Pues...

We just finished the debriefing for the summer missionaries and it was really awesome. All the groups shared their testimonies and it was really great to get to hear what all happened all over Peru this summer. My favorite part was getting to hear testimonies from the Peruvian translators that served over the summer. It was amazing to get to be a part of all of this. I was thinking of two of the girls I've gotten to know well, Noemí and Sulam. I remember when they both went on their first mission trip as a translator with REAPSouth. We all took a bus to Cusco and Noemí was so sick from all the windy mountain roads that I thought she would never go back on another mission trip. But both of them served over parts of the summer in different locations.

My last class was really awesome. They did what they called "Heather Trivia" to see how much everyone knew about me. Then they gave me a Perú jacket and this awesome necklace of Peru. Susie also made me a carrot cake and some no bake cookies. It didn't really hit me though that it was my last class and since I still have time left I wasn't ready to say goodbye. So before I leave next week I am going to get together with a bunch of the translators to officially say goodbye. I still can't believe how close it is to August 11th! I've got some pictures from my last class but I'll have to post those later.

Well the past week or so has been quite crazy. All of the summer missionaries are coming back into Lima before we all head out to a camp for debriefing tomorrow. Since we'll be gone a few days, this means that today is my last official English Fellowship class. This is the "end of the semester" and the new semester won't start up again until August 11th.

I'm trying to remember what all has happened lately, but for some reason I can't remember much...

Saturday we had a welcome party for Sandi with all the translators. She will be taking over the English Fellowship.

Sunday was a busy day. We started out by going to church with Susie and her family. Claudia and I did a children's Bible story with a bunch of boys. I read the story of the creation to them and they all laughed at me becuase of how i pronounced "tierra". I'm not so good with the r's. But I think it went pretty well. Here are a couple of pictures...



Then after church we went to the Wong parade. Wong is the biggest grocery store here and evidently so big he gets his own parade. So lots of people came out to watch the parade and celebrate Peru's independence day which is coming up on July 28th.



Well there's been lots going on but most of it isn't too exciting. I'm starting to get ready to come home and beginning to close my time here in Peru....

If you'd like to read more about the strikes you can click here. I've heard they are going to be bigger this week and possibly affect international travel. So it looks like it is going to be another week of mostly staying in the office. But there still have been people coming to class, so that's a good thing. And we have a couple of translators out on trips right now because their teachers are on strike and they therefore do not have classes right now.

This morning we went to church with the Austins to a place called las Torres. I loved the place. It is one of the really poor areas in Lima. We had to walk up a lot of steps to get to the building where they have church and as we were walking up we passed by a lot of people standing on the stairs while passing buckets full of rocks up. I found out that there had often been rocks falling from higher up on the hill and they would hit the homes. So the IMB has given some money to the area so that they can build a wall to help protect their homes. The people still have to build it, but the IMB is paying for the materials.

The people worked up until the point that it was time to come to church. At that time Victor, a guy working in the area, announced that church was going to start. So a lot of the people stopped working to come to the service. The message itself was only about 10 minutes long. They do this so that the people can repeat it and also so that they will not feel that they cannot share the Word. The people here are so used to the priest doing everything in the church. It is going to take a lot of work in this area to get the people involved. Next week Claudia and I are going to do a Bible story with the children and then we're going to ask one of the local people to do it the next week. This way they will not rely on the gringos and other missionaries to do the work. You can tell that God is really working in this area and I think He has big plans for them in the future!

and things get worse...

I must admit, I've gotten pretty used to strikes since I've been here. So when I heard about this one, I really didn't think it'd be that bad. But I keep hearing more and more bad news. Please be praying for this country and all of the missionaries spread throughout Peru.

We have several traveling teams that are at times finding it difficult to travel. Please be praying for their safety and for them to find the transportation they need.

In some areas, the strikes are worse than in others. There are several different issues being brought up as well. The biggest is the teacher strike. Peru has changed some stuff dealing with public education and the teachers are not happy about it. I just read that a bus rolled off a cliff and killed at least 20 people. It rolled off the cliff after it hit rocks that were left in the street by the teachers. I also read that a 12 year old girl was killed right by her house when she was hit in the head by a rock that the teachers were throwing at the police.

Now I am reading that the Minister of the Interior has warned that there are signs of terrorist activity among protestors in an effort to hurt Peru. They are trying to keep the streets safe by using the national police and the armed forces for Thursday and Friday's marches....which means, these strikes are going to continue for the rest of this week and we will not be going out much.

Please pray for this country and all of the people here. Please pray for our students and translators as they live all over the city. And please pray for all the missionaries that are all throughout Peru and some that are traveling within Peru or to/from Peru.

feliz dia de las huelgas

Lima is quite crazy today. There are supposed to be more than 5,000 people involved in strikes all over the city. We have been advised not to go out (us gringos that is). I did go out very early this morning to go to the doctor but thank God, we made it back safely. We were on this one road called Pershing which later turns into La Marina. Well my friend Junior was riding the bus on la Marina when he saw people with sticks and stones. He said his bus had to take a detour because people were throwing stones at the buses.

So today will probably be quite slow since we can't go out, plus class attendance has been kind of low because of the copa america. Although I'm excited about tonight's game. Claudia and I are going to fight it out since she likes Argentina and I like Mexico. My Peruvian friends have told me that it is ok to cheer for Mexico but I am definitely not allowed to cheer for Chile. I would go for Peru, but they're just not very good.

Last weekend we took Junior out for his 21st birthday. Junior was one of the first people I met when I got here back in January and he has become a very good friend of mine. He has an awesome accent and perfect English. Most Peruvians don't even think he is from here. We found this waffle place a while back that is really good. Here's a picture of Shay, Junior, and I.

Shay went back to the States on Monday night. So for the rest of the summer it is just me and Shannon. Although Shannon's situation is always iffy. She goes tonight to hopefully get her cast off, as long as everything has healed nicely. She also has to have a minor surgery to remove one of the screws in her leg. Please be praying for her as she is trying to get back to normal!

I'll see you all in less than a month!

¡estas coca cola!

Well it has been quite a long time it seems since I last posted and it seems like a lot has happened too. We left on Tuesday night last week to go to Nazca. Nazca is a city south of Lima where we had our mid-summer debriefing. This was a much needed time of rest and relaxation, worship and fellowship, as well as a chance to take care of any problems people were having out on the field or with their team. I enjoyed getting to see everyone again and especially hearing some of the testimonies. There are some amazing things happening throughout Peru right now.

One of the most exciting things for me happened right before going to Nazca. I have been getting to know this one girl, Noemí, since I've been here. She is incredibly shy but one of the sweetest girls. She has grown so much in her relationship with God and her english has also greatly improved. Well the Monday before I left we asked her if she would be willing to go out on the mission field for a few weeks. And, praise God, she left the other night to go work with two other summer missionaries in a town called Huarochiri! I am SO excited about her getting to have this experience. Please be praying for her. She translated for her first short term trip in March and so she is still kind of new to this.

While in Nazca, God really blessed me in a kind of crazy way. It seems silly, but I know it was from Him. Nazca is the home to the Nazca lines. There are these lines created in the earth that can only be seen from the sky. They were made years and years ago, so long ago that there were no planes to see them. They're really quite mysterious. Well anyways, I had studied these lines several times in my art history classes throughout college. I wanted to go and see them but knew I couldn't afford it. I was even telling Susie how my art history professor would have been mad at me if she had known I was in Nazca and didn't go to see them. Well one afternoon I was sitting with some other missionaries when a guy came up and said they had an extra spot in the plane and that he wanted to offer it to someone in our group. So in the end, I got to fly in a small plane with 4 other people to see all of the Nazca lines. While all of the other people paid $45, I only had to pay the airport tax of $3! Isn't God great?

Well after our time in Nazca was over, I got the opportunity to go to Pauza with my friend Cindy for a few days. She has been living there as a missionary for 2 years. I was not prepared for this trip and was quite nervous because I had not brought many winter clothes. I went anyways and layered up as much as I could, only to find that the weather was wonderful. We were about 10,000 feet up in the Andes mountain but it was sunny and dry. It was warm during the day and even though it was cold at night, it was never as miserable as Lima is.

The first day there I got to go around the town at see everything. We went to a couple's home that goes to the church there. They had over 500 guinea pigs they raise for eating! Then that night we went to a church service. It was really cool to see the local people coming straight there from their farms. The people were really nice and I was already falling in love with the place. Here's a picture of Pauza...


The next day we went to a town called Casire. We were able to catch a combi for the first part of the trip, but when the road forked we had to get off to go the other direction. So we hiked the rest of the way, which was probably about 3-4 miles and about 2,000 feet higher. Hiking is pretty difficult on the mountain short cuts because of the lack of oxygen. But thank God, He gave me the air I needed to make it up. We finally made it up and went to eat lunch. Lunch was quite interesting as it was my first time to try cuy (guinea pig). Here is my plate of cuy served with potatoes and rice...

The flavor wasn't bad but I found out later that I must have had grandpa cuy because it was really tough. There was also a good portion of it that had a lot of fur still on it. I must say this was one of the more difficult things I've had to eat. Everytime I picked it up I could feel its fur!

Later that night we had a house church service. And we were literally holding the service in a guy's bedroom. It was quite interesting. All the services are at night because people work in their farms during the day, so we had to hike back down in the dark. It was amazing at first because the moon had not yet come over the Andes and the sky was filled with stars. I can absolutely not see any stars in Lima because of the clouds and smog, so I really enjoyed this. I could even see the Milky Way! Well then the moon slowly started coming over the mountains and it hit Sara Sara, the volcano, just perfectly so that the snow on top of it was shining. It was a long hike down considering the temperature had dropped about 30 degrees or so and we didn't have a ride for part of the way. So about 7-8 miles later, we were back in Pauza.

The next morning I had to head back to Lima. I left Pauza at 9am on Tuesday and arrived in Lima at 9:30am on Wednesday. This was an interesting and challenging trip but God was definitely looking out for me. There always seemed to be some nice older Peruvians trying to take care of me. It was strange being the only gringo throughout the entire trip, but it was also challenging since I had to speak spanish all the time. We did not have a bathroom on the bus either and so sometimes we stopped to have a stall with a hole in the ground and other times we just stopped and they told girls to go to one side of the bus and guys to the other. We also had to stop for all our meals and it seemed like we stopped every 10 minutes to pick someone up. But finally, after a 24 hour trip, I made it back safely to Lima. So now I'm back to my regular work and classes. Thanks for all of your prayers during my time of traveling!