Finally here

Well all of the summer missionaries have arrived and things are going well so far. Everyone made it through the amazing race safely and I think they all had fun. Today the first groups started leaving and are traveling to their villages. We will be leaving for Arequipa on Monday. I will actually not be going to Puno and Santa Rosa at this point for several reasons. It'd also be great if you could be praying for me about these. One- I'm absolutely exhausted. I've been to the airport four times so far this week to pick people up (this always means picking people up from a midnight flight or a 5:00am flight). And we've had so much to organize with all the summer missionaries plus the translators that went out today. I can't seem to remember the last time I had a full nights sleep and I think it is starting to catch up with me. Two- funds. I've been traveling more since I got here and had some other unexpected expenses (physical therapy) and now my funds are quite low. It will be difficult to get the money to travel to Arequipa and there is just no way I can afford to go anywhere else right now. Please pray for me about these things as they are both crucial to my remaining here for the rest of the summer. Well, I hope to be able to write again soon but things will still be quite crazy for the next week or so.

Another prayer request- Please pray for Shannon. She is one of the summer missionaries that was supposed to go out to her village today. However, she broke her ankle her first day here. The doctor says she has to have surgery next week after the swelling goes down. We are also not positive if her travelers insurance ever went through or not. She is determined to stay but will have a lot to deal with the next couple of weeks. Please remember her in your prayers!

Crazy

Things are starting to be kind of crazy around here. There is so much going on that at times I feel like I'm starting to lose my mind. In less than a week we have about 50 summer missionaries coming in. They will do immersion in Lima and then we will all go to a camp for an orientation for a few days. Then they all head out to their places on the mission field. During that time we also have groups coming to take the summer missionaries to their location. We needed a total of 14 translators during that time and I was really wondering where they were all going to come from. But God really provided and we have all of our May translators taken care of. During that time I will also head out to Arequipa to take the ESL team to their apartments and stuff. We will also travel to Puno to do some work and then to Santa Rosa to check the area out. I think when I get back from that trip I'm going to sleep for two days straight at least! Please pray for me and the rest of the REAPsouth team as we are trying to get all these logistics and everything else straight. This is the busiest we have ever been by far!


The other night in class, one of the newer translators shared a testimony with us. She recently worked at a ski resort in New Mexico or something like that. She just returned about 3 weeks ago from the States. She found out about us because she met someone from Mississippi who I believe had worked with REAP in the past. They gave her our contact info and told her she should come to our english classes. Well she came and now she is one of the translators that will join one of our summer teams for a few weeks. Last night she shared how she felt like this was an answer to her prayers. She said she had been praying for God to show her what to do for four years, and she felt like this was His way of answering her. It was awesome because she was such an answer to our prayers as well. We had been praying that God would provide missionaries for us...and He did. He sent Angela in a round about way from Peru to the States and then back to Peru again. I just loved this story and I am so excited about getting to know Angela more in the future.

Wow...

We've been praying for more missionaries for the summer, and well God is answering that prayer! I am even more excited because three of my students are now going to join teams this summer! I think it is SO incredibly awesome to have the nationals really getting involved in missions in their own country. Normally they go as translators for just a week or so. This summer they will spend one to two months with a smaller team in one area. Please be praying for Sulam, Salomon, and Anibal as they are giving up their time to go and serve in Peru. Please be praying that the funds would be raised for them to serve. This is a little more difficult for them since most people in Peru cannot afford to donate. Raising money here is much more difficult and they have about 10 days to do so. Thanks for praying for more missionaries! And praise God for providing!

The AmazinGRace for the Un-reached

Well in less than two weeks we will have close to 60 missionaries coming in to spend the summer all over southern Peru. So Claudia and I have been planning an Amazing Race type event. However, Mike came up with the name "The AmazinGRace for the un-reached." Basically we are splitting the missionaries into teams of three plus one translator. We are having them do all of these things all over Lima. The past two days we have been going through the race to get everything worked out. I think that the missionaries are going to have lots of fun doing some of this stuff.

One of the things they are going to do is go to the volunteer fire department and put on part of a fireman's suit and take a picture. Well after talking with someone there, he wanted to give us a tour. In one room there was a wall with a bunch of patches from fire stations all over the world. And look what I found...

Is this from our Forsyth county?? I thought it was pretty cool to see that in Lima.

I don't know how many of you have seen the show "The Amazing Race" but they sometimes have what is called a fast forward. This is some sort of task they can do that lets them fast forward to the end of the race. Well we found one of the nastiest things to do in Lima....

That's right, frog extract. This is supposed to be very healthy and beneficial for all sorts of things. What they do is they take a frog (a live frog) and wack it with a knife right in front of you.


Then they gut it and boil it in a pot with some quinua. Somehow the frog takes a long time to die and it still seems to be moving before he puts it in the pot.

While he is cooking they put some honey and other stuff in a blender. After a couple of minutes of boiling the frog they put it in a blender.

And then you drink it....

It wasn't too bad, except that we all knew we were drinking frog. And the last part of the cup was really gritty. But I definitely expected it to be worse.

So if the missionaries drink this they get to skip the next couple of tasks and go straight to the place where we are having our orientation. But that means they're going to miss the central market where they'll have to buy stuff like a chicken head or a cow brain.


It isn't too late for you all to come and be a part of this fun day! But if you guys could please be praying for all the missionaries coming as well as some that are still prayerfully considering coming. We could really use some more guys to complete our teams and we're all believing God that He will provide what is needed. So please pray with us!!

Sulam

Good morning! It was nice to talk to all of you in the 8:30 service this morning! :)

Well I wanted to take a moment to tell you all about Sulam, one of my most favorite translators here in Peru.

Sulam lives in one of the poor areas of Lima, her house located high up on a hill. Her dad works as a taxi driver to support their family. Her mom volunteers helping people even more poor than her family, usually spending more time and resources on others. However, you would never guess this when meeting Sulam. She is always happy and is an awesome Christian. Her English is amazing (I'm pretty sure better than mine...) and she also speaks French and Italian. She didn't finish high school, not because she dropped out but because she was so smart she didn't have to. She just turned 19 but has already graduated from college.

She has been awarded a scholarship to a baptist university in Texas. Someone here as agreed to buy her ticket, but that still means she needs $5,000 a year to pay for housing, etc. Randomly some people from a political party approached her and said they would pay for this if she would join their party. She said the party isn't bad or anything, but she isn't sure if this is what she is supposed to do.

Please pray for Sulam, that she would know if using the money from the political party is the right thing to do or that God would provide it in another way. This is an amazing opportunity for her and one that many Peruvians don't have.

This is Sulam (on the left) with Noemi, another translator.

Finally finished!!!!

Well my graduation from West Georgia was this morning at 9am. I guess it was pretty nice to not have to listen to any speeches or anything. Claudia and I went over to the Weaver's apartment today to "talk about some work stuff" which really meant they were throwing me a surprise party. It was so sweet. Susie had made me a diploma and hat and some other stuff. Kathy had made a DELICIOUS carrot cake which we all gobbled down. It was so nice of all of them and we had lots of fun. I guess this means its time to join the real world... but at least I get to put it off until August! (ps. anyone want to give me a job when I come back to the States in August??)

Repatriada otra vez

Claudia and I got back from Arequipa safely yesterday. We had a great time and got a lot done. We went to the English Fellowship class there on Saturday morning and got to meet some of the students there. One of them knew someone who had a room for rent and they agreed to rent it for the guy coming in the summer. God was just really working everything out. Please be praying for these missionaries and the people in Arequipa... the translator ministry has not been building up as we had hoped and so the summer missionaries are going to have a lot of work to do.