Bout Time

This blog entry is way overdue and yet I’m still not sure what I have to say. I have to walk a thin line between being informative and entertaining…in order to keep all parties interested. What am I talking about? I don’t even know who the “parties” are. So if you are reading my blog be advised that whatever I am about to write is being written in order to keep you coming back.

First order of business I suppose is the fact that my camera is broken. Yes, I know it is a very sad day. However, my mama and I are working on the warranty right now and trying to figure out how to get a replacement. So just be advised that for several months I may not have any pictures on my blog—sorry folks. The jungle is kinda hard on our “modern technology”.

Secondly, Sunshine is learning commands! She is a very smart dog—don’t we all say that about our dogs though. She sits very well; she is learning stay and come. However she fails to remember these commands at the most important times and so it goes.

I guess ya’ll are curious about how my first Christmas away from home went. Well, I made it through. No major tears and one John Grisham book richer!! Our team was actually able to celebrate this event with an Asheninka family from the community of Alto San Luis. Their oldest daughter had been studying here in Pucallpa for the past year. It was very interesting to house this family of 7 here in our home. For me it really made me question over and over what it is I came to Peru to do. It is easy to get the mentally that my people group live in the communities and I go there and see them. I should endure hard times while I’m there and then I can come back and rest. However, when the people group comes with you, you can’t just stop ministering. All this is to say, I was challenged to act like Jesus every day and really seek his guidance throughout the Christmas season a time when giving is of highest importance.
Somewhere on this list of things that ya’ll need to know is: I got lice. Yep discovered the little boogers on Christmas Day. Well Merry Christmas to you too I thought. My second thought was, “no stores are open on Christmas Day.” My third thought was, “I wonder if Hilda has something I could use.” (now for those of you who don’t remember Hilda, she was my tutor for 1 month and now she is basically my Peruvian mom. We see each other on a daily basis and she can pretty much get anything done.) So I told Hilda about my “visitantes”(visitors) over a piece of pound cake (which I made!!) to which she responded by getting up, walking into her bathroom and bringing me a bottle of cream. She told me she always had it on hand for her granddaughter who often came home from school with lice.

Also of some interest was HOW the bugs were discovered. Well as I was sitting in the McAnally’s house on Christmas morning waiting patiently for the hour when I could open my presents I laid my head over on the arm of a chair. Berta (an Asheninka girl that is also visiting us) started picking through my hair. This is a very normal thing in the communities. Children sit for long periods of time combing through each other’s hair looking for “piojos” (lice). Well, just before we were given the go ahead for opening presents Berta whispered to me, “tu tienes piojos” (you have lice)! Well, first thing I did was look up the word “piojo” in my dictionary, second thing was to shower, third I made the children look at my hair again to confirm the lice finding. Sure enough I had “bastante”(a lot). However, you all will be pleased to know that I used the cream Hilda gave me, bought some more along with lice shampoo the next day and currently there are no signs of lice in my scalp.

Now for those of you who are not totally grossed out and are still reading I suppose I will tell you about my trips to the pool.
Yes over the past week I have gone to the pool 3 or 4 times. I am looking more Peruvian every day (minus the blonde hair that keeps getting more and more bleached out with the sun) and this makes me very happy. Plus I just thoroughly enjoy the fact that I can go to the pool the week of Christmas. Doesn’t every kid dream of that? Well right after they dream of a White Christmas then they dream of being able to swim during their Christmas vacation.

Let’s see… in other news…..
Hilda and I are still working through the Bible study. She pleasantly surprised me two nights ago when we were doing our study because she had already filled in the blanks. She told me that she couldn’t sleep one night so she did the study! I was so excited and just started laughing and clapping…haha! I gave her a new Bible for Christmas…it should be easier to understand than the one she had. I also gave a Bible to Limni—the girl who cleans our house. She has recently accepted Christ and she did not have a Bible. I asked her yesterday if she has been reading and she said yes that she started at the beginning. I told her that was good, but to go ahead and start reading in John as well and if she ever had questions about anything to let me know.

Last thought---
As I was riding down the road this morning in a motortaxi this thought crossed my mind. As a child, how many times did I dream of riding on the back of a fast moving open vehicle like this (in those days I was thinking in terms of go carts—remember those). And here I am 24 years old riding on motorcycles, swimming at Christmas time, waking up each morning to the “whoop” of a monkey and sharing my love for Jesus Christ! How good is God?!! REAL GOOD I tell you! He’s all there is and if we follow him he will fill us with the desires of our heart.
Pray that I will seek Him every day and take advantage of ever opportunity given. I have the freedom to share with anyone why I am here and what I am doing. I have co-workers in other parts of the world who do not have this privilege. I pray that I will take full advantage of the freedom I have to speak into the hearts of Peruvians the love of Jesus Christ. God became man, was born of humble birth, was murdered on a cross, was raised to life three days later, and all for US!! Now stop and really think about that for a minute! No, you can’t grasp it, but you can accept it…all it takes is faith the size of a mustard seed.

I love ya’ll!!!

And the List Grows

Things I can now do with a machete:

1. Cut firewood
2. Dig a hole
3. De-tar(not sure that is a word) a boat
4. Cultivate the yard (Cut grass!!)
5. Oh, and pose like a kung-fu fighter!!

There are examples of all these in my pictures from this trip and previous ones.

Okay, so I’ve been promising stories for a while now. It’s just so hard to get them started. I think ya’ll will enjoy some explanation of our Asheninka field day.
While in Puerto Burmudez for our Asheninka leadership training we had a field day, so to speak. It would have been a field day had it not rained the entire mourning, but with the rain came mud; therefore, the day turned into “mud day” for quite a few of us. Had we been in the states the slow rain probably would not have stopped us from getting out in the weather and getting completely drenched, but I AM NOT in the States. And when the weather gets down to oh 75 degrees Asheninka people freeze! And wet and 75 degrees and you’ve got people shriveling up on you. So instead of making them get in the rain we played most all activities under a thatched roof, but before we even get to the thatched roof we had to walk to the place. So how do you walk about a mile with 30 people without getting wet? Well, you buy a huge piece of plastic and walk under it, of course!!! So, that is what we did. When we arrived at the site we went under the thatched roof and began our series of relay races with a sack race. Please try to imagine Native Indians putting themselves into a Rice sack and jumping…trust me…it is hilarious! All of the relay games kept me laughing because they have never seen anyone do the things we were asking them to do. Now, the bow and arrows were a whole different story…they were the ones laughing when I attempted to shoot that thing. Now don’t get me wrong, my Daddy taught me how to shoot a bow and arrow and I never skipped out on archery class at camp, but those kind in the hunting magazines come with automatic release and all kinds of other conveniences. This bow was made of metal and string. The arrows were cane, feathers, and a metal arrow head—and there were no notches in the end of the arrow to hold it onto the bowstring! Hey, I’m just impressed I was able to get one to release…it went a good little distance after I finally stopped trying to hold the string while releasing the bow.
Other fun or should I say funny events were tree climbing and tug-of-war, both of which we had to go into the drizzle in order to participate. Tug-of-war was after lunch…not sure how good of an idea that was…but the ground was fully saturated by this point and there was plenty of mud. Just use your imagination on that one. Thankfully there was a river close by and Dena and I were able to rinse ourselves off!
After a fun-filled day of “deportes” we had a baptism at the same river. Two of our training participants had never been baptized and desired to be. It was a great ending to a great week.

Please see the links on my previous blog entry BELOW in order to view pictures from this day of recreation!

Picture Links

for now just look at my pictures and i'll have some stories for ya'll later this week...

THIS IS THE LINK TO MY PICTURES FROM DECEMBER: (my most recent trip)
http://olemiss.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2055906&l=c614d&id=6518921


THESE ARE NEW PICTURES FROM MY NOVEMBER TRIP:
http://olemiss.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2055903&l=c5805&id=6518921


THESE ARE PICTURES FROM NOVEMBER ALSO: (that some of you have already seen)
http://olemiss.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052486&l=cc410&id=6518921

a few more pics before i go

This is the place where we buy our Christmas decorations. Actually this is one of the many stores where you can buy decorations. There is a sidewalk like place with stores like this on each side...not exactly Hallmark--but you get ornaments nonetheless!!!!
this is an orange juice stand in the same place where we get the Christmas stuff. notice the girl peeling the orange with some contraption and the man (to the left u can see his hand) squeezing the oranges...and about 2 minutes later i was drinking the juice!!! mmmm! i love Peru!!! fresh squeezed orange juice while you buy christmas ornaments. we might not have snow, but there are plenty of things that make up for the lack of cold weather!

Rocking Chairs, Yellow Curtains and Various Otras Cosas

so here is the picture of my new rocking chairs--as promised

and here are my new yellow curtains that i LOVE! notice my little christmas tree also!

i don't think i have shown ya'll a picture of the market yet. this is where we can get all the fresh vegatables we could possibly need for like $5---there is a meat section too!

and this is sunshine under the Christmas tree..i've always wanted a puppy under the tree!

Safe with Me

okay, sorry it has been so long friends. but i have two wonderful pictures of God's love that i would like to show you! now, you can't see these pictures with your physical eyes...only with your mind's eye.

both of the "pictures" that i'm going to show you i "saw" in a motortaxi. now for those of you who are new to my blog a motortaxi is the "vehicle" that i go to town in. imagine a motorcycle with a cab attached (large enough to fit 3 comfortably, but known to carry at least 6 plus various cargo!). anyways..if u can't picture it just go to my archives and their is a video and some pictures of motos.

NUMBER 1:

i was on my way to town with Rita on Monday and she had her little grand-daughter with her. Now, first, you need to understand that the traffic here in Pucallpa is WILD!! there are no "lanes" (not me; the driving lanes) so to speak. so their can be up to 4 or as few as 2 lanes at one time. and their are constantly crazy motorcycle drivers wizzing by you as well as big mack trucks lurching around you or in front of you. and everyone is trying to get ahead.
so we are in the midst of this craziness in our motortaxi and Ilene(the grand-daughter) was in Rita's lap. about 4 minutes into our ride Ilene was fast asleep in her grandmother's arms. this gave me a beautiful picture of how we should be with God.
although the world is CRAZY around us we are completely safe in God's arms. He is not going to let anything happen to us...and like sweet Rita, He will even shield our eyes from the dust flying all around!(and yes i do realize that he allows trials, but we can TRUST him is my point!) He loves us so much more than any earthly parent ever could--but do we TRUST HIM?!!!

the other story is like it:
i was in the motortaxi last night with my tutor/Peruvian Mama, Hilda and we went to buy some rocking chairs for the front porch. so we went to town found the chairs and had them tied onto the motortaxi. (i wish i had a real picture of that--but hauling stuff like that on motortaxis is nothing new here.) so anyways, we are on our way back home with the chairs tied to the back and just for precaution i stuck my hand through the back and was holding the chairs. halfway home i realized that my arm was really tired. then i thought...here i am holding these chairs on like their well-being rests soley on my shoulders--on my ability to hold them here. when in reality they were perfectly secured by the rope that had been tied around them.
this is what God said to me in that:
why are you trying to this in your strength? i have secured everything already... your well-being does not rest in your strength!! (PRAISE HIM FOR THAT!!) so, He said, "let go and rest!. and with that i also let go of those chairs...and do u know that they made it home safely without my help!

below you will see pictures of our rocking chairs--just so u won't be thinking those beautiful white chairs you find on the porches of victorian homes or even john walter homes for that matter!

well there was suppose to be a photo here...but i can't get it to load right now..so yeah..i'll try again later!

i love the chairs though..they are awesome!!

we leave again on December 4th to go to Puerto Burmudez. we will drive on the Carretera (remember that wild road?). and we will stay in Burmudez for 5 days training the Asheninka leaders and encouraging them to go out among their own people and share the gospel! then on December 11th we will go to Amambai (an Asheninka community) where we will have a Christmas meal and give gifts. we will also teach here.

• please pray for the Asheninka people that they will realize their task and be missionaries to their own people.
• i will be sharing two devotionals during our time at training. i will also have other various responsibilities.
• please continue to pray for my Spanish communicating and that i will be able to rest well and teach well!
• I pray for all of you as well that you have a wonderful Christmas season!

other than that i have been meeting with my tutor and preparing for this next trip. every day has been really busy and full of activities. i'm still really enjoying my time in peru. each day God teaches me something new. my house is becoming home--i have new curtains(yellow of course) and my room looks just like it would in the states..and with my hammack and rocking chairs on the front porch--i'm pretty much set!!

i love each of you so much!!!