Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Arequipa
Well we just found some plane tickets and so tomorrow Claudia and I are heading to Arequipa. Arequipa is a city south of Lima where REAPSouth also has a translator ministry. It has been hard getting it to grow up like the Lima one and we are needing translators from that area more and more. We have one missionary there now but he will be leaving at the beginning of May. Then at the end of May we will have a summer team of three people coming to work in that area. So tomorrow I am going to learn all that I can about Arequipa. Claudia and I are going to meet the current students and look for housing for the summer students. Then when the summer students come, I will take them down to Arequipa and help them get settled in. So please pray for us that we would have a good response from the students and really get this translator ministry going. Also please pray for me that I'll be able to retain all this information I'm going to get in the next few days because Claudia will not be going with me to take the summer students. So we'll be back Monday! Hope you all have a great weekend!!
Monday, April 23, 2007
Some prayer requests....
Things are getting super busy here in Lima. In less than one month we will have a whole bunch of summer missionaries coming in. We've been working on where to place them for the summer, plans to pick them up from the airport, training details... all kinds of things. Please be praying for all of these people, as well as us trying to make decisions about their placement. There are also some more villages that need summer missions teams but we don't have the numbers we need to fill them. Please pray that we would get the number of students God wants us to have.
Also we are making some changes in the English Fellowship. As more teams are coming on site, we need more and more translators. So we have now switched to only holding advanced classes, but making them much smaller groups. We have also been considering having some of our really advanced students teach the basic class. We are just trying to work this out so that we can help REAPSouth the most. Please pray for us about this as we are trying to make all of these decisions.
Also we are making some changes in the English Fellowship. As more teams are coming on site, we need more and more translators. So we have now switched to only holding advanced classes, but making them much smaller groups. We have also been considering having some of our really advanced students teach the basic class. We are just trying to work this out so that we can help REAPSouth the most. Please pray for us about this as we are trying to make all of these decisions.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Breakfast
I almost forgot to tell you all about the WONDERFUL breakfast Kathy made for the whole team.... she even made biscuits! This was my first biscuit since December or so. So we all stuffed ourselves way too full but really enjoyed it. Thanks Kathy!
Doesn't it look amazing?!?
Doesn't it look amazing?!?
Traveling...
Well I must say it is nice to be back in Lima and sleep in my own bed. This past week and a half has been kind of crazy but lots of fun.
We started out with a 18 hour bus ride to Cusco turning into 22 hours because of a land slide. We finally made it and got the translators off to their mission trip. We then learned that going to Cusco during Holy Week is one of the worst ideas ever. Everyone else in the world travels to Cusco during this time and so everything was more expensive. Plus we were having a really hard time finding train tickets to Machu Picchu. We finally got some and were on our way to Machu Picchu, of course a couple of days late, but that was ok. We rode the train to the base town of Aguas Calientes. It was a cool town because it is in what is called "la ceja de selva", or the area in between the mountains and the jungle. So that night while sleeping there was a huge storm. I was enjoying it because I never get storms or rain in Lima. The next morning we got up to catch the 5:30am bus to Machu Picchu... but it was still raining. Well we figured the rain would stop soon so we should go anyways to beat the crowds. Well being one of the first buses going up we soon discovered there had been a land slide because of all the rain. So the bus could not take us the rest of the way up, we had to hike. So we climbed over the landslide...
On the way up I started out too fast and soon found myself struggling with the lack of oxygen. I learned my lesson here... if you're not used to the altitude, you've got to take it slow. After hiking about an hour or an hour and a half we reached the entrance to Machu Picchu...and it was still raining. We went in and hiked around a lot. A few hours later we were at the lookout point where you are supposed to see all of Machu Picchu, except it was covered with clouds. So we just prayed, and for a few minutes, God cleared the clouds for us!
Well after heading back to Cusco we started making plans to go to Puno. We had planned to take the train but because of our delays we were now leaving on a day that the train didn't run. So we found a cheap tour bus that would take us to Puno plus stop a few places on the way. What I didn't know at this time is that I went right through the area where North Lanier might get involved here in Peru. I wish I had known before then so I could have tried to check it out. So here is a picture from the highest point on our journey. This is an area called la Raya right in between the departments of Cusco and Puno and I believe it is VERY close to the area North Lanier might adopt!
That evening we finally arrived in Puno. It was cold, but definitely not as cold as I had expected. The next day we headed out early to our tour on Lake Titicaca. This took us to two floating islands and another island in the lake. My favorite part of the whole trip was visiting the floating islands. We got to go in the house of one lady that lived on the island and then she dressed me up in her clothes. We also got to ride from one island to another in a traditional style reed boat. It was a lot of fun.
From Puno we were supposed to go to Bolivia to renew our visas in our passports. But for some reason we were having a difficult time finding the time to make it to the border and still make it back to Lima in time for our retreat. So we changed our plans and decided to head south to Chile. We took a bus overnight from Puno to Tacna. We started out at a really high altitude in cold weather and when we woke up at 6am the next morning we were now on the coast. So we then found a taxi that would take us across the border into Chile. We spent the day hanging out in Chile before we headed back to Lima on a 20 hour bus ride.
We made it back to Lima at about 11 Friday morning only to have to leave for our team retreat at 1:30pm. We quickly got ready for another trip and then piled in the trucks and headed to Chosica, just outside of Lima. We were able to get together with all of the REAPSouth team for the very first time. We had Bible studies, games, and made plans for all of the stuff coming up in the next few months. It was great to be able to spend time with everyone and get to know the team.
So now we're back in Lima and I'm getting back to teaching my classes... I've definitely realized how much Lima has become my home because I sure did miss it when we were out traveling. I've updated my photo website also so you can look at some more pictures from our trips.
PS. Thanks Ron for the peanut butter and thanks to Mrs. Christy's class for the pictures!!!
We started out with a 18 hour bus ride to Cusco turning into 22 hours because of a land slide. We finally made it and got the translators off to their mission trip. We then learned that going to Cusco during Holy Week is one of the worst ideas ever. Everyone else in the world travels to Cusco during this time and so everything was more expensive. Plus we were having a really hard time finding train tickets to Machu Picchu. We finally got some and were on our way to Machu Picchu, of course a couple of days late, but that was ok. We rode the train to the base town of Aguas Calientes. It was a cool town because it is in what is called "la ceja de selva", or the area in between the mountains and the jungle. So that night while sleeping there was a huge storm. I was enjoying it because I never get storms or rain in Lima. The next morning we got up to catch the 5:30am bus to Machu Picchu... but it was still raining. Well we figured the rain would stop soon so we should go anyways to beat the crowds. Well being one of the first buses going up we soon discovered there had been a land slide because of all the rain. So the bus could not take us the rest of the way up, we had to hike. So we climbed over the landslide...
On the way up I started out too fast and soon found myself struggling with the lack of oxygen. I learned my lesson here... if you're not used to the altitude, you've got to take it slow. After hiking about an hour or an hour and a half we reached the entrance to Machu Picchu...and it was still raining. We went in and hiked around a lot. A few hours later we were at the lookout point where you are supposed to see all of Machu Picchu, except it was covered with clouds. So we just prayed, and for a few minutes, God cleared the clouds for us!
Well after heading back to Cusco we started making plans to go to Puno. We had planned to take the train but because of our delays we were now leaving on a day that the train didn't run. So we found a cheap tour bus that would take us to Puno plus stop a few places on the way. What I didn't know at this time is that I went right through the area where North Lanier might get involved here in Peru. I wish I had known before then so I could have tried to check it out. So here is a picture from the highest point on our journey. This is an area called la Raya right in between the departments of Cusco and Puno and I believe it is VERY close to the area North Lanier might adopt!
That evening we finally arrived in Puno. It was cold, but definitely not as cold as I had expected. The next day we headed out early to our tour on Lake Titicaca. This took us to two floating islands and another island in the lake. My favorite part of the whole trip was visiting the floating islands. We got to go in the house of one lady that lived on the island and then she dressed me up in her clothes. We also got to ride from one island to another in a traditional style reed boat. It was a lot of fun.
From Puno we were supposed to go to Bolivia to renew our visas in our passports. But for some reason we were having a difficult time finding the time to make it to the border and still make it back to Lima in time for our retreat. So we changed our plans and decided to head south to Chile. We took a bus overnight from Puno to Tacna. We started out at a really high altitude in cold weather and when we woke up at 6am the next morning we were now on the coast. So we then found a taxi that would take us across the border into Chile. We spent the day hanging out in Chile before we headed back to Lima on a 20 hour bus ride.
We made it back to Lima at about 11 Friday morning only to have to leave for our team retreat at 1:30pm. We quickly got ready for another trip and then piled in the trucks and headed to Chosica, just outside of Lima. We were able to get together with all of the REAPSouth team for the very first time. We had Bible studies, games, and made plans for all of the stuff coming up in the next few months. It was great to be able to spend time with everyone and get to know the team.
So now we're back in Lima and I'm getting back to teaching my classes... I've definitely realized how much Lima has become my home because I sure did miss it when we were out traveling. I've updated my photo website also so you can look at some more pictures from our trips.
PS. Thanks Ron for the peanut butter and thanks to Mrs. Christy's class for the pictures!!!
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Well I'm back after a long week of traveling around Peru. We left last Thursday for Cusco and between then and the next Friday we spent 60 hours on buses, 8 hours on trains, 6 hours on a boat, and a few more hours in taxis traveling from Cusco to Machu Picchu to Puno to Lake Titicaca and the floating islands then to Tacna and even into Chile before returning to Lima. We spent three nights sleeping on buses. We arrived back Friday morning to have a few hours before we left on our team retreat. So there was another few hours traveling, but it was nice to finally be together with the whole team. Just wanted to let you all know I'm back... I'll try and update soon with everything that has been going on.
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