The Georges in Peru

Last week was SIM Peru's Spiritual Life Conference near Lima.  Our fantastic speakers were Bob and Kamrin Evans from the Bay Area in California.  SIM Peru missionaries come from 9-12 different countries (depends on if you count where they were born or where their passports say they are from) so we pick English for presentations since we have new people that don't speak Spanish yet and our Swiss and German missionaries speak excellent English.  But some words are new to them.  During one of the talks Bob used the word 'vicarious' and was asked what it meant.  It means to experience through another person's actions.

Wednesday, was the tenth edition of the Race to the Rocks, a 7.2 km race on the beach.  I've reached that stage in life when my kids are beating me in about everything, including foot races.  I have chosen to vicariously claim their victories as my own, as was the case in Paul's victory in the race!

Last night, I was preaching at a church for the first time.  I asked for a volunteer to read a verse and one woman raised her hand but then declined when she realized that she didn't have her reading glasses, so someone else read the verse.  A bit later, I asked for another volunteer to read a three-verse passage and the woman without her glasses volunteered again.  She stood up, looked straight ahead and without her bible recited all three verses word-perfectly from memory!  I was amazed until I realized that the guy running the projector was putting up all the verses on the screen behind me!

I make a lot more house calls in Peru than I would in the USA.  I don't have set clinic hours, so I'm able to go to a patient's house if needed.  I've had to hike to some places, like once when I went to see a patient with Huntington's Chorea, who couldn't walk.  Today was my first 'car call'.  Pastor Simón asked me if I would see a patient in Clínica Arequipa with multiple leg fractures from a car accident to see if she would qualify for financial assistance from our Medical Assistance Project.  After I saw her, Pastor Simón asked if I would see another lady from his church who had been told that she had pancreatitis and sent home.  "Okay.  Where is she?" I asked.  "In my car!"  Simón said.  He's a taxi driver and had brought her to see me and had her wait in his car while I saw the first patient.  

Pray both patients recover.

Yesterday, the president of Peru dissolved congress.  You can read more about it here.  It is mission policy to not comment or get involved in local politics, so I'll just ask that you pray that things do not become violent.  Things in Arequipa are calm so far. 

Last night we bought a queen-sized bed from some missionaries that are leaving Peru for our guest room.  I set out the single bed it replaced in our front yard so we can sell it. 

We had two guests come to stay with us today.  One of them we've never even met before.  When she arrived we pointed out the bed in the front yard and said, "Our house is full, so here's your bed!"  "It's very nice," she said politely.  "You're joking, right?" she asked with a bit of a worried look on her face.  "Yes!  We're joking!"  "Oh good!" she said, relieved.   Then she wanted a picture!

btw, the bed sold two days later.

"Did you bring Pedro's growth chart?" I asked the parents of the smiley 10-month-old.   "We don't have one.  We're very careful about vaccinations."  Pedro's uncle had warned me that Pedro's mother had some pseudo-religious-energy belief system, so I felt they were just the type of patient that God had called me to Peru to help.  I was starting to get an idea of what he was warning me about.  "Has Pedro gotten any vaccines?"  "No.  We don't want him to get autism or heavy metal poisoning."  I explained that vaccines no longer contain mercury preservatives and that the author of the study linking autism to vaccinations years later admitted to making up his data and that there is no real connection between autism and vaccines beyond the fact that kids under 5 years old get both.  I then went on to point out how my mother had polio and my dad lost his only two sisters in childhood to polio and whooping cough, completely preventable diseases rarely seen today. Lastly, I pointed out that you have to be careful what you read on the internet.  Whatever stance you might have about anything, you can find someone who has a webpage defending that view.  "There are even several web-pages defending that the earth is flat!" I pointed out, expecting affirming nods.  No affirming nods noted.  I hope they were too busy processing what I had said about vaccines to nod their heads about the earth being round. 

Since I can't put patient pictures on my blog, instead we found this parking spot amusing:

They don't let tree planters get in the way of painting in parking stalls.