Goodbye, Hello

Wish I could create like this!

Let me tell you what it is like to wrap up an LST project. Few things in life create such a mix of emotions. It is very easy to get attached to "my" readers, "my" work, "my" progress with each reader. Thank God that He is faithful to His promises and that He loves them better than we can. We know without a doubt that His Word will not return to Him empty but will accomplish its purpose (Is. 55:10), that our readers will be able to say, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world" (John 4:42), and that our readers are in His hands and that He will do with them whatever He thinks is good and right (Jer. 26:14). We had one reader at worship Sunday morning~ Josue'! After worship, the church called us to the front where they prayed over us and our readers, took pictures, gave us gifts (selected by preacher Raul based on his careful observation of our shopping interests on the weekends), and surprised us with one of their beautiful cakes. Many members stood and shared personal statements and Scripture. Lucyana church praying over the team. We spent the afternoon organizing, packing, running to the internet, etc. We needed naps for our trip home but excitement was way too high for that to happen! About 7 pm, readers started showing up at the house to spend some last moments with us. We talked, laughed, and enjoyed each other. At 8, the hired bus arrived and we loaded up our luggage, the team, and 12 readers and church members for our 40 minute trip to the airport. Our escorts waited over an hour outside in the cold watching us through the windows as we navigated the check-in line for our flight. When we went through the next barricade, they were waiting for us with huge smiles, hugs, and saying "Welcome to Peru!" -they cracked themselves up. They went upstairs towards the gate with us, took dozens of photos, and clung to us every step till the very last second. So precious. After paying our airport tax (what a sham), going through immigration and customs, we met up with 2 other LST teams at the gate. Our flight was delayed but finally left at 1:30 am. Our airport kissing committee.

After an all-night flight with one hour sleep ( I wasn't bored since Mark from the LCU team insisted on sitting with me) and immigration and customs in Atlanta, we arrived in Dallas early afternoon on Monday. We were met with smiles and hugs from LST staff and shuttled to the hotel. It is heaven to get a hit the pool and catch a few rays after six weeks of winter! It is even better to get a real shower with water pressure and hot water, eat a recognizable meal, and sleep in a comfortable bed! Yummy!

Dinner Monday night with two Erins and Mark Woodward, Director of Let's Start Talking. Italian food!

Tuesday morning we met with about 80 other people, all members of returning teams from all over the world. This is always one of my favorite moments of a project, depite the extra day being away from my family. You can't imagine the excitement, joy, and worship that fills your heart as you listen to reports about God's work in Peru, Brazil, China, Germany, Switzerland, Kenya, Ethiopia, Singapore, Philipines, Russia, Ukraine, Paraguay, Tanzania, Croatia..... His Word is not chained! (2 Tim. 2:9)

We were delayed out of Dallas due to storms but arrived in Tulsa about 8 pm. No way to describe the feeling of walking up that hallway and seeing the faces of so many loved ones, signs and arms waving, hearing the welcoming voices after so many weeks away. Thank you to all of you who were able to meet us, those that had to leave because of the flight delay, and those who were there in spirit. We can't express enough appreciation to you who prayed even one time for our comfort, safety, and effectiveness. Please know that you were with us every moment. We are SO glad to be back with you and for the opportunity to answer His calling for this work in Lima. Can't wait to hear where He wants us next and which of you will be traveling next time as well. Remember that Let's Start Talking can use you for as little as 2 weeks, almost anywhere in the world. Where would YOU like to go????

Toilet Water

I meant to do this weeks ago! About halfway through our trip Erin and I thought to check the direction of the swirling water when you flush a toilet in South America. Clockwise. I wanted to ask you all to check your toilets and tell us the direction from the US. Erin remembered to check when we got home and sure enough, it goes the other direction here! Amazing.

Don't give up on the blog quite yet. I will write at least one more time with some great pictures and stories of our departure and arrival. I am enjoying my first day back at work and forgot to bring the photo card so I'll try to get to it tomorrow. See you then!

Saying Goodbye

This is our last party. We traveled to a local municipal park, complete with a zoo and plenty of soccer room. We had 13 readers, some of whom brought parents and friends to meet us. There were also several church members there and they did a good job of connecting with the readers, the only reason we have LST parties. We had a blast with all of them! Laughed and played all afternoon. I was forced to play soccer because as my reader Patti says ¨when gringos play, everyone wants to play because it is so funny¨. Glad I could provide entertainment, Patti.

We spent the evening downtown. It is so beautiful there when the palace square is lit up at night! We had a nice meal and finished some shopping. Erin and I bought our last Arroz con leche from a street vendor. I am SO learning to make this when I get home! Our readers are joining us for worship tomorrow morning, then the church is having a ¨special surprise¨meeting. We pack in the afternoon then head for the airport about 8 pm. We have to go early due to the increased security from the terrorist activity in Great Britain. Please pray for travel mercies for us and favorable treatment along our way.

You won´t hear from me again till I´m stateside. So let me take this opportunity to say thanks for travelling with us and we hope you´ll choose LST travel next time you fly! Can´t wait to see you!

Random Thoughts

No theme really tonight, just some things I would bore you with if we were together right now:

I haven´t worn lipstick in nearly 6 weeks. I looked around during our first few days and noticed I was the only woman in this country that owned some and that I probably looked like a prostitute. So I have been using my OSU mentholated lip balm that was a gift from Fran. Sorry, no picture. I promise to return to my regular personal hygiene methods when I return home so that you don´t have to see the ¨fresh from the coffin¨look that I am sporting here.

Speaking of looks, I have decided that international travel is the way to go if you need an ego boost about your appearance. People in other cultures have a really hard time guessing our ages (and we can´t guess theirs either) and when I travel to another country, nearly 100% of the time, people think I am 10-15 years younger than I am. Really throws them off when I introduce my daughter! In the US, I am on the verge of ¨old and fat¨ but here, all they want to talk to Erin and I about are our ¨beautiful eyes¨. They never even look down at the hip size! This is the first time I have traveled to a place where I look so different than the locals. We stand out very clearly and get regular comments and noises from bus and taxi drivers. We´ve learned to ignore pretty well and if Raul (age 38, short, round, very funny) is with us when it happens, he always yells ¨Gracias!¨ like they were talking to him. Hilarious every time.

I am completely sick to death of the clothes I brought with me. We wear the same 3-4 things over and over and over and over and over......... I am leaving some things here with Marcela because I now hate them so much I will never wear them again and others I am thinking about burning when I get home, unless any of you would like them. Bright pink polo shirt, anyone?????

We have been having a blast with our friends here the last few days. Our readers all want a piece of us since we are leaving so soon. We went to dinner at a reader´s house last night (I barely escaped having to learn to salsa-would NOT have been pretty!) and then 6 readers and some church members went with us to join the other team and their readers for some outdoor games at 11 pm then a bonfire. It was a blast and we didn´t get home till 2 am! On the ride home, there were 11 people in our taxi plus the driver. At least we were warm for a few minutes! Today, one of our readers joined us at the mall food court and came home with us. He walked us to a nearby business owned by his 3 sisters. We´ve been there, just didn´t know they were his family. They serve desserts that are wonderful! We sat outside in the mucho frio weather and ate pinapple cake and drank hot tea. Laughed our heads off.

Tomorrow morning, we meet at the church at 10 am with our readers, guests, and church members. We will catch a bus to a nearby city park to have a picnic as our last party. We are expecting a lot of people to join us to play ¨Duck, Duck, Goose¨, ¨Red Rover¨, and ¨Toilet Tag¨. Should be fun. Erin and I then hope to find a nearby place to get a pedicure before we head home to sandal weather. My right heel could cut iron about now, a little rough around the edges.

Our time is really winding down. I need to get home (it´s 9 pm) to make a brownie mix and a sugar cookie mix for tomorrow´s picnic. We have the party tomorrow, then Sunday is our last day here. We have worship in the morning, pack in the afternoon, back at church at 7pm for a ¨surprise¨from the church members (remind me to take kleenex), church at 8, then head to the airport. Our flight leaves at 12:30 am Monday morning, arriving in Atlanta at 7:15 your time. We land in Dallas at 12:30 pm Monday afternoon and have some free time. Tuesday morning, we have an endmeeting banquet with about 15 other teams that are arriving from all over the world, always one of the most exciting parts of the trip! We land in Tulsa at 6:15 Tues evening and can´t wait to see the faces of our loved ones.

Please pray for us to end things well here, for the safety of our trip, the arrival of our luggage at each destination, and our transition back into American society (it´s harder than it sounds after 6 weeks!). Love you all!

¨School Visit

Today is our last day of reading sessions. One of my readers, Miguel (in the tan jacket in the front of the outside pic) is a substitute teacher and a Christian. He brought 18 of his secondary students, all ages 12-15, to meet us this morning. We spent an hour telling them about our work and answering questions. They wanted us to sing so we shared a couple of worship songs with them. Then they wanted to learn a song in English. I wrote the words to ¨Jesus Loves Me¨on the wipe-off board and we sang it several times to teach them. The picture above shows every student copying down every word to this song right in their school books! The last time we sang it, I told them I really wanted to hear them sing. One of our translators motioned for me to stop singing and just listen. I can´t tell you how hard it was to hold it together while listening to these sweet voices singing about a Savior many have never met. I knew I could never explain why the crazy American lady was sobbing so I managed to make it through their song. I am constantly surprised by the ways He works!

I am not like:

I am not like Marcela. Marcela lets us live all over her house. If we were not here, she would have the upstairs bathroom all to herself since her husband is in the states, instead she shares it with other people and tries to stay out of OUR way. She gives us full run of the kitchen, outdoor sink for our laundry, any food we see, television........ She currently has no key to her own house because we have them. She has absolutely no time to herself as she works her business about 12 hours per day then still has time to smile and love on us. She left for the US for 3 weeks during our stay and gave us no instructions on using ¨her¨stuff, she considers nothing off limits to us. When we say anything about being in her way, she motions to the house and says ¨only for use, only for use¨, meaning the only reason God gave it to her is so others can use it. She forgot when we were leaving, thinking we had about 3 more weeks here and teared up when we told her our departure date.

I am not like my reader, Melissa. Melissa is 17 years old, very wise and spiritual for her age. She is a fierce believer in God, keeping a promise to pray 1 hour each day for over 3 years now. She was very late for our session today. She had been to class at her English institute to pick up her final grade for the current session. She waited at the bus stop for the bus that would bring her to me and the bus did not come. She decided to walk 3 streets to another place. Along the way (a way she was not supposed to be going) she met an older man who is a family friend. He sells orange juice on the street for a living. He asked if she could go to his house and prepare breakfast for his mother who is 83 and blind. Melissa went, prepared the breakfast 3 times due to a problem with bitter water in the house, had to leave to go by more canned milk, fed the woman, listened to her for a few minutes. She arrived about 40 minutes late for our 45 minute session with a smile on her face and a love for ¨older ladies because they are so wise and know so much about God that they can teach her¨.

I am not like Millie, Luis, and Raul, our babysitters. They have each taken several hours a day from their ongoing responsibilities to make our work easier by being with us. And they have done it faithfully and without the hint of complaint or frustration for 6 weeks! Their jobs, studies, and families have not let them out of any responsibility, they just add the LST work to what they already do.

I am not like Miguel who opens up his life and shares his deepest fears, struggles, and secrets with a woman he does not know and who cannot speak his language. And is older than his mother!

I am not like Josue´who is openly and honestly letting me see the battle within his spirit as he tries to allow God to change a lifetime of thinking one certain way.

I am not enough like Jesus who I see in every face that shares my life here.

What Is Keeping You....?

I know you are praying so here is an update on my session with Josue yesterday. We read the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. We discussed the story itself and then I told him that I must ask him a hard question because it is so important to the text. I had him read the eunuchs words "What is keeping me from being baptized?" and then asked him to answer the question for himself. His first answer was "God is so powerful". I asked if he was afraid of God and he said yes. Then he said that God must be so busy with the problems all over the world. I said, "Do you mean that He is so busy with the rest of the world that He has no time for Josue in Lima?". Yes. I looked him dead in the eyes, made sure I had his attentiion and told him that was an absolute lie that he is believing. We looked at stories from the Word that demonstrate Gods love for us, stories that he is familiar with: leaving the 99 to search for the one, prodigal son, etc. Then we started talking about the sacrifice of Jesus that God made for him. I pointed to Erin and reminded Josue of our conversation when I said I would die for her. We took it a little further when I asked him if he thought I would let her die for him. He said no. Then I asked, "Okay, what if you were a horrible, evil person who had done terrible things to my family and hated us. Would I let her die for you then?" He said no way, then we talked about God doing that very thing and that He would have done it even if Josue was the only one who needed it. He was silent for a long time then told me that what God did was "unfair", especially to Jesus. Yes, it was! He said that we dont deserve that kind of treatment. No, we dont! He is overwhelmed with the idea of that kind of love (arent we all?) and said he cant accept that kind of love for himself...today. At our session this afternoon, we will talk about Cornelius and tomorrow we finish Acts. Our last session on Thurs, we will just talk and I will alk again. PRAY! Please go to battle for this lost soul.

Sorry for the long, detailed conversation replay but everytime one of them gets His message, so do we all. And I dont want you to miss it!

Party On!

Happy Monday everybody! We can´t believe we are starting week 6!!! Thought we´d never get here some days.

I feel a real burden to tell you when God is answering your prayers about our work. Josue´was at his first party last night! We played Scattergories (a revised version that I made up!) and I put him to work as one of the best English speakers in the room. He was one of the 5 readers who stayed for church last night too. I trust God´s timing with Josue´and all the rest of our readers but it is so exciting to see them taking even baby steps closer to Him and His people. I meet with him at 3 this afternoon. Keep praying! I will be a little bolder as our week draws to a close.

Just had time for a quick update. I´ll try to be back tomorrow. Will Spoon, you´re the best webmaster ever!

Places in the heart

Before you get all weepy over the price of gas, here's a reality check. Divide by three to get what you would pay in US dollars, You might want to grab hold of something to brace yourself.

We've met some really great people and planted seeds that we pray God will nourish. They have stolen our hearts and will have a place in our hearts until we meet in heaven. Here are just a few of the great faces that we see nearly everyday.


We are waiting for services to begin the great thing about this picture is EVERYONE in this shot is a reader!

Our team starts each day with a devotional.

We have had the best time at our "parties" and this one is the Oklahoma party. Guess what they are doing? No, it's not the remake of a Land Run. They are line dancing. These parties have been such a blast.

Talk about stealing your heart, this is Melissa. She has such a sweet spirit. Yes! I'm inside...YES! I'm freezing! I'll get you Kyle Graham!

Uberlinda's hospitality

This is our cook, Uberlinda.

You can imagine how fast we walk to our meals now that you know whose company we share. I mean come on, Uberlinda has some really classy clientele.

This is what the suite looks like of people who have a cook to prepare all of your meals. Eat your heart out!

Erin calling home.

Zoo Day

Who was praying about Miguel coming back???? The day after I posted news that he had missed appts. and asked you to pray, he waltzed right in the church building! Thank you for praying and thank You, Lord for listening to Your people! He has scheduled appts for every workday that we have left and is planning on joining us on our free day tomorrow, when he can spend some time getting to know our babysitter, the preacher. Sounds good!

Thank you, thank you, Will Spoon for getting pictures up so quickly! My blog access has not worked for a couple of days so you got to see pictures of our zoo trip before I wrote about it. But here is the story as promised:

After some major problems connecting with the LCU team, we finally get to the zoo about 12:30 pm. I wish you could have seen Booker and Marie trying to get off a jam-packed bus. We were at the back and it was so crowded that every part of your body was touching another person. Not nearly as exciting as it sounds! You tell the bus driver where you want to get off and he stops for approx. 12.2 seconds to allow you to do so. Booker is waiting for people to move out of the way so he and Marie could get off the bus and Erin and I are behind them. Finally I say, Booker, you just have to push your way out, buddy. So he does but we almost missed the short escape time! We walk around the zoo being entertained by the animals and Mark Brewer from the LCU team. By the way, a note to Sweeney friend, OUR Mark Brewer, I have told this young one that he is destined to grow up to be a great man! By 3 pm, we are dragging our behinds! Noone has had a meal and we are freezing and very tired. We perked up a bit when we got to the big cat cages. The poor things are in barred cages that you can walk up to within about 10 feet of. One pair of male/female lions was sacked out, enjoying a nice nap. The other pair was engaged in, how shall I put this.....R-17 rated activity, complete with sound effects. So there we all stand, stunned into silence. NOT something you see everyday. Then we all just cracked up and I swear when we started to walk away, that male lion winked at us! What a bragger. FYI, we had to pass that cage again on our way out (really) and darned if it wasnt happening again!

We were, as I said, starving so Raul took us to an outdoor mall/plaza. We were looking at the names of some of the eateries and noticed it listed Chilis. We thought, NO WAY is it the one we know. We walked around the maze and saw the most beautiful sight of the trip! We are not supposed to call attention to ourselves but we got more looks than usual when 7 of us cried out in joy at the same time! They had a choice of English menus, the same atmosphere, a real bathroom, and the food we know. We stayed for 2 hours! Ahhhhhhhhhhh.
The LCU team votes that we go again on our last weekend. Sounds good to us!

Gotta run, my little Isabel (she is 27 but only about 4 feet tall) comes every day at 2pm, in about 15 minutes and we have a walk back to the church building.

Love to all!

Woo Hoo! The Zoo!

The LCU LST team and our team went on an outing to the zoo. We had a great time and were the most excited about our ultimate find--CHILI'S! Here are some pictures from our great day at the Zoo and our great day at Chili's.

The gangs all here. The LCU team and the Park Plaza team ready to see the sights of the zoo.

We saw some great animals at the Zoo and met a few too. Doesn't this "cat" look like Tiger from Winnie the Pooh?

We could all have cried, Mark shed tears of joy over sinking his teeth into some good ol' corn on the cob. You can't get much more American than that. Everything was the same. The knives, forks, tables-everything. Amazing how the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of home are so comforting even though we are so far away.

Llama's they have Llama's in Peru!

Joshua

I want to give you an update on a few readers so that you can know how to pray. I´ll start with my Miguel that hears the voices in his head. He did not show up for his appt´s at the end of last week. Our readers have no way to call us so don´t know if he tried but I am certain that he would not miss unless it was something very important. Please pray that he will return. His English is good enough that I can speak to him like I would to any of you so we get to have some interesting, deep discussions.

Marie´s reader, Percy, got a new job and did not have time to travel all the way to us to read. He was planning to read with the LST team at El Olivar church but is not able to do even that right now. He is very interested in more Bible study and in becoming a follower of Jesus. Please pray against the enemy´s schemes to keep him away from God´s people and the Word.

Now, let´s talk about my reader Josue´(pronounced ho-sway). In English his name is Joshua. His English is also excellent. I can speak at my normal speed, which most of you know isreallyfast. This is his fifth year to be an LST reader. Pretty interesting choice for someone who is ¨not interested in becoming a believer¨, as he first told me. Because of his language capability and his knowledge of the Bible, he is the reader I am able to get into the deepest discussions with. Throughout the course of the last month, we have finished a review of Luke and have begun studying Acts. He has expressed his frustration with those people who can believe easily. He wants to but ¨has no faith¨. His parents and a sister are Christians who he has watched for all of his 34 years. He says they have absolutely no control over their anger and have shouting, ugly arguments every single day. He says that he acts better than they do so why would he need to be a follower of Jesus if it does not affect your behavior? How convicting! I have to wonder how many times my behavior in front of others has led them farther away from Jesus instead of closer to Him? Ugh. Right through the heart with that one! He also says that his parents have told him that they pray to God for Him to change their behavior but God never comes through on that one. We talked at length about how it is easy to ask for change but an entirely different matter to let Him in to make the changes. We are so comfortable and familiar with our ugliness that it is easier to stay where we are than to allow Him to take us closer to maturity. I know there have been many times that I ask God for change in myself when what I really want Him to do is to change everyone around me so that they think my bad behavior is ¨cute¨or ¨charming¨. How ridiculous! I shared with him some times when I have truly been broken about something and allowed God to come in and ¨fix¨it. I continually pray that God will speak His words and truth through my mouth, that not one of my own ideas will come through. Josue´comes everyday at 3 pm. Would you join me in that prayer?

My sweet 18 year old Melissa attends a Christian church here in Lima. They have ¨prophets¨so I´m quite certain it is not a cofc! She made a promise to God when she was baptized 3 years ago, that she would pray 1 hour each day and she has never missed, even if it is late at night. Her mother was hit by a bus last week. I know that sounds like a joke but not here! The warnings that ¨there are no such things as pedestrian rights¨here in South America are completely true! The same bus stopped, picked her up, and took her to the hospital. She must rest for 2 months so Melissa gets up at 5:30, is on the bus to the English institute by 6:15, comes to see me at 10, then goes home to do all the cleaning, laundry, and cooking as well as help with her 4 year old nephew who lives with them. Her father is not living with them and her sister works all the time, so Melissa is it. Please pray for her mother´s healing and for strength and energy for Melissa as she serves her family. Doesn´t sound much like our American kids, huh?

Sorry for all the serious stuff today but thought you´d like to know what we talk about with our readers and a little about their lives. I promise to write about the zoo and the lion experience tomorrow. I can´t send any pictures to Will at the moment because this internet place won´t use my software. Maybe over the weekend when we use a different place.......

Are you the Juan?

Okay, you can all sleep well tonight. We have solved a major mystery around here. I´ve told you about Uberlinda, our cook, whose house we eat at for lunch and dinner each work day. We were told that her son, Juan, is a member at the Lucyana church so we started looking for him to compliment his mother´s cooking and thank him for sharing her with us. As you can imagine, we have met quite a few ¨Juan¨s, as well as ¨Carlos¨s, ¨Jose¨s, and ¨Fernando¨s. So each time we meet one, we go into this whole explanation made up of some English, some Spanish, and lots of sign language. Picture us pretending to shovel food in our mouths and rubbing our tummies while saying ¨Mmmmmm!¨ Well, each time, we have gotten this blank stare (we get alot of that, actually) or have completely embarrassed someone with the attention. Each of them was obviously ¨not the Juan¨ we were looking for. Hallejujah, we have finally found ¨the Juan¨we were looking for. He is married with a daughter and lives a couple of doorways away from Uberlinda´s on the street. We were so excited to finally get to thank the right guy.

We had a great weekend and spent some time with the LCU team again. I will write about it in another entry and get some pics sent to Mr. Spoon to include.

Happy Father´s Day to all and Happy Birthday! to my husband on Monday. If you can, call him and tell him how old you think 46 is, would ya? I hate not being there but the Nicholson´s threw him a little bar-b-que event (thank you!) and I know others of you will give him some grief about it.

We can´t believe we are beginning week 5 of our work here. We just came through the hardest time of the 6 weeks with God´s gracious blessings. Goodbye and good riddance to weeks 3 and 4! Now our time actually seems short here. 2 weeks to get all the seeds planted from Luke that we can. For those readers who come every day, we will only see them 8 more times. We are already beginning to let them go from our possessive grasp and give them back to God. We know that He will do with them as He pleases and that is always best. More about that later. Please be praying that we have an urgency in our work and that we finish this particular race well.

Love to all!

Felix Dia, Boocker! (Happy Birthday, Booker!)

Booker celebrated his 74th birthday while here and this sweet church surprised him with a party and a cake. The cake was just beautiful, the hospitality of these great people is just amazing. The joy and love of sharing by Christians is truly universal.

Yes, it was as good as it looks! Don't you just love the way they spelled Booker!

This is Percy, are friend who is reading with Marie. He is just one of the many, many great people whom we have met and shared the gospel.

This is Erin and two of the LST students we met, Erin and Brittany. You just don't know how great it was to have a "fluent" conversation with someone. For us to just speak and talk as fast as we wanted to without fearing that our quirky American words confusing, was a good break for us.

Let´s Talk About The Weather!

From your comments and questions, it seems that I have lead some of you astray. We are freezing! It is WINTER here in South America. June and July are their coldest months. When we were researching our site, we discovered that the temperatures would be in the 60´s through June. What we weren´t told was that it only reaches those temperatures for about 10 minutes in the afternoon, IF the sun is shining! It´s mostly in the 50´s-60´s but the temp starts dropping about 4 pm and it is completely dark by 6pm. There are no heaters (or air conditioners) in houses or buildings so whatever the temp is outside, it´s about 10 degrees cooler inside the concrete walls. Most buildings, including our house and the church have a part that is open to the air all the time, as well. Somebody please slap Kyle Graham for telling us we only needed jackets! We wear our heaviest jackets from breakfast to bedtime. If the sun shines in the afternoon, we step outside the church entrance for 5 minutes in between readers to soak up some warmth.

The jungle parts of Peru, along the Amazon stay warm all year long but Lima is pretty much desert. There are a lot of cactus growing in our neighborhood and the mountains are ¨naked¨, not a tree in sight!

We are doing okay, wearing layers and such but on cloudy days, we get pretty chilled! Just wanted to set the record straight for those of you who thought we were enjoying a tropical vacation!

A Breath of Fresh...Dust?

Entrance to the Incan Ruin we visited with Raul and the LST team we met in
town.

So much has been destroyed, yet there still remains some glimpses of the grandeur of this great civilization. It really was amazing to visit this great site. With a little elbow grease and some curtains it could be good as new in no time!

The gangs all here! The six of us were joined by some very happy Peruvians who wanted to be in the shot.

Erin and I outside of the Palace.

A beautiful view of the countryside. The circle in the background is a bullfighting arena, Ole'!

A little better view of the fighting arena. Just beyond the arena is a working farm. The white dots are tomato pickers.

Better view of the tomato pickers gathering their harvest.

This is what took us home from our outing. Couldn't pass up this photo!

American Pie

Starbucks, Papa John´s Pizza, Incan ruins. Where else could you experience all of these in the same day? Erin and I left the house with Raul, preacher and weekend babysitter, at 7am Friday morning. We walked about a mile, caught a small bus, and an hour later arrived at the El Olivar church to meet up with the LST team from Lubbock Christian. They are Mark, Erin, and Brittany, all 19 years old like our Erin. We all caught a big bus and rode for another hour, all of this travel is through town, by the way. Raul told us to get off and surprise! We were standing in front of a real, live Starbucks! Can´t tell you how
great it was to enjoy a decaf mocha, a choc chip orange muffin (yum) and the real furniture in that shop. We stayed and soaked up the familiar atmosphere for about an hour. Then it was 2 more buses and 1 1/2 hours more to the site of some Incan ruins that date back to 1100 a.d. We walked, climbed, hiked, broke a sweat
for several hours, had a great time. My favorite part was the palace ruin. There
were these big seats where the leaders sat to enjoy the view of the ocean and
this huge formerly covered terrace with another beautiful ocean view.

When we were tired of breathing dirt, we rode back into town and Raul found a Papa John´s for us for lunch. We
walked to another church and visited with a team of Americanos (not lst) here to
conduct Bible studies in Spanish. Then 2 1/2 hours home on the bus, dropping the
LCU team off on the way. We were bushed but had a great time speaking our native
language at a normal speed with our countrymen. This was the first time I´ve had
contact with another lst team while on site since my college days and I highly
reccommend it. Halfway through a project is the perfect time for a day like
that. We are having a bit of culture shock set in and are tiring of hearing a
foreign language all around us all the time from all the people. It will pass in
a few days and we´ll be back to enjoying it and knowing that we´ll miss it when
we get home to you.

Today, we did our laundry in the outside sink, takes
forever, and did our grocery shopping, also not a quick venture. But we had a
very cliche´moment. Here we are crowded in a taxi (Marie is sitting in her usual
spot on Booker´s lap) in South America, and the song ¨La Bamba¨comes on the
radio. Erin and I just cracked up!

Gotta go. I´m going to try to download and send some pictures
of this day to Will for posting. By the way, glad to have Will´s friend Donna as
a new friend of my own. Welcome to my life and thanks for the nice comments
about my sweet Erin. Hope

to meet you soon.

Kill the Donkey

No, I haven´t replaced my animosity for the rooster with another animal. One of my readers, Miguel ( a different one than the Miguel who hears the voices, this one is 30 years old and owns a pharmacy) says this everytime he opens his Spanish-English dictionary. I finally humbled myself and told him that I had no idea what that meant. He says it is a saying here that means when you open a dictionary you are ¨killing¨the ignorance and stubborness in yourself. They also refer to the dictionary and other learning tools as ¨donkey killers¨.

Let´s talk about those roosters a minute. When we climbed up to the 3rd floor roof of the house to hang our laundry, we could see into the courtyard of the place that has the animals. There are actually 2 roosters. They have very different voices, one is very high, the other really low. They will forever after be referred to in this blog as Barry Gibb(BG) and Barry White (BW). In the early morning, in our dark rooms, in our warm beds, we can hear them harmonizing, answering each other. I´m getting rather attached.

I promised to tell you about the work. We were discussing in our team devotional yesterday how we have all crossed a line. We now know that when it´s time to come home (which can´t happen soon enough!), we will desperately miss these people and this culture. We still miss home and family like crazy but feel loved and wanted here. Just like every other year, I cry when I leave home, and I´ll cry when I leave here!

Here are some stats from our first 3 weeks:
50 readers
almost 150 hours of reading sessions from Luke or Acts
25-30 attending our Sunday afternoon parties

It´s going great!

Party Peruvian Style

Here we are around the dinner table at "cooks" house. We have some, "lip smackin" good food and the love and hospitality make the food all the more delicious.

This is our main babysitter, Millie. She's just the sweetest thing-ever!

Here are Erin and Marie "posing" in front of our workplace, the church building.

We are welcoming our "friends" to our first party. We had such a great time and made some really great friends as we introduced them to "crazy American" games.

Erin made fast friends with our guests at the first party. They had a great time and so did we!

Here we are playing spoons. We play "American" games and introduce them to some American foods as well. Our first party was really great and a huge success.

Out and about in Lima

This is St. Francis Catholic Cathedral, just one of the many beautiful building we encountered on our trip into Lima. I wrote about this church in a previous post. It was a beautiful day to explore this beautiful city.

Here we are in the City Center. There are a lot of birds. The church in the previous picture is in our background.

The last two pictures are of Erin's and my trip to the Pacific Ocean. It was really great, until she lost her flip flop to a mischievous wave that swiped it. Fortunately we had a knight in shining armor come to our rescue. You can read all about Erin's flip flop adventure here.