Receiving Better Than Serving?

During our time in Aucayacu, we as a Peruvian/American team made and served lunch to the people of Barrio Primero de Mayo. Those that cooked the Estofado de Pollo had many firsts: seeing el mercado Peruano, de-feathering chickens, sorting rice, and cooking in pots big enough for children to play in!

Everyone in the neighborhood was invited although not everyone was there. I decided to make the rounds and make sure everyone knew we were about to serve lunch. I found many people still in their homes and invited them and anyone else who was there. While running from house to house, I found Vicki and her children on the road. Vicki lives in the chozitas at the end of the road. About a year ago, her as well as about 12 other families decided to invade the land and put up their own shack to live in. I reminded her about the luncheon and she said she was heading that way. She said there were others from the chozitas that wanted to partake in the lunch, but felt ashamed. Even she said she was worried that if she showed up, people would not give her any lunch and would ask her to leave. I made sure a chair was added to the table so that she had a place to sit and a plate in front of her.

Those that ate the delicious lunch tried so hard to insist that we sit and eat...we were the invitados and they were supposed to serve us. Adults filled the tables and they were given full plates and glasses of refreshing cocona juice. The children waited patiently (as patiently as they could!) for their turn to sit and partake in the meal the Americans cooked. This may have been the first time the people in this neighborhood were served instead of serving others. At every house we went to visit, they brought out something to eat or drink. But, it is not common that they be the ones served...the idea was radically foreign to them.

As we sang a song the final day, I was reminded of the fact that accepting the sacrifice of Christ's death means receiving something and not doing anything. It means someone else did something for you. I wonder if that fact is difficult for them to comprehend. I wonder if the mere fact that they cannot earn or do this for themselves is hard to accept. Sure, they believe in God, but that is so often because they go to church and do what is right. What happens when the relationship becomes personal. What happens when they receive that revelation of righteousness - the fact that God loves them SO MUCH that He sent His Son to die for them so that His sacrifice would ransom them from the impending death that would correspond with their sin.

This lunch was only a start. It is our desire that they comprehend the sacrifice of Christ not only in fact, but by faith.

Lessons In Waiting

Although I was not actually in Lima to feel the earthquake that shook Peru last week, I did feel some of its effects as we traveled from the jungle back to Lima. Instead of a simple 12 hour bus ride, at about 4am, our bus was detained. I stuck my head out the window into the bitter cold and the dark of the madrugada. Once I saw a man who worked for the bus line I asked why we (along with all the rest) were stopped. "No hay pase!" He said the earthquake had caused some rocks to fall which were being cleaned up and implied we would be on our way soon. When the bus began to move within just a few minutes I was relieved...until we stopped again in just a few miles.

The next SEVENTEEN hours were more of the same: stopping, going for a few meters, stopping again. We got off the bus to look around and stretch our legs and ate granola bars to our hearts content. Through those hours, we passed by many small rock slides and after 17 hours got to the main landslide which was said to have been a mountain which had slipped from its heights. They had tried to clean it for a good portion of the day but reoccurring aftershocks were said to cause a continual flow of falling rocks. By the time we drove through it, they had partially cleaned one lane for the miles and miles and miles of traffic to flow through.

As someone who has lived in Peru a number of years now, I have learned not to become to ruffled by circumstances that are beyond my control. Me being upset would not make the workers clean faster, the bus driver drive more aggressively or food appear out of the sky. I watched the US team that was with us and they were troopers right along with us. By the end of this adventure, I realized that they now can comprehend the way of life here a bit better. I told them that they can pray for us in a new way now that they have experienced not only the joys of ministry but also the difficulties.

When you pray for the missionaries you support, don't just pray for their fruitful ministry and happy heart...pray for them as they face a way of life that is very different than yours. This very way of life can cause stress and discomfort if one does not adapt. Pray for missionaries to adapt to their country of ministry so that they might be even more effective.

We are not in control. God is.

Learn to Lose?

"In America, we teach people how to acquire things, but we don't teach how to lose them,"

Bishop F. Josephus Johnson II said. Johnson is the senior pastor of The House of the Lord in Akron Ohio. This church is home to Patty Porter, mother of Jesse Marie Davis, the pregnant 26-year-old Lake Township, Ohio, woman whose body was found June 23, 10 days after she disappeared.

I was struck by this comment. At times I experience the clash between wanting to acquire and seeing the benefit in losing things. Even in the last few days I have seen that play out. I returned from the jungle with over 30 pounds of fruit including plantains, carambola, jungle mandarins and oranges. When I asked my friends what they did with their large containers of fruit, one admitted that while her family was consuming it, her mom was also giving it away bit by bit to visitors. Yesterday, someone visited and brought even more fruit! I have had the opportunity to give some away to people that visit my house and for whatever reason I could not.

I realize that fruit has no comparison with a life and that my giving away would be completely voluntary while so many people lose things involuntarily. But I am struck by the reality that Americans in general live to acquire more and must learn how to lose in order to be healthy, sane humans.

I was drawn back to the article I found on cnn.com and read it out loud to those at my house (translated into Spanish of course!).

The reality, Johnson said, is that life amounts to an unending series of losses. "From the moment that we come out of our mother's womb, there's a loss. There's a loss of connection. ... And then all along, we lose as we grow up. We lose friends, we change grades, we lose toys, we lose pets. ... As you get into later life, we lose hair, we lose strength. ... So life can be viewed as a series of losses, but yet America is much more concerned about what we acquire than it is about what we lose."

As a result, well-meaning people often make unhelpful remarks to grieving people.

"One of the things we say a lot is, 'Time will heal all wounds.' And time really does not heal anything," Johnson said. "We give the example in Grief Recovery that if we believe time heals things, then when you get a flat tire, just go out and get a chair and sit by it and see whether the flat fixes itself. It's not going to do that. You have to make informed decisions and choices in order to be able to heal certain things."

Part of the problem, he said, is that Americans tend to try to work through things intellectually rather than emotionally.

"When you have an event that brings emotional loss, you cannot think your way through that, you have to feel your way through it. It's like going into a dark room: You can't think your way through that room, you have to put your hands out and feel your way through it."

And although he says we often bring grief upon ourselves by making poor decisions that have bad consequences, Johnson acknowledges that bad things happen to good people.

"The redeeming factor is that God is going to redeem the world one day, and nothing that happens to us in this life is final in terms of where we're going to spend eternity," he said.

"God will redeem those things. He will one day right every wrong. But in the meantime, we are facing still some of the things that are going on because in the fall, the devil himself, now understanding that he is not going to win, is more active than he has ever been."

Just Listen!!!

Sometimes it seems we complicate the idea of hearing the voice of God or discerning the will of God. I think that what is behind the complication is the basic desire or lack of desire to hear Him or not. When we seem to have in mind a multitude of options or solutions to an issue, we make the hearing difficult. When we want one answer and that is the very thing He speaks to us, we seem to accept it without hesitation. Truly when we have fewer choices or options it is just simpler to hear Him. When we have all of these ideas, options in mind it is almost as if we want to offer them back to God instead of simply accepting what He says to us in the first place.

I felt similarly in many stores in the United States on my recent visit. Let's say I asked for a "grande americano." Mind you, I can no longer say "grande" without rolling my "r" and the "baristas" often look back at me quizzically. So I ask for my americano and instead of telling me that is it $2.00 and waiting for the payment, they proceed with a variety of other questions.

Barista: "Do you need any other coffee drinks?"
Me: "No thanks."
Barista: "Any pastries to go with that today?"
Me: "No just the coffee, thanks."
Barista: "Would you like to purchase a gift card?"
Me: "No, the coffee is all."

I am not sure how you feel about the onslaught of options but I just felt like my original request was not really heard or accepted. Instead of trusting me that I know what I need or want, they would offer me the rest of the store. Sure, sure...I know this is all part of good marketing and sometimes it does in fact work with customers, but I do not believe it is the way we should respond to God.

God does not exactly just request things of us, He speaks to us and requires obedience. Yet many times it seems like we respond as the barista responded to me. When we don't like His instructions we ask Him if there is any other way to accomplish something. When we don't like His timing, we ask if there is a way He could change things sooner...or later. When we don't really want to be pushed out of out comfort zone, we ask if someone else could complete the task. It is not so much that God does not speak to us, it has more to do with whether or not we choose to hear Him and accept when He says to us.

Ahhhh, The Tulip Festival

When I arrived to Iowa...yes! IOWA...I was cheerfully told that the next morning we would be awaking early in order to go to the Tulip Festival! Orange City, Iowa is famous for it's tulips and the Dutch traditions that go along with these flores.

So, as the sun was beginning to rise, we did as well. Orange City was awaiting us! I was introduced to a number of new things including wood carved shoes, poffertjes (baby pancakes) and other Dutch foods including Willemina Peppermints (YUM!).

What fun it was to be Dutch for a day!

I Ate Snake

Sometimes people have these crazy ideas which appear as a passing whim. My friend's idea was that she wanted to eat snake and that desire just never went away. So...

Home Sweet Home

Fernandino invited us to visit his home in Andahuaylas. This was not his parent's home, but his own home! He had worked hard driving taxis around town and saved up his money. His father used the money to buy materials and built a two room adobe house. One room is the kitchen and the other, the bedroom.

After a 15 minute mototaxi ride, we walked up the side of the mountain. As we got higher and higher the view grew only more incredible. We told Dino that people would pay a pretty penny for property like this!



The entire time we were walking, he continued to say, "I never would have dreamed you would come to my house." I even pinched his arm a few times so he knew he was not dreaming! His humble home was very inviting. There is no running water, no electricity. He cooks by firewood, uses the neighbor's water to wash dishes and I forgot to ask about the bathroom! While we visited he shared that he hopes when people see what he has and where he lives that they will understand the God does indeed bless people. All he has is from God and his passionate desire is to share the love of Jesus with people in Andahuaylas.

Touring Andahuaylas

While visiting Andahuaylas, our friends wanted to be tour guides and show us some of their local sites. We found a bus willing to drop us of at an Incan archaeological site called Sondor. Sondor was said to be a place of religious activities and for this reason was pyramid shaped with 500 stairs leading to the top.

We were amazed at the mountains behind these Inca ruins. The clouds were covering the peaks. But, thankfully (?) our taxi driver did NOT come back for us so we had plenty of time to wait and watch. The peaks never appeared, but the mountains were majestic! Because of the location, taxis don't just pass by so we proceeded to walk down the side of the mountain following the shepherds route down to the lake.

From Sondor, Lake Pacucha can also be seen. The funny thing is that as they began to explain the "history" behind the lake, it resembled stories we had heard before. In various locations throughout Peru the lakes are said to have once been towns, riddled with sin. In some way or another, the town flooded and virtually disappeared. In Lake Pacucha it is said that explorers have not reached more than 10 meters of depth due to tangly seaweed.

The End is Only the Beginning!

One of the main reasons we headed east to the Andes was to participate in the graduation of two dear friends from the Instituto Biblico Teologico in Uripa, Chincheros, Apurimac. Every year students come from many places in order to participate in the classes at the Institute for 8 weeks. The classes in Uripa are held in January and February, but there are other locations which hold their classes at other times of the year.

We spent a few days preparing for the special night by finding the right clothes, buying the right cake and encouraging the graduates. As the special night approached, the underclassmen came dressed up and the graduates decked out in their finest. Elias mentioned that he had always worked very hard to earn money to purchase the things he needed and the fact that someone was buying a suit for him was more than he could believe. For him, donning the new suit meant that a great level of ministry was to begin.

As part of the closing charge, I shared a few words with them, encouraging them to guard carefully the vision God has given them and the call He has placed on their lives. Too many people receive a call of the Lord and fall short of completing it because they are discouraged from the things others say or they just don't see it coming to pass. "Don't let anyone rob your vision, steal your vision or tell you that it is not good. If God gave it to you, hold on to it tightly!"

Esta es la Esquina

In an effort to share the creativity of my friends, I bring a new "music video" featuring the song by Vico C called Esta es la Esquina. Enjoy!

Young and Old

It always amazes me to see how different the "cultures" are even within the country of Peru. Enjoy seeing the faces of Apurimac, both young and old!

What Are You Hungry For?

When visiting the markets, I am always amazed by the quantity of items offered. I still have yet to understand how people actually make money. Each product is offered by a multitude of people. So my question becomes, if you sell the same thing as someone else, how do you get business? Usually it depends on your service to the customer and the relationships you build. Interesting way of doing business I think. I love the change to explore, ask questions and smile at the curious onlookers.

Here is a variety of the things offered in the Apurimac markets...

How Many Mangoes Equal a Dozen Oranges?

Peruvian markets are full of rich colors, flavorful smells, interesting people and delicious food! In Uripa, the market was full of people speaking Quechua. Jacky wanted to speak with one of the ladies selling fruit and Elias had to translate for him. He said he felt like "a visitor in his own country" since he needed a translator to communicate.

He also commented that in history classes, he had learned that at one time in Peru's history, those in the market did not use money to buy the wares of others, but instead paid with the products they had. He was rather surprised to see his new friend fill up a woman's skirt with oranges only to have her bring back mangoes in exchange. He commented that although this practice was said to still exist in parts of Peru, it was the first time he was actually seeing it with his own eyes.

Pachamanca

Although I had eaten Pachamanca a la Olla, I had never eaten the true Pachamanca. In Quechuan, pacha means earth and manca means pot. Peruvians have developed creative ways of cooking things over the years and the Pachamanca is one of their many successes. The graduates from the Bible Institute wanted to do something special for us and decided to host a Pachamanca. Hope you enjoy it too!!!

Abuelita Linda

As we prepared for the Pachamanca on Friday afternoon, an abuelita came in to the garden where they were working. She found her way to the wood pile and sat down. Similar to most abuelitas, she has a colorful cloth wrapped around her shoulders filled with secret things. From her shoulder pack, she pulls out a blanket to cushion her wood pile chair. After a few minutes she began to speak to me in words I did not understand, unfolded her cloth to reveal a square tupperware filled with what looked like chutney. She handed me the container coupled with some sort of instruction that again, I did not understand. I asked Jael to help me and she began to translate for the abuelita and I; she speaks Quechuan, I do not. She had given me mazamora de durazno to try. One more moment in which I wished I could speak in Quechua.

She later pulled off her hat only to reveal a handful of leaves. Many in the sierra chew on coca leaves, but I recognized that these leaves were not coca. I asked why she would carry leaves in her hat. Someone repeated my question to her in words she could comprehend, for my Spanish was foreign to her. She replied, saying they were for her nervios and cast a quick smile my way.

Small Town Smiles

One of the things I adore about traveling is "people-watching" although when in a foreign country, it is hard to say if you are watching them or they are watching you!

The people of Uripa were incredibly friendly; almost everyone greeted us as we walked through the town. Many looked at us a bit strangely but after we smiled and said hello, they would usually smile back. I know that a lot of the people avoid smiling because they do not want to expose their teeth - or lack of teeth. But, I typically tried to get a smile out of them because I loved seeing their face light up!

First Town Mayor

One day, we were approached by Victor who wanted to tell us all about the town. He had been the first mayor of Uripa once the town was established. The original name is Anccohauyllo, which is the name of one of the last Incans. In 1935, the roads were extended from the town of Chincheros to Uripa, which is now a 20 minute bus ride. The people from Chincheros essentially ruled over those from Uripa until about 60 men stood their ground and decided that Uripa should be it's own city. They held elections and Victor was chosen as the first mayor in 1964.

Uripa is located in the provincia (county) of Chincheros and departamento (state) of Apurimac.

Stopover Adventures!

After winding through the mountains on a 10 hour bus ride, we finally were able to get off the bus in Ayacucho. Instead of getting a much needed break from traveling, we were immediately escorted to yet another bus station. The bus had left just a few minutes before and next door we were pleased to find a combi which could take us to Uripa.

We settled into our seats and before long I realized that my purse was not in my carry-on bag, so I no longer had my wallet, camera or my gum! I raced back to the first bus station and without much explanation went aboard the bus to look for my belongings. Luckily, my purse was found tucked under my seat and I quickly snatched it up and began to look through it as I got back off the bus. Camera...gum...no wallet!! I raced back into the station and was holding back my tears as I tried to explain that not everything was in my bag. Again, I searched in the bus but at the same time tried to retrace my steps in my mind. By doing that, I almost convinced myself that I had taken my wallet out of my purse and it was indeed in my carry-on bag. So back to bus station #2 I went, hoping that I would find the last of my lost possessions.

Upon arrival, I tore into my bag once again and found the wallet was indeed among the items. I was so very thankful that I was able to recover all of the items and without much hassle! Onward on the seven hour journey which would bring us to Uripa...

A Visit to the Market!

Of course I had to see the markets of Argentina. Let me give you a glimpse of what I saw!

It Takes Two to Tango!