The Georges in Peru

The last of our kids graduated from college on May 17th.  Despite Paul saying that we didn't need to attend, we couldn't hardly skip it after going to his older siblings' graduations!  The SIM home office has strongly encouraged that we make the effort to attend milestone events such as these in our children's lives, so we readily went.  But a week before, our son-in-law Zach graduated from medical school on May 8th, so we first flew to Chicago.  Mia's boyfriend's parents, who live in Romania, were in Chicago for his doctoral graduation from Moody and our time overlapped by a few hours.  Enough for lunch together at a Korean restaurant!

After a few hours at Zach's graduation party, my sister Sandra, Paul, Mary Beth and I started on the road to Nebraska to attend our niece, Andrea's, highschool graduation in Dorchester the next day.  Mary Beth was awe-inspired by the graduation party in their machine-shop!  I was inspired by the short graduation ceremony and by one speaker's advice to "Don't be an idiot."  A helpful pearl for everyone, I'm sure.

The next Saturday, we did it all again at Paul's graduation from UNL in the Pinnacle Arena, a balcony so high it was dizzying.  We were proud of his achievement as a Chancellor's scholar and afterwards enjoyed Uncle Keith's latest iteration of the perfect smoked brisket! 

Our last two weeks in North America were spent in Manitoba, enjoying family, blooming lilacs and smoky skies.  Amazingly, no graduations were attended.

One proof that missionary life isn't without benefits is that mothers of small children can almost always afford a maid to help with household tasks.  From 2011 until 2016, Adriana Choque was our house helper.  She always had a gentle, humble spirit and was the person that really encouraged us to start helping out and attending her church, Vida Abundante.   She also made it possible for me to do more ministries outside of the home because she could accompany Amy who had seizures several times a month after her brain tumor in 2004.  

Last Friday afternoon, she was hanging laundry when she was stung by a wasp.  Shortly after, she started having difficulty breathing in within minutes she had died from a blocked airway from an allergic reaction.  

Next week is Vacation Bible School week here at the La Punta Baptist Church and we are expecting about 30 kids to come.  What does this mean for a small church plant in Peru?  It means the pastor and missionaries pull out the stops on their artistic abilities, roll up their sleeves and get working.  The pastor found a great resource on-line- Galaxy Express- that has given us all the materials we need and a much needed boost to our limited program.  The goal is that by the end of the week, the kids will have learned that God is Magnificient, Impressive, and Marvelous and that He wants them to Call on Him, Answer Him, Obey Him and Talk to Him.   I, Mary Beth, have been practicing the songs’ dance moves.  I’m sure everyone from my home town is now either laughing or has their mouth hanging open since dancing is definitely not my thing.  Yes, in Peru choreography is an essential part of VBS and since neither of us can imagine the pastor doing it and Allen has talents in more pressing areas- I’m the one that has to figure out the moves.  Thankfully, I have achieved some experience after 19 years on the field, and thankfully, Teah, a brilliant young lady from Canada is going to accompany us the week of VBS.  Hopefully, she is also practicing her dance moves this week in the frozen north!  Hopefully, we can sync up when she comes.  Yesterday, Allen, the Pastor and I worked on some signs and the background.  Today we made a rocket photo booth (photo booths also go with Peruvian VBS, though I can’t remember anything like that at the VBS’s of my childhood).  We spray-painted some bottles to use as rocket-packs and even made some kaleidoscope ‘telescopes’ for the kids to play with while waiting for others to arrive.  Hopefully by Tuesday we’ll have everything ready to go.  

Church anniversaries are an integral part of churches here in Peru and usually pretty big celebrations with visitors from other churches and food prepared for after the services.

Several people from our church have asked us over the last two years “When we can have a church beach day?”… Well, what better way to celebrate our anniversary than by taking everyone to the beach!?  We prayed for sunshine and started planning.  Friday evening we had a movie night, Saturday a beach day while our Arequipa invited guests began arriving, Saturday night a special church service and Sunday morning an even more special church service with food afterwards. 

All in all it was a great success!  ...and a lot of work.  Oof!  Thankfully though, this year Pastor Elvis and Rosita took care of the main meal and divvied out the making of the side dishes between willing church members.  That meant all we had to do was make the cakes and host.  Even though we had only about half the number of Arequipa guests as last year, we doubled our local guests and even had a few family members of regular attendees come for the first time!  I also realised how much our kids program has grown over this past year.  Praise the Lord!