Una Busqueda de Tesoro with Young Life

We didn't quite know what we were signing up for when we agreed to participate in a Young Life event today. All I knew is that we had to meet in front of the police station at 8am. We had curriculum to work on today, so we decided to commit to a mere 4 hours of the event instead of the full 7. The kids ended up arriving at 10, and I realized that we were going to be a part of a city wide scavenger hunt. Fortunately, we got to help facilitate the event instead of having to actually find things around the city. We would have failed as our knowledge to where things are right now is limited to getting to the grocery store.

The kids had to complete certain tasks at designated locations.

1) Run around a park acting like ducks.

2) Sell candy to strangers in the Plaza de Armas.

3) Sing the anthem of Arequipa and convince strangers to join them.

4) Answer a series of trivia questions.

We left at the trivia questions. Travis got a little burned:

But I had a great conversation with one of the leaders, Ada. She told me that children's curriculum is very needed as it is hard to come by quality material. We spent the afternoon working on a lesson. Travis's face is healing, and I am sure he will be applying sunscreen for our next scavenger hunt.

Emilia y Las Medicinas

My dad is a pharmacist. My mom is a nurse. I am not one of those people who is opposed to taking medicine. In fact, with my history of allergies, I would be in a lot of trouble if it were not for all the meds I've taken over the past few years. Having said that, I did not expect to get to try the plethora of Spanish named drugs that I've taken over the last 3 weeks. Below is a super flattering picture of me (the light is a little funky) with my latest purchase: Avamys. It is suppose to help with my crazy allergies. Pray that it works.

In other news, Travis and I went to visit our friend, Jonathan's ministry last night. Jonathan works with a mission called Pioneers, and he is starting Pioneros Perú, the Peruvian version of Pioneers. Jonathan's goal is to mobilize Peruvians to get involved with missions. We met some amazing people, and Travis made a new friend to play X-Box with. I met a college professor, and she told me that I have a Russian accent when I speak Spanish. That will be something to work on.

Travis continues to study Spanish each day, and I was totally impressed when he told a story to the group last night. There were a few errors here and there, but Travis has no fear when it comes to using what he knows.

I am helping to translate curriculum, and I should start volunteering in schools in the next few weeks. Travis is working his creative magic by expanding the lessons and brainstorming new ways to present the information. Pray for us to have wisdom and creativity as we work on curriculum.

One last thing. We are visiting different churches, and this week we will be going to one called Berea. Please pray that we will find a home church to plug into while we're here in Arequipa.

Adjusting to Life in Arequipa

If last week were an action movie star it would be 90's Bruce Willis.  We got beat up a bit but we survived.  Don't worry, there weren't any explosions.

We are now officially in the swing of things in Arequipa.  Our apartment has a fresh coat of less-pink paint, we have the internet, and I am attending language school daily.  The funny thing about language school is that they don't currently have a group class (what they call "Grammatica") for me, so right now I am only attending my "practica" which is an hour and a half of conversation in Spanish.  I don't know near enough Spanish to fill an hour and a half, but my conversation teacher Pablo is cool and tells me about everything from the creation myths of the Incas to racism in Peru.  It is awesome to be immersed in Spanish, and I am slowly building my vocabulary to be more than just the inappropriate words I remember from my high school years.

Emily has been feeling a bit under the weather recently.  Arequipa is about 8000 feet up in the mountains, and it has been a little difficult adjusting to the change in altitude.  There is also a lot of dust due to the fact that we are in the middle of a high desert.  And for those of you who know Emily well, you know that her allergies are comparable to Steven Segal after finding out terrorists have kidnapped his daughter.  In less actiony words, her allergies are raging.  On the plus side, there is an allergist down the street so we will be making an appointment this week.  It will just take a little time for us to adjust to a new setting.

Speaking of a new setting, the food here is great!  Emily and I went out with a Peruvian named Victor for lunch (we met him at a church we visited), and he introduced me to the delicacy of fried cow udder.  It's a bit spongey but the flavor is awesome!  I also ate an Arequipan favorite called rocoto relleno.  It was a chili stuffed with meat and cheese and it almost melted my face off (both in flavor and spiciness)!  I was literally crying uncontrollably at the end.  Victor told me it wasn't supposed to be that spicy.  I told him it was because of my gringo genes.

So we are getting settled into life in Arequipa.  I am loving learning Spanish and being able to put it into immediate practice.  And even though at times it may look like the terrorists have total control over the Nakatomi Tower, we will remember that there are still some unused air ducts for us to crawl through, John McClane style.  #ican'tgetenoughofactionmoviemetaphors

Week One in Arequipa

The adventure is in full swing. Travis and I arrived in Arequipa last Wednesday evening, and we hit the ground running. Matt and Kelly have graciously let us stay with them as we searched for apartments. One possible home came complete with knights armor cemented onto the fireplace. We passed on that option as it was a little too Dungeons and Dragons for our taste. But we are happy to report that we did find an apartment on the fourth floor of a small complex. The decor is a little 1970's, but the view is incredible.

The view from our living room in Arequipa.

We can see mountains!

Our living room.

Our bedroom.

A guest room.

The kitchen.

The view from the kitchen window.

Our blue and green bathroom (complete with a blue and green toilet).

The past few days have been filled with buying necessary items for the apartment, visiting Matt and Kelly's church, discussing work schedules and trying to get settled.

Travis will be starting language school tomorrow, and I will probably do a few months of language study after we get more acclimated to life in Arequipa. I am a little intimidated at the idea of figuring out how to cook here. (Cooking is not my forte). The first time I tried to cook an egg for Travis it came out totally raw. I've improved since then, but I have a lot to learn.

Pray for Travis as he officially starts school. As a preliminary step, Travis had to do an evaluation in order to best determine his level. The instructor pointed to different pictures, and Travis had to give her the Spanish word for each item. When she pointed to a toilet, Travis, in his infinite creativity, replied, "juan," the Spanish word for john. I have no doubt that he will pick up the language, but the process can be frustrating at times.

One other interesting experience from this past week occurred in a local mall. We were picking up things for the apartment when a man with a mask and a chainsaw came running through the store. I was ready to take cover when I realized that it a prank. I don't think that would have gone over too well in the States. Any thoughts?

Things you can pray for this week:

1) Language acquisition

2) Getting settled into the apartment

3) Peruvian friends

4) That our marriage would thrive in this new environment

Week One: Tarma

As teachers, Emily and I are huge fans of reflecting on decisions (be they lesson-related, entertainment-related, food-related, etc) to see if there could be a different option that would have a better result.  In the spirit of reflection, I think we have learned that it's probably not the best idea to move to a new country and travel around for two weeks, living out of suitcases.  Don't get me wrong, for a full-fledged dude there is a certain boyhood joy to be found in wearing the same pair of pants 8 days in a row and waking up each morning not necessarily knowing where we'll end up.  It appeals to that little Bear Grylls that lurks inside of me (although I haven't eaten any raw animals...yet).  But, as all of you know, my wife does not share these same post-apocalyptic survival instincts.  And a big part of my ministry is to my wife.  And let's just say my 8 day pants, flecked with dirt and smelling like a ripe Alpaca, are not the right kind of ministry.

So although it has been fun and a joy to be able to travel between Lima and Tarma for the last two weeks, if we could do it again, I think we would settle first before traveling and visiting friends.  It's hard to be fully invested in the experiences when feeling completely uprooted.  And I would probably be a more fun guest if I didn't look like I swam through a mud puddle to get to the house.

Last Monday Emily and I took a 7-hour bus ride through the mountains to reach a town named Tarma to visit friends who are church planters.  I was sleeping peacefully, trying to ignore the twists, turns, and altitude of the road, when Emily frantically shook me awake.  "Get that guy's bag.  Hurry!" she said, her face a little green.  In her panic, she must have forgotten that my Spanish is very limited.  But I knew my wife needed me, so I did the best I could.

"Quiero tu basura," I said to the man sitting in the seat beside me.  He was using a plastic bag to hold his trash.  I didn't know at the time that the Spanish word for "bag" is "bolsa", so I stuck with what I knew how to say.  "I want your trash."  The man looked at me like I was a crazy gringo so I repeated my phrase, pointing to the bag.  He caught on and emptied his trash, passing me the bag.  Emily made quick use of it.

So the ride to Tarma was a bit rough, but it was great once we arrived.  It's nestled in a mountain valley, and during the day the view is incredible.  We were able to spend time with our friends, joining them in prayer and observing some Bible studies that they are leading.  We also were able to see a crazy parade that looked like this:

I'm not sure what the open-armed balloon man is all about, but the parade was fun.

On one of the days we were able to visit a couple in a small pueblito named Huiricolca.  Denise and Martin are missionaries who have started a children's center for after school programs.  We helped out on their "ESL" day.  The kids were fun, although I could only play soccer with them for about two minutes in the high altitude.  A little boy named Dennis adopted me as his sole playmate.  His favorite game was one where we each grabbed one side of a frisbee and played tug-of-war.  I pretended to be pulling really hard before finally letting go, allowing him to win.  He loved it.  So much so that he wanted to play it for two hours straight.  Even after I let go once and he flew backwards and hit his head on a parked car.  That happened to also be the time I asked Emily to watch our new game.  Whoops.  He was alright.

Dennis wouldn't even let go of the frisbee for a picture!

Now we are back in Lima, spending time with our Peruvian family the Berrocals.  We will be flying to Arequipa on Wednesday, which will be followed by a flurry of getting settled activities.  In the midst of all the traveling and unknown in each day, Em and I are still able to find ways to make each other laugh and there is no shortage of high-fives.  Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers for us in this time!

We are in Peru!

If our last week was an episode of Sesame Street, the Word on the Street would have been "cramming."  We crammed some of our favorite things into 5 suitcases.  We crammed as much family and friend time as possible into each day.  We crammed details into our brains (which in my case is a maximum of 5) and we crammed parties and meetings and goodbyes into every spare minute not taken up by selling and moving.  

And our reward for all that cramming: PERU!

But to leave it at that would be to neglect our first experience in the yoga-esque dance of missionary flexibility.

Remember that show "Touched By An Angel."  Now I always was kind of disturbed by the title of the show, especially in light of other pop-culture Biblical insights like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark or morally nebulous Buffy characters (who wants to be touched by those angels?!).  But I think the Aeromexico agent in Houston might have been one of those angels in disguise you read about in spam e-mail messages.   Or maybe she was just really nice.  Regardless, Emily and I arrived at the ticket counter prepared to pay well over $400 in extra baggage fees due to most of our bags being extra and overweight.  Emily mentioned (in a nudge-nudge fashion) that we were moving to Peru to teach and be missionaries, at which the agent proceeded to wink and charge us less than half of what we had been expecting due to their policies.  W00t!

So it was a good start.  Then we were told that our flight was delayed due to a sick pilot.  No big deal, at least it happened when we were still on the ground.  It became a bigger deal once we landed in Mexico City 25 minutes after our connecting flight took off.

This led to an extended stay in Mexico City (on Aeromexico's buck) due to their not being another flight to Lima until 5:30 the next evening.  The airline comped us a hotel room and some meals, and Emily and I spent her birthday in Mexico City.  

One of the cool things that happened in the midst of the chaos was we were able to make friends with a Peruvian newlywed couple traveling back from Cancun who had also been delayed.  We were able to connect with them and even ventured into downtown Mexico City to spend our early afternoon.  There's no way to really comprehend both the sheer magnitude of the population of Mexico City and the cheapness of their Metro until you have to push your way onto a train football style.  

We were able to see a beautiful cathedral that reminded me of one of my favorite Tarkovsky films Andrei Rublyev and had a blast getting to know our new friends Chris and Vanessa.  Turns out that Vanessa is a clothing designer and model on Peruvian television while Chris co-owns a limo business in New York City.  They were good travel buddies and we are hoping they might make the trip to come hang out in Arequipa with us.  

After all of that we made it to Peru.  We are currently visiting the Berrocals (the family Emily lived with previously) in Lima and are set to attend some kind of dancing extravaganza this evening.  I had to clarify with Ramiro that I wouldn't be required to dance.  It's too soon to be busting my sweet moves in Peru.  Or maybe I just don't want to be any more of a nerdy gringo than I already am.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.  Emily and I did not have any airport meltdowns in the midst of all of this.  I'm giving the credit to the Holy Spirit, prayer, and a healthy dosing of JoAnn's amazing brownies.