Oley Oley Oley Oley!

I went to a futbol game last week. Baseball and football (american) are unheard of in this country. Basically, if you want to be a sports fanatic, you're choices are limited. Imagine if you didn't have basketball, football, or baseball to get excited over. You only had soccer. You're energy level would be so much higher going to the only sports game there is with every one of your friends who all obviously are fans about the same sport as you. Now you can imagine what it was like to go to this Cienciano (team name) soccer game. I went with all of the teachers that I work with, along with Hannah and Jeremiah Shultz and Jeremiah's friend who's actually our neighbor. Their family is from western Canada, working with Wycliff. We sat behind a really huge group of fans who wouldn't stop jumping, wouldn't stop singing, and wouldn't stop playing their instruments. Their drums had the Cienciano logo on it, but no, they were no official Cienciano band. On the other side of the field there's a huge fan club called Red Fury that is always there playing music, jumping, throwing confetti and lighting red flares at every game. Needless to say, I think I watched maybe 10 minutes total of the game and the rest of the time, just took in all the excitement, and of course, did 'the wave'.

Last Saturday morning, I went and bought a guitar. It only cost $100 and it was handmade. I started taking classical guitar lessons about a month ago. I'm enjoying it so far and it's teaching me self-discipline, having to practice everyday. On my way to the Kreider's afterwards, I decided to run there along side of the main road but without sidewalks, I ran on the dirt. This dirt is like any dirt you find when you go on a hike. It has lots of pointy rocks sticking out. Can you guess what happened next? I tripped, skinned my knee, and sprained my ankle. I just sat there in the dirt, trying to pretend for the cars passing by that I enjoyed sitting in the dirt, listening to my Ipod. Crazy gringos... When the pain subsided, I tried running again but to my dismay, the pain started up again. I ended up taking a taxi to the Kreider's and as the day went on, there was more swelling and pain. Thank the Lord because by Tuesday my ankle was almost totally better, no limping. But no sprained ankle would prevent me from going to a baptism the next day, Sunday. The Brubakers took us in their car to this remote field where we had our church service. Afterward, we walked along the rocky creek until we found a deep enough spot for people to be baptized. In Peru, they're not too worried about working on things ahead of time to find and set up this spot but of course, no one cared or complained and soon enough they had found a spot, taken the rocks from under the water, and made a dam so that the area was deeper and the water would be blocked by the rocks and the blue tarp. Seven people were baptized that day. I didn't know any of them, but in the picture, you can see the pastor and my friend Illari in the water baptizing.

When there are baptisms, people bring their dogs so I was able to meet Marga's new puppy. Her other puppy, Nacho, died in a 'freak accident' that includes poison that was meant for a different dog who had a contagious sore and needed to be put down. This new dog's name is Escrappy, just like Scooby-Doo's little cousin, minus the 'e' of course. I jokingly asked Marga if her family was willing to share the puppy with me since I couldn't buy one or pet all the ones in the street. She actually told her kids and they said that they would be glad to share Escrappy with me so I needed to come up with its second name since everyone here has a second name. In the states, we have a second name as well, but we call it a middle name and rarely use it. Here, it's very common to write out all 4 of your names (first, second, dad's last name, mom's last name). Well, I decided to add a 'Doo' in there, so I now half-own a puppy named Escrappy-Doo. He's in the picture with Kiersten, one of the Kreiders.

This past week we celebrated birthdays. Bethany's birthday was on Wednesday and she turned 25. Carrie, who's full of random fun facts has a friend from somewhere in Europe who said on your 25th birthday, if you're single, you need to wear a really crazy hat. So, Carrie made a nice balloon hat. Then on Friday, we had our team birthday party. Six people have birthdays in April so we had quite a bit of food, cake, ice cream and toppings to go along. In the picture, most of the Kreider's are missing and so am I.

Praises:

~I've been feeling closer to God lately.

~My Spanish continues to improve.

~Our chickens are almost full grown and we still have all 7 seven.

Prayers:

~That I would continue to learn self-discipline because that's always been one of my weak points and I feel that is what God is really trying to teach me at this point.

~That God would help direct me to know if I should be helping at an orphanage nearby.

~That my Spanish would improve. It's still difficult to hold a real conversation, therefore I haven't been trying that often lately.

Thanks so much for all the prayers and support. I can definitely feel and see God at work in my life. It seems it's a bit too sutle at this point to really share anything but I know that God is faithful and if He's sent me here, He has great plans for me.