The Georges in Peru

Here in Arequipa, it seems like crime has gone down since when we arrived in 2000.  My informal poll of taxi drivers reveals a similar sentiment.  One of our missionary colleagues that has had his spare tire stolen three times would probably disagree.   I assume it is because the economy is better and there are less desperate people stealing things.  The situation in Venezuela would back my hypothesis as an article on CNN just today said that 47% of Venezuelans were robbed during 2017.  There are lots of desperate people there.  Around 2 or 3 am on Tuesday morning our recently-installed car alarm went off.  Car alarms in Peru are like robins chirping in Nebraska:  They are a bit annoying early in the morning but don't really mean much.  Mary Beth said, "That's our car!"  I shut off the alarm with my key fob and looked out the window and didn't see (0r hear) anything and went back to bed.  Yesterday, I noticed that the passenger door wouldn't lock and unlock properly and I realized that someone had destroyed the keyhole with some sort of tool.  I mentioned it on our neighborhood chat group and our neighbor said that they hadn't been so lucky and the thief had gotten into their car and stolen their radio that same morning. 

So for now, I'll go back to parking our truck in the garage.  It's a bit annoying to do that since our cats like to hide in the engine compartment and I have fears of replicating the cold winter day from my childhood when 9 cats were trying to keep warm in the pickup and...wait you don't want to hear that story!

I'll just say that I'm thankful for our car alarm.  We can't lock or unlock the passenger door with a key now, but that seems pretty minor. (we still can lock/unlock it with the fob)

What do you see in this picture?

This is a picture taken of our families playing volleyball at SIM's camp a couple of days before our wedding.  Missionaries started this camp about 20 years ago with some Peruvians who also dreamed of a Christian camp in southern Peru.  They worked hard to build it into what it is today.  Over the years, several missionary couples have directed the activities at the camp, including constructing the cabins, pools and pavillions.  An even more difficult task of building up Christian men and women in the community has occurred over the years as well. 

Almost all good mission projects have as a goal  to see the local believers take over the ministry.  The current camp directors, Scott and Tami Wade (who also happen to be from Christ Community Church), believe we are nearly there.  So on Monday, the four of us (Scott, Tami, Allen and Mary Beth) met with key camp workers to tell them that we think that they are ready to run the camp without foreign input.  The Wades plan on continuing to live part-time at the camp for the next 6 months to help the workers adjust to managing things on their own.  A lot of different emotions were seen in our Peruvian friends, from fear to excitement to sadness.  One said that the Wades couldn't possibly be leaving, but if they were, someone must come to replace them.  Another had already drawn up an organogram of who would be in charge of what parts of the camp!  We feel optimistic that this is God's plan for the camp to move forward so it can be a truly Peruvian ministry.  Pray for a good transition.

'Faena' in Spanish means 'church work day'.  Well, actually it means any work day where a group of people get together to do some large task for the general good.  We've participated in faenas in the past to dig water canals in villages and to do repairs at our children's schools.  On Sunday's faena, we expanded our roof to cover our newly-enlarged sanctuary.  We recently increased the number of walls in our church 50%!  (from two to three) and by doing so, widened our sanctuary, so we extended the tin roof to cover the new gap.  

If you don't have a step ladder, you can just pile up chairs to the height you want!

This afternoon I looked down the street to see how the tree I had transplanted was doing and saw a ton of bricks (okay, probably a lot more than a ton) piled up where the tree had been.  Clearly they had decided not to let this little tree obstruct their task at hand.

It wasn't until I went up to take a closer look that I saw that they had spared the tree!  It likes like it will be hard to water it now, but it made me smile to see they had stacked the bricks around it without crushing it!

Nehemiah, one of the counsellors (you can tell Mary Beth is writing this post as she uses the Canadian-preferred double 'l'!) at Equestrian Camp this year, regaled his campers with stories of how he had grown up without parents, started working at 6 years old and joined the gangs in Lima.  He told how he then committed his life 100% to the Lord because of a brain operation he had that was supposed to leave him paralyzed and with limited mental capacity.  Now he dreams of returning to university and becoming a missionary.  During one of our Bible Study lessons I asked the campers to give an example of someone who had learned perseverance, character and hope through suffering (Rom. 5:2-5), one of them said ‘Nehemiah’.  I asked, ‘Nehemiah from the Bible?’  ‘No,’ she replied, ‘Nehemiah the counsellor’.   I thought she had given a very good example.

Nehemiah also encouraged his campers to learn the art of fire-making from scratch by hacking up a big old tree and using it to cook a 'Huatia', a traditional Peruvian highland dish where food (generally meat and potatoes) is laid over very hot coals and covered in a pile of dirt.  It is left to cook for an hour (in our case half an hour because we had less meat and more veggies) and then unburied and eaten for supper.  Ours was delicious and devoured very quickly.