The Georges in Peru

They say humor doesn't translate well between cultures.  When you consider the different environments that people live in it is understandable that people from different cultures find different things entertaining.  There is an old joke about a man that took his shoes to the cobbler to be repaired.  He goes on to completely forget that he's taken the shoes in until years later he finds the claim ticket under his desk.  "I wonder if the cobbler still has my old shoes?"  So he goes to the cobbler and gives him the claim ticket and asks, "Do you still have my shoes?"  The cobbler pushes his glasses up his nose and squints at the print on the receipt and grunts before heading to the back room of the shop.  After a lot of sounds of boxes being slid across the floor and drawers being opened and slammed shut the cobbler finally appears and he says, "I found them!"  "Great!  How much do I owe you?" "You can pay when you get them.  They'll be ready Wednesday."

I donated the projector screen to the conference center that hosted Amy's funeral here in Peru as they had to go out and buy it before the funeral.  A month ago I went to a shop that makes little brass plaques that say things like, "Given in Memory of Dr. Amy George, 2016".  "It will be ready tomorrow after 12-noon." I was told.  I didn't have time to return until two days later, and I've learned it's best to give them extra time anyway.  I showed up around 1 pm.  "I'm here for the plaque."  "I said after 12."  I pointed out that it was after 12 and it was actually a whole day later.  "It will be ready at 3 pm."  The next two times I went to the shop, it wasn't even open.  Last week I went and the plaque was made with inverted colors (gold print on a black background).  He said, "Come back at 3 pm, today."  I told him I wouldn't be back for a week. (big mistake)  Today when I went back, he said, "It will be ready in half an hour."  The above joke would be completely lost on him.  

A wall of sample jobs.

Today our church had a faena.  A faena is a work day and today the job was to carry a load of bricks from the street down into the church property where we are going to build a wall.  

Five tons of bricks left on the street.  What if someone steals them?  Wasn't a problem.  Bricks are too much work to steal, I guess.

Scott and Tami Wade, fellow missionaries, helped out.  It took 10 of us an hour and a half to carry the bricks.

Sunday, Mia got injured while going down a zip line at the home of some other missionaries.  Her pain made me think that she could have fractured her navicular bone in the foot, so yesterday we went and got an X-ray and sure enough, there is a little chip broken off of her navicular bone.  About fourteen years ago, a medical student, Anna Peek, from the UK, went with me on a couple of village trips.  She went on to become an orthopedic surgeon and graciously lets me consult with her about ortho cases that I have here in Peru.  I think the last three ortho cases have all been missionaries or their children!  We're a clumsy lot, I guess.  We agreed that Mia will probably do okay without a cast, but will reevaluate in a week or so. But it looks like track season is over for her as she can't run for 6 weeks. 

Blog post approved by Mia.

I've written about Santiago before.  We've been meeting for bible study for a couple of years now.  We only met once this year before Amy started deteriorating, when we put our meetings on hold.  I called him this morning to see when he'd like to meet.  "Today!  At 1 pm!" Okay.  It was good to see him and see how he was doing and after our study in Matthew 1 (I let him pick the material) we were picking when we were going to meet again and he asked, "Can we meet twice a week?"  It's fun having people who are hungry to study God's Word!  I'm tempted to say, "No," so that he'll continue to look forward to our times together more, but I suspect our schedules won't let us meet twice each week anyway.  It could be hard to explain to God someday why I told someone that wanted to study the Bible more what my reason was for not doing it!

Our kids attend a school that requires community service hours to graduate.  No, it isn't an alternative school for those kicked out of regular schools!  This last week, Ben and 50 other students took a 14-hour bus ride to Umachulco to work in a highland community.  One of the first things Ben told me was that he was really thankful for the knife uncle Erik gave him for Christmas a year ago, because it worked well for sheering an alpaca!

Not to be outdone, I went with a trio of Peruvian mothers to the other end of Arequipa to see a spina bifida patient.  He is a jovial young man but is paralyzed from the belly button on down.  These moms have kind of formed a club to help take care of this patient, which is kind of inspiring to me.  I met them through another missionary who has a women's bible study that they attend.