On our final day in Lomo De Corbina, we hoped to put the
roof on the church so it would be complete.
We climbed the sand mountain one last time and arrived at the site
around 10:30. The building supplies still had not arrived at 12:15, but I had
to go shop for a party.
I felt a little
incomplete leaving Lomo with no roof on the church; I was wishing we could have
done more. Then a lady from the area
came to me with tears in her eyes saying that for the past five months she met
with women every Monday. Every week they
met in the streets of Lomo and prayed for a building in which they could
meet.”The Lord has answered my prayer,
in a big way.” What I saw as incomplete
she saw as an amazing blessing.
The house we are living in has become known as the House of
Flan, because the owner, Juan, has a flan and pastry business.
Juan and his wife Estela have been amazing
hosts. They allowed 13 of us to take
over there bathroom, living room, and two bedrooms. Juan’s daughter’s family lives with them too
so there were 21 people living in one house. Each morning Estela provided a breakfast of
bread and jelly (sometimes we even got peanut butter) and a mug of quinwa. Quinwa is like watered down oatmeal with
little bits of popping things (I don’t know how to describe it). Often Juan and Estela would provide cake or
flan in the evening after a long day.
In order to thank Juan and his family for all they have
done, we decided to throw a party with American food. We made veggies and ranch dressing, chips,
macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets with Heinz ketchup, and ice cream with
chocolate sauce for dessert. As we set
out the veggie tray the family asked if we were going to cook the
vegetables. The young son gagged when he
tried the ranch dressing. We set out the
food and told everyone to dig in. The
family hesitated. Through our
translator, Jorge, we explained that in US parties we set out the food and
everyone grabs what they want. This is
very different from the Peruvian style; they typically stay seated and are
served one dish at a time.
After the food we played pin the tail on the donkey, which
went over really well. Then we enjoyed
some of Juan’s famous chocolate cake.
