War Zones, Yellow Underwear, and Luggage ... Feliz Ano!

Well, this New Year's Eve has been an interesting one, that's for sure. The evening started with dinner at Mike and Kathy's with some friends and some of Kathy's wonderful cooking. I'm still on this bland diet, so it wasn't as exciting as I would've liked ... Kathy had set aside a little bit of everything before she seasoned the food, so I got all the sad little bowls of food with no flavor ... but I still enjoyed it. We sat around and chatted for a bit after dinner and then started watching football (that's the way to ring in the New Year, for sure!). As it started getting closer to midnight, however, the number of people shooting off fireworks began to increase. If there's one thing Peruvians love, it's fireworks. By the time Mike and Kathy were walking me home, just a little after midnight, it sounded like it was a war zone. If another country ever decides it wants to invade and/or bomb Peru, all they need to do is wait until New Year's Eve. No one will ever know they are being bombed ... they'll just think it's more fireworks. Crazy!!

Also, as we were walking towards my house, amidst the crazy fireworks going off everywhere, there were people out walking with their suitcases. I had heard, though I hadn't seen it until tonight, that Peruvians take their suitcases and walk around the block if they want to travel in the new year. Apparently, this midnight stroll around the block with an empty suitcase is good luck and will bring lots of traveling. Hmmm, now where did I put my suitcases?

Another tradition that I find incredibly entertaining is yellow underwear ... I'm not exactly sure of the significance of the yellow underwear, but I believe the idea is that you wear yellow underwear on New Year's Eve and/or New Year's day for good luck. Just think, all these years, that's what has been missing in my life. Well, let's see if this year is any better because of the yellow underwear. :-)

On another note, though still related, I had another moment today where I was immensely grateful that I don't speak the language well (I've had a few of these in the last few days). When I say I am grateful that I don't speak the language, I mean I am grateful that they can not understand what I am saying. As I was walking home tonight, right after Mike and Kathy had turned off to head back to their house, about a block from where I live, I saw a kid leaning out his window with a firecracker. It looked like a sparkler and I was really hoping that is what it was. But as he let it fly and it went whizzing just above my head, I discovered that it was not. He saw my momentary frustration with the fact that it had just missed my head and decided that screaming "Feliz Ano" to me would make it better. As I said "Feliz Ano, don't shoot your stupid fireworks at my head!", I realized that, if for no other reason, God has allowed me to struggle with this language so that I would not shout at people in words they can actually understand. I'm so glad God has a sense of humor ... and that He protects me even from silly things like fireworks.

Bland diets are BORING!

In my Christmas post, I mentioned that I couldn't eat a lot at breakfast because of my bland diet. I've been having some stomach problems lately and am in the process of trying to figure out (with the doctor's help of course) what is wrong with me. While we're trying to figure all this out, the doc has put me on a 'bland' diet. By bland I mean pretty much no taste whatsoever. The list of what I can't eat is rather depressing. Things I can not eat or cook with:

- fried food
- greasy food
- olive oil (or any other kind of oil)
- dairy products
- spices of any kind
- junk food
- raw fruits or veggies (which means no fruit juice)

Basically, I can only cook with cooking spray.

I've been eating a lot of plain bread, seasonless chicken, dry potatoes, boring veggies, butterless noodles, and regular oatmeal. Food without flavor just isn't too exciting. There has been, however, one saving grace through this whole ordeal ... BUTTER FLAVORED COOKING SPRAY! Who knew that one little can of cooking spray could be so exciting. Little did I know it in the beginning, but it has now become my best friend and my one shot at flavor for every meal. Haha Praise the Lord for butter flavored cooking spray. Despite the feeble attempts to flavor my food with cooking spray, I'm still missing out so much on flavor right now and missing some of my staple foods ... please tell me, how do people live without milk and cereal, and orange juice?? I think it's gonna kill me!! It's gotta so bad I'm actually considering using soy milk so I can have cereal again (did I really just say that?? SOY MILK????). Never thought I'd see the day, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And these sure are desperate times ... haha.

I have no idea how long this 'diet' will last, but I'm hoping it will end sooner than later! I don't know how much more of this I can stand! :-)

Oh yeah ... Christmas pics!

I forgot to include this link in the last post. This is my Christmas album, full of pics of the various Christmas activities throughout the last week or so. There are pics with Santa, our team Christmas party (complete with documentation of our newest Christmas party tradition), the ESL Christmas party, and the girls night out to see the Nutcracker Ballet. Hope you enjoy!

http://ufl.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2434159&l=bd78b&id=2045616

Christmas in Peru

Well, I survived my first Christmas in Peru. I must say that it was wonderful. I got to keep some family traditions and experience some new things. I talked to my family on Christmas Eve and got to listen to Dad read our traditional Christmas Eve stories: The Christmas Puppy, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and the Biblical account of the birth of Christ. It was officially Christmas once that tradition was finished. The next morning I woke up to my Skype phone ringing. Ryan was calling to wake me up so we could open presents on the phone together. I got up, washed my face, and called them back. Of course, as is tradition, Ryan and I were sitting, chatting, staring at our presents, waiting to open them, all the while waiting for Kate to finally get up and get out of bed (she’s not a morning person :-). We finally got everyone around the computer and started opening presents. It wasn’t quite the same as being at home in the midst of all the wrapping paper, but it was a close second.

After opening presents, I headed to the Weavers’ house for breakfast. Breakfast consisted of all kinds of good food (most of which I couldn’t eat because of my ‘bland’ diet) and plenty of people. I hung out the rest of the day with the Weavers. Madison and I worked on some Sudoku games, played house, painted fingernails, watched movies, practiced her new ‘skip it’ toy, and really just had a good time. It was so nice just to be able to hang out and play. And really, who doesn’t love going outside on Christmas day to play with their new toys? I know I enjoyed it, even if they weren’t my toys. :-)

Christmas really was wonderful for me this year. I am so thankful that the Lord provided me with so much peace during this time while I was away from my family. I definitely missed them very much, but He was so gracious to remind me of what Christmas is really about. It’s not about opening presents or eating lots of food or even being with my family. It’s about His birth and ultimately His sacrifice. And I amazed at how much peace He gave me about the sacrifices I am making by being here and the things I am missing out on. He helped me to see how I can truly love and cherish some traditions and still be completely at peace a world away from all of them. It’s really all about His love and helping others to see that love no matter where I am.

Finally done with language!

Well, as you can tell from the title, I made it through language. Hooray! Being finished with language means many things, one of which is that I don't have to get up early every morning. Oh, how wonderful that is! Besides getting up later, though, it opens me up for more ministry activities, which is even better than getting to sleep in. I still have to take my proficiency exam. I'm slightly nervous about that ... if I don't get to my level, well, I don't know what'll happen. But it won't be good. So, please pray that I remember what I need to remember when I finally have my proficiency exam.

OH PERU!

Today was an absolutely hilarious day. It is funny … it is so easy to feel like we are not in a third world country sometimes while we are in Lima. There are so many modern amenities here that it is easily forgotten that we’re even in Peru (minus the language barrier of course). Today was not one of those days. Today, we KNEW we were in Peru.

Everything in Peru takes a little longer and things just get done differently than in the States. Not bad, just different. Basically anything that can go wrong, take longer than it should, or is just plain backwards, we blame on the fact that we’re in Peru … because, let’s face it, things are different in Peru. Well, today we said “Where are we?” “In Peru” oh so many times!

To start, we went to get my roommate a cell phone. When I got mine, it took about 20 minutes or so because I had a lot of questions. It was a little bit of a confusing process, but it went fairly smoothly. Hers did as well … it just took double the time. At one point, the salesperson wandered away, only to be spotted helping another customer on another floor while we were standing at the counter still waiting to finish our transaction. Oh Peru!

After finally finishing with the cell phone, we decided to head to the mall. We didn’t have a lot to do, but needed to stop by one of the sports stores to sign a friend up for a marathon. We weren’t sure exactly where the mall was in comparison to where we were, but I knew it was relatively close. We decided to ask the security guy that was standing near the crosswalk. Kristen, who speaks Spanish fluently, asked him where the mall was. It became pretty clear very quickly that he really didn’t have a clue what we were talking about. This mall is a pretty big deal in this area, and yet the security guy didn’t have a clue. Okay, fine … maybe he’s new. He decided to tell Kristen where another sports store was, and then just randomly walked away. Kristen wanted to know what he was doing and I said, “I think he’s going to ask the other security guard a question … or maybe not.” As I was saying that, he passed right by the other security guard and we watched him get on a bus and leave. Kristen and I looked at each other in complete amazement. Kristen asked “what just happened?” and we both burst out laughing. Where are we?? In Peru!!

We finally made it to the mall. We signed up for the marathon like we were trying to do, and decided to catch a taxi back to our apartment. We walked up to one taxi to ask how much it would be. Now, mind you, a taxi from this mall to our house should be no more than 6 or 7 soles. Eight is the most I would pay if I was feeling very impatient and late for something. Well, we asked this taxi driver and he said TWENTY SOLES!! I looked at him completely dumbfounded and Kristen laughed at him. He tried to tell us how he was a safe taxi and that was why he cost so much. He kept trying to convince us that 20 was a good price. I know we’re American, and they usually try to pull things over on the Americans, but I mean really … did he really think we were that stupid???? Apparently he did. As we were walking away, Kristen just said “No! No somos estupidas.” What in the world??

Where are we?? Peru!!

Hey Kristen!! Summer really IS on its way ... there's a spider in my bathroom!

That's right! That is exactly what everyone near our apartment heard as I screamed it across the house! I've never been so excited in all my life to see a spider. I have been hearing for weeks that "Summer is coming", "Summer is on its way," and "Before you know it, it'll be hot!" And yet, I'm still cold EVERY DAY. I've been hoping for summer to happen for weeks now, but I haven't been too convinced that it is coming. Kristen, my roommate and fellow southerner, is also anxiously awaiting the arrival of warmer weather. I've been seeing more bugs around our apartment and other places lately. They've been a good indicator that summer really is coming, but I still haven't believed it. Well last week we had two days of sunshine and today I saw a spider. Forget groundhog day ... praise Jesus for spiders!!!

A Night Out on the Town ...

A friend of mine learned an important lesson this past week. Lesson: Don't make a random suggestion around the rest of us if you don't want it actually carried out. Case in point, Brad randomly mentioned one day that he wanted to dress up in his suit and go out to dinner one night. WELL, we heard the idea and ran with it. ('We' is Kristen, Steve, and I.) We made a day of shopping. It took quite a bit of work and several hours, but we finally found the dresses we wanted and Steve bought a suit. The guys were put in charge of the reservations and us girls just had to focus on getting ready and trying to be on time. I'm sure this is no shock, but we were far from being on time. Thankfully, this didn't ruin our dinner reservations. We went to a cute little Italian restaurant and had WONDERFUL Lasagna. Then we headed to the movies. This part was great because we were strolling through town in our fancy dresses and got the best looks EVER from the people around us. As if we didn't already have people staring at the Americans (see the previous entry), we decided to dress up like we were some important somebodys and stroll through town. We walked into the movie slightly late and got even more funny looks. I'm pretty sure we disrupted the movie. But hey, at least we were fashionably late! After the movie, we headed for Starbucks. It's not a night out on the town here if we don't hit up Starbucks. We succeeded in getting more crazy looks and taking lots of pics. The night was completely random and crazy, but it was oh so much fun.

Here's a link if you want to look at pics of the evening ... hopefully it'll work:

http://ufl.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2387950&l=fb45e&id=2045616

Check out the Peruvian artifacts … Hey look at the American!

Well, today has been an interesting day. I felt very much on display. The day started with a trip to the museum with my language helper. We have been studying the different past tenses and she thought it would be good to go to a history museum (most of that’s in past tense … haha). The first hour went well. We chatted about Peruvian history and all kinds of other neat stuff. The second hour hit and all the little school children who were there on tour suddenly noticed the tall American girl (me!). From this point, we would have groups of students walk over to the exhibit we were looking at, stand close like they were looking at the exhibit, and then turn and stare up at me. These had to be elementary age students, and Peruvians are naturally shorter than I am anyways, so they were definitely looking up at me. The first group that it happened with, I just kind of ignored. The second group even made my language tutor chuckle a little bit. By the third group, we just couldn’t contain it anymore and burst out laughing. It was SO obvious by the third group that we just had to laugh. It completely stopped all historical discussion. I wasn’t too annoyed by this but more so amused.

We finally finished at the museum, and I went home to take a nap. I haven’t been sleeping well this week, so I figured while I had the chance, I would try to get some sleep. Because I’m tired, I know I’m feeling a bit crankier than I should. I didn’t realize how much until I walked to the bank …

Every missionary that I’ve talked to has said that they have ‘those days’ where they just get annoyed with the culture or something about it. One thing I am still getting used to in this culture is how forward people are. If they want you to buy something from them on the street, a simple ‘no’ does not make them go away. A strong ‘NO’ doesn’t always make them go away. A strong ‘NO, go away and leave me alone’ doesn’t always make them go away. The Lord has been teaching me a lot about ignoring people since I’ve been here. J Well, today, after getting up from my nap, I decided to walk to the bank. It’s pretty cold here right now, so I layered up and headed out. As I was almost to the bank, I heard some guy (I think he was a crazy, old, drunk guy) saying something to me in Spanish from the corner. I thought I heard what he said, but just ignored him and went to do what I needed to do in the bank. When I came out, I tried to cross the street away from him, but was still in earshot of him. This time, he decided to tell me his thoughts in English … well, sing them to me is more like it. “You’re beautiful! You’re beautiful!!” he sang. Now, if you remember back to the beginning of the paragraph where I talked about being cranky and being annoyed with this aspect of the culture today, you’ll understand how I was feeling. I really just wanted to scream at him, “I’m not beautiful!! I’m cranky!! Leave me alone!!” Somehow, however, I just don’t think that he would’ve gotten it. I had to turn my head away because I was just ready to laugh. What else could I do???

It’s funny though that even on days like this, in situations like this, I still feel an ever growing love for this country and these people (perhaps not this language yet because I’m still struggling to grasp it … but that’ll come too). God has been doing some amazing things in me. Even as I was walking around the museum (when I wasn’t on display), I was just in awe of this culture and all its history. And I was thinking just how amazing it is that I get to be here. Even with all of its idiosyncrasies, I really do love this country and am so thankful that God has called me to this time and to these people. Now, if they would only stop whistling at me, that would be great!

Let me tell you a story about an earthquake ….

Okay, so my first experience with an earthquake was quite an interesting one. It was a Wednesday evening and I was headed off to teach English class. This was actually my first time trying to find the office (where classes are held) on my own. I thought I knew the way, but I took a left instead of a right. This left me wandering around for quite some time. I had left in plenty of time to make it to class, but as I continued to wander, the time slipped away. I knew I had the right area; I was just slightly off the mark. As I was wandering around, and passing the same security guards multiple times, I began to hear some shouting from one of the houses I passed. A few kids came running out the door and I immediately felt bad for them. “What did those kids do to deserve that kind of shouting??” Of course, I didn’t have any grasp of the language at that point, so I had no clue what was being shouted. As I continued down the street, I passed by a construction site that had a makeshift fence around it. When I passed this fence, it started to open into me. My first thought was “how rude!” and kept on walking. As I turned the next corner, still glancing back and forth between my watch and my map, I noticed more commotion in the streets and looked up to see people standing outside their buildings crying. “What in the world is wrong with all these people?” I continued my quick pace trying to find the office and just glanced up to see if there was a fire in the building I was passing. I got further down the street, however, and discovered that everyone was outside their apartment buildings and most of them were upset and crying. It was about this time that a second wave of the earthquake hit and I stopped walking. I looked up and could see the street lights shaking, but mostly I could hear them shaking. Right about that time, I felt the ground moving under me almost as if it was a wave … a very small wave, but a wave nonetheless. At this point, I honestly thought “This is so cool!!” I continued to wander around lost, with people crying in the streets around me, until I finally called a friend from our office to come get me. It’s funny though what I saw around me during this earthquake.

I almost missed an earthquake happening around me, but I couldn’t miss the hopelessness in the eyes of the people who were affected around me. I was thinking this was an amazing show of God’s power and they were standing in the streets in complete despair. Granted, I had never been in an earthquake before and had no prior traumatic experiences to be frightened by, but I was still so struck by this hopelessness. This hopelessness seemed so prevalent in the faces of everyone I saw standing in those streets, and then that I saw in the days to come on the news as they reported on the earthquake. God used this earthquake to remind me of this hopelessness … not just in the face of an earthquake, but in light of eternity. This is why I am here … because people need hope and I have been blessed to be sent here to help share it with them.

His Grace is Sufficient for Me

Well, I made it to Lima. We had no problems getting here. Our flight was almost an hour late, but besides that, no problems whatsoever. All of my luggage arrived with me and I got a green light going through customs. I was met in the airport by almost my whole REAP South team ... and orange and blue balloons. Doesn't get much more fun than that!

When we arrived at the apartment, we discovered we had NO hot water. Combine this with the lack of heat in the house, and it made for a very cold evening. Thankfully, we were able to shower elsewhere and we didn't freeze to death the next morning. We spent most of the week trying to get things settled in our apartment.

During this first week I was struck by just how overwhelming everything could be. The overwhelmed feeling that I felt was unlike any other I had experienced. It wasn't a homesick feeling or a 'what have I done?' feeling. This feeling was more a feeling of complete helplessness. I discovered as we went around to stores and tried to get things settled that I didn't have a clue where I was, where I was going, where I had been, or how to get home. Now, for someone who is very accustomed to knowing where I am going and how to get there, and used to being able to drive myself everywhere without worrying about relying on others, this was difficult. But then to realize that I couldn't even leave my house alone because I didn't have a clue where I was or how to get home if I got lost was even worse. Then as I began to hear bits and pieces of info about my ministry position from my supervisor, I began to feel like I had no idea what I was doing or how I was going to accomplish what was expected of me. In simple terms, I began to feel completely insufficient and incapable. The moment that it hit me that insufficiency was exactly what I was feeling, I was immediately struck with the words of Christ that say his grace is sufficient for me and He is made perfect in my weakness. Here I was thinking about how insufficient I was (and am) and He was bringing to mind this verse. I was reminded about how perfect He is and how much strength He can provide me with because I am weak. I was reminded that He is COMPLETELY CAPABLE AND SUFFICIENT. I realized that this whole two years will be entirely because of Him because I am so completely incapable on my own that it will have to be through Him that anything gets accomplished. It is strange how realizing my complete weakness isn't disheartening once I am reminded that there is a strength that I can't explain that will be completely sufficient and will bring me through. It was amazing to realize this, but even more amazing was just how often I was reminded of this throughout the week. I have never had one verse of scripture come up in conversation more than this one did over the course of the week. I obviously needed to hear that lesson several times, and God reminded me of it constantly.

I feel so blessed and overwhelmed to think that God is so alive and cares enough to comfort me in my time of complete helplessness. I'm also still in a bit of unbelief that He is allowing me to be here in South America, right in the middle of what He's doing. While I wasn't so sure about these two years the middle of last week, now I can see that they are going to be absolutely amazing and I can't wait to see what He does during them.

Testing

This is a test ... this is only a test. :-)