¡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!