little worried that the cupcakes didn't turn out perfect; but they wolfed those babies down in no time.

The best part was I asked the kids to sing "Felíz Cumpleaños" for Jordan. I counted to 3 and they all began mumbling in a sing-song voice "hoppy bearfday to you, hoppy bearfday to you..." I about cracked up. These little guys were all trying to sing the song in English. Not exactly what I had in mind. When it all started going horribly wrong they just cracked up laughing. Finally, I was able to get them to sing in Spanish. We finished off the party with some full court basketball and some good laughs.

Happy Birthday buddy!!! I love you.
PS- We'll get your presents when we get to Lima!!!!

Riding Bikes

A few times a week Jordan, Trevor and I go riding our bikes around town. There are several interesting aspects to our rides. It's not everyday that 1 gringo and 2 little gringos pass by on bicycles in Chavin. We get a lot of looks and the boys get a lot of comments like "Oh, how cute!"

These short journeys allow us to see new areas of town and the surrounding communities. Another benefit is that we have met many people on our treks that we wouldn't have met otherwise. I usually end up stopping to talk to people while the boys practice bike tricks in the background.

The boys really look forward to our rides and ask me to go just about everyday. Truth is I enjoy our time together as much as, if not more, than they do. I told them on our last long ride how cool it was to go exploring with them. During that ride Jordan decided to name us "The Roadrunners."

Everytime we have to ride up a hill Trevor asks me if they make kid bikes with gears. They're a little jealous that I can change gears and climb (ever so slightly) easier. But we're not too proud to walk our bike up the hill if it's too steep. I told them they're going to have huge leg muscles if we keep it up. Jordan said, "Yeah, and huge lungs too."

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!!!!