So life has been fun the past month. After the half-way point of me being here, I've really been able to be more social and get involved with more activities. Life has become pretty daily, but far from mundane. Always last minute changes whether that means the city is on strike and we don't have school for the day or someone couldn't show up for an English lesson. I'll give you an idea of what I do during the week.
Mondays I help a friend of a friend learn English because he takes an econ class at the university that's only in English. He's actually helping me learn some English words reading all these big worded articles.
Tuesdays I meet with Regina Shultz, my mentor here in Peru, and then in the evening her oldest daughter along with the oldest Kreider girl come over and we do arts and crafts.
Wednesdays is team meeting with the 4 missionary households.
Thursdays I go to my friends' Zaida and Yerson's house and hang out and help with their twins they just had a couple months ago. There's a picture of me holding the boy the first time I saw the babies. They were premies and no one except their parents was allowed to see them for the first month.
Fridays my friend Wendy comes over so we can speak an hour in English and an hour in Spanish to help each other with our second languages. There's a picture of us after speaking in mixed languages, eating fruit salad that we made. Then at night, Carrie, Bethany, and I head to the city to try a new restaurant where we ask accountability questions and make goals for the week.
Saturdays in the morning a couple of the teachers from my school come and we go over what they're learning in their English classes. Starting tonight, I'm going to help lead a cell group with a friend of mine so that should be interesting.
Sundays I head to Huacarpay, my church, and help with the nursery. There's a picture of one day where we mixed the nursery kids with the sunday school kids and they made a little puppet show. Sunday nights I go to a cell group that consists of my roommates, Carletta (another missionary I've mentioned in my blogs before), one of the teachers from Promesa, my school, some other friends, and my dentist. Did I tell you? I got braces on my bottom teeth! I'm only keeping them until I leave though.
So that's what my week should look like but I don't think in the 3 1/2 months I have left there will ever be a week that actually looks exactly like that because there's always a change of plans.
Last Sunday was the anniversary of the church and so to celebrate, we had our church service a truckride away from the church in the country and were able to enjoy picnicking, exploring, and playing volleyball the rest of the afternoon. In the pictures, its the church service, then us hiking up some ruins and seeing the view from up high. The picture of 2 girls and me, they're my friends Lisi and Meche and they both have braces so I said we needed to get a picture of our mouths. You can't really see my braces, but that's ok, I really don't mind that its not obvious. :) Some of the pictures are really bright and that's because I played around with the pictures. It's not THAT hot playing volleyball. The picture of someone ser
ving the ball, that's the pastor.
Praises:
I had an awesome birthday.
I'm able to make real friendships now.
God continues to work through my life.
Prayers:
The cell group I'm going to help with.
God would continue to show me how I can help work alongside Him in what He's doing here in Peru.
To go backwards one day, Tuesday was my birthday. Transportation was fine so I went off to school where my kids were ANGELS. I mean it. Angels. They've never listened so well and been so quiet the entire 6 months that I've taught them. I don't know why but it was a blessing from God. When I went home at 2, my friend Lisi met me there and we hung out for an hour until Eric, her brother, showed up, eventually Wendy and Uri, and finally, Meche. My 5 friends joined me for lunch with Marga and my 2 roommates and I and we enjoyed lasagna, yes, the American, or actually Italian lasagna. After lunch, we took a break from eating where we experimented with Coca-Cola and mentos. When put together, they explode like a volcano. Unfortunately, I only have pictures of the spectators and not of the actual event because I was videoing. We then had cake and hung out, just talking. Eventually we put a movie in and other people started joining us, Hannah, Destiny, and Oriana. We had ice cream. More people came. Teachers. Ron, Nancy, Marisol, Leo, Damaris. My friends that stayed for lunch all left except Wendy because she's a teacher. We had ANOTHER birthday cake that Wendy and Uri had bought me along with more ice cream and singing. We hung out, I opened my presents from my roommates and the teachers, a couple more teachers showed up, along with another friend, and slowly people started fading, getting tired, and eventually left. Knowing we had a strike the next day, no one was too worried about leaving early, so the last person finally left at 11pm and I was already in bed. It was really an awesome birthday and I was so blessed by everyone who celebrated with me (including all of you who sent birthday messages, cards, and packages. Thanks!!!).
