Okay, I know that I
have a lot of faithful readers and I appreciate all of you. I also know that I have unfortunately created
for myself ‘great expectations’ from my blogs and from things that I write. But some days, a lot like in the last week,
I’ve been completely uninspired when it comes to putting words down about
anything. So my apologies in advance,
but this isn’t going to be anything profound.
It’s what I’ll call a ‘simple blog’.
I’ve been doing okay the last few weeks. I’m having a great time in Peru and I’m
enjoying building these relationships with my new family members – all 25-some
of them. They’re wonderful people and I
wouldn’t say that I have favorites… yet.
We’re all learning a lot about each other, how to work with each other,
how to love each other, and I’ll be the first to admit that I have been
frustrated at times, but it’s at those moments that I need to guard my heart
from the devil and keep him from putting lies in my head.
We’re camping out on church/personal property in Chincha,
Peru. I love it here. My tent is my new home, which is rather
spacious. The goats serenade us at night
with obscure noises. I’m not sure what
they’re doing but sometimes I wonder. We
have three bathrooms where the toilets flush with a good splash from a bucket
of water. We also have three showers in
said bathrooms which also work with a bucket of water. Needless to say, I shower about every three
days (sorry team). It’s just too much
effort to wash up that way… yet that’s the lazy side of me talking.
I hate fleas and I hate flies. I’m still trying to understand their purpose
on the planet.
There are ravenous dogs that roam the streets. Most of them don’t like people. There is also a chicken which we named Howard
(who is actually a girl) that roams around camp too. He/she/it likes to poop in our shower water
at night, hereby making it unusable for anything really. I hope we get to eat him/her/it soon… I won’t
lie.
We’re finally getting in the groove of our ministries here
in Peru. I am working in Vilma Leon, the
refugee camp of Tambo de Mora. This area
was completely turned upside-down by the earthquake back in August. Peoples homes were destroyed, the government’s
given them the shaft on any kind of aid, so we decided to help ‘em out. I’m working with Robby, Jen, and Kelton right
now. We’re going through and putting new
tarps on for peoples’ roofs. When it
rains water just pours through their homes, in turn, soaking everything they
own, which isn’t much. Also, the sun
will beat through some of these tarps, not only weakening them, but creating a
nice oven to dwell in. 
This is uncalled for… hence new tarp-age.
There’s also a crew doing VBS in the afternoons in Vilma
Leon, as well as some teams who are going through the community and building
relationships with families. There’s one
story in particular that you should all check out. It’s one of the many things these amazing
people I live with are doing.
Yet again we have more teams in a place called Los Jardines
during the day. They have established a
garden-like utopia in the middle of a village of dirt. It’s pretty amazing… I won’t lie about that
either. They do VBS there as well and
one of our boys is working on getting some bathrooms put up in that joint.
What else, what else…
The food here in AMAZING.
Alright, the LORD just convicted me – I can’t lie about that
either. The food comes in very small
portions. We have two biscuits for
breakfast, whatever for lunch, and usually some type of rice/chicken/fish/soup concoction. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost weight… considering
I’m wearing a belt with just about everything now, which brings me to my next
point: laundry.
I need to do some. I
have one clean shirt left. I can usually
get about 2-3 days out of a shirt. We
can either wash our clothing by hand or, um, we can pay a lady to do our
laundry for us. I’ve only done laundry
twice myself and I’m too cheap to pay someone to do it for me.
Okay. I hope that
works for an update for y’all. If you
want to know specific things, leave a comment and ask. I will let you know. I just don’t know what to talk about.
