The World Race is a challenge. It is something that helps you to grow as a person and as a Christian. Many may think at times that traveling around the world with a bunch of other crazy adventurous people like yourself would be a roller coaster that continued to go up hill and that every ministry would be very fun and exciting.
Well, that is not always the case. It was made evident and clear last month during our ministry and time in Peru. You do not always enjoy your ministry and you do not always enjoy the people on your team.
It took me a long time to even write or post this blog because of the difficulty I faced in many aspects during my month in Peru.
Last month we served in a small and impoverished community called Vista Hermosa (Beautiful View) in Tarma, Peru. Tarma is nestled in the Andes mountains and called “The Pearl of The Andes” though for whatever reason it was called that we never found out. We arrived on October 31 by bus from Lima, Peru. The ride was about seven hours. It was a cakewalk compared to our thirty-two hour bus ride from La Paz, Bolivia to Lima, Peru.
We were slightly disheartened on our bus trip as we passed through a city high in the mountains; it was snowing. The flakes were sticking to the windows around us and not melting. The ground was covered with snow and the lake we passed looked icy and as though it were preparing itself to become an ice skating rink. Well, maybe not quite that icy but it was getting there.
Our ministry was one of difficulty. It was a constant question of “Why are we here and what are we supposed to be doing?” It was a question I asked myself all month in Peru.
OUR SCHEDULE
We were off Mondays and Tuesdays, but we were supposed to have youth group Tuesday night. It never happened while we were there due to the rain and no one in Vista Hermosa likes to leave their house when it is cold and rainy.
Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays we prepped food in the morning and served about 250 kids lunch through Compassion ministries.
Friday night was church.
Saturday we had youth group.
Sunday we had prayer meeting in the morning and Kid’s Club in the afternoon.
Vista Hermosa is a very poor community. There is rarely running water and many depend on the rain as we did for most things. Some women were left with their children by their husbands or the father of their children and forced to make ends meet on their own. The people there do not have much. Pastor Abilio, our contact there, told us the church had money to have nice things but they believed they needed to live and work as did the people in the community.
LIVING CONDITIONS
The church where we stayed was at the top of the hill of Vista Hermosa. Everything else in the community was below us on the one road that zig-zagged to the bottom.
When we arrived at the church, which did not look like your status-quo church building, we were shown our room. Our room, for all six of us women, was about an 8’x10′ room. Maybe. However, it was not just an empty room. It had been used for storage and was still being used for storage.
The room had two large sized chairs, a bed, several thin dusty matresses, two books shelves packed to the max, a coffee table, and many boxes filled with only heaven knows what. It was close quarters to say the least. The first night we piled our bags and packs high, whipped out our sleeping things, and hit the hay.
There were four bathroom stalls downstairs and one shower stall. The shower did not work and if it did it was super cold icy water and it was already cold there anyways. We shared the bathroom stalls with all the kids that came to eat three times a week. They were not the cleanest tiny humans and often times smeared poop on the walls.
The toilets did not flush nor did they have seats. We prayed for rain to fill up large barrells in order to use buckets to dip out the rain water and flush the toilets. So no rain equals no way to flush the toilet. Things were always of an unpleasant aroma but even worse when there was no rain.
Due to lack of water in the community we had to find a way to get drinking water, to shower, and do laundry.
A little store down the hill sold bottled water and so we bought our drinking water. We arrived on Friday and on Monday we were able to find a hostel that allowed us to use their showers for 2 Nuevo Soles per person which is a little less than one dollar. They also would turn on the hot water heater for us. Even still it was a hit or miss on whether or not your shower was hot.
The hostel was about a twenty-five minute walk down the hill and through town so it was not feasible to shower every day. So… we got to shower twice a week on our off days. Showers took precedence over off-day adventures to wherever.
There are no laundry mats in Latin America. You must pay to have it done. We each had one pair of pants (jeans) that we wore everyday and got washed once a week. Laundry day was also Monday and we could not pick it up until the following day. So I would wear my leggings and long skirt on the days we dropped off our laundry. We had issues with one laundry place so found another. I will not expand on those issues.
It was a true blessing we were able to find a place to do our laundry and a place to shower. We also found a little pizzeria that had wifi, a bathroom that had a toilet seat, and a sink with soap because we had none of those where we were staying.
CHALLENGES
None of our ministry contacts or the people in the community spoke English. I am the only fluent Spanish speaker on my team so I translated. It was exhausting at times. Not to mention most Peruvians have a very strange accent and the majority of them mumble. It was beyond frustrating at times.
Everything about showers, toilets, and laundry was a challenge.
Our room was so crammed there was no wiggle room or a quiet place to go. The kids in the community were always around and our room seemed the only escape. However, the kids soon found out where our room was and even if they were not knocking on the door someone was always in the room and it was rarely quiet.
I had very little to zero alone time which is essential even for an extrovert.
I did not see the purpose of our ministry which was frustrating.
Due to lack of personal and private space I found it very difficult to spend time with the Lord so it rarely happened.
The cultural differences were very challenging at times when communicating with the ladies in the kitchen. The majority of women in Latin America are usually married with children by the time they are twenty-one. I was already aware and very familiar with Latin American culture but it did not make the following occurences any easier.
I am divorced and have lost a child. I did not share that with them, but I was asked multiple times how old I was and they were shocked to find that I was twenty-five, single, and without children. As if I would leave them behind for an eleven month mission trip.
This conversation happened after a lady in the kitchen was talking to a girl from the community who was seventeen or eighteen and had a boyfriend. She was talking about her plans to be married and with three kids in her first five years of marriage.
It is difficult to convey to a culture that does not understand that you can be twenty-five, single, childless, and be content in the Lord. It was also strange to them that women in the U.S. usually want to finish college and have a career started before marriage and family.
We also did not cook like the women there and their utensils and ways of doing things were very different from the ways of the U.S. We rarely buy a whole chicken and cut its head and feet off and gut it. Nor do we use the same knife that we used to cut up that chicken to cut up fresh vegetables. (There was a whole lot of praying that we would not get parasites or food poisoning.) They thought we knew nothing about cooking or food.
We proved them wrong the Tuesday before Thanksgiving when we celebrated. Vashti, Alice, and I made one heck of a Thanksgiving dinner and shared with our sweet hosts Paulina and Miguel. There were some leftovers the next day which the kitchen ladies tried out and they were left wanting our recipes. We were very proud cooks that day and felt a sense of redemption.
The day before we left was the first time the ladies we had been working with showed gratitude and said how much they missed us the Friday we were gone to Chanchamayo (Our time in Chanchamayo will be the next blog).
HOW DID IT ALL AFFECT ME?
All these things added together were a struggle for me. I also, admittingly, did not have a positive attitude or perspective on things. I found everything frustrating. I did not like being around a lot of my team mates and I did not show them love in the best way possible. I found it difficult to serve the people around us with a glad heart.
I wallowed in my own negativity and frustration and I had a terrible month because of it. I hated who I had been that month. I hated that I did not make the most of our ministry and how I had acted towards some of my team mates.
However, I learned so much from that experience and it gave me a determination not to have the same kind of month. I decided that every month was going to be better and the best it could be. I decided to prefer others on my team and squad and to spend more time with the Lord.
This enabled me to have a great month in Ecuador and allowed me to love more the teammates that got on my ever-living nerves the month before. I was able to apologize to my team mate with whom I had difficulties.
Choosing your attitude and to love others is not always the easiest but it is beneficial to not only yourself but others as well.
The root of doing both is spending time every day with the Lord and resting in His presence. Without either we will not be able to reap the full treasures He has in store for us each day.
The problems and challenges I had this past month were real problems and challenges, however, my reaction to them could have been much different if I had spent time with the Lord. Spending time with God does not mean that no problems or challenges will come.
Instead, our time with God affects our decisions, our attitude, our love for others, and how we react when problems and challenges come our way.
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The title of this blog was inspired by “Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been” by Relient K.
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Thank you to everyone who has supported me financially, through prayers, and words of encouragement. You are all a tremendous blessing and I love you all.
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