So. This is a great story. There will be no pictures, you'll be thankful for that.
On Fridays, we're going with our friend Santiago to a part of Lima called Pamplona. It started out as a shanty town, and now its HUGE, but it's definitely one of the poorest places in Lima. He's been doing Bible study with some ladies there a couple days a week. It's been pretty neat to be a part of, and Santiago refuses to let us just sit in. He makes us speak in Spanish, even when we don't want to and we aren't prepared, but we're better because of it!
Anyways, we usually meet him in Parque Kennedy and get lunch before the hour long bus ride there. After lunch, we were standing on the sidewalk waiting for the bus, and Melissa notices a cop on a segway crossing the street. Yes, in this crazy busy popular part of town, its a bit odd to see that, but not too out of the ordinary. Here's the dialogue from this time.. "There's a cop on a segway."-- Melissa. "There's a naked guy beside him!"-- Santiago.
This is a true story. There was a bare butt naked man walking beside this cop crossing the street! TRAUMATIZING!! He then proceeded to run in between the cars stopped at the red light while the cops chased him. EVEN MORE TRAUMATIZING! At one point he ran into a guy on a motorcycle! ahh! Luckily our bus was there (they had their doors closed so he couldn't run on there), and they let us on! Once we got through the traffic lights, we saw that the cops had caught the streaker (PTL).
This is soo not what I expected to happen when I woke up yesterday!
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Unfailing
So, I apologize again that I haven't done this in a while. No excuses. I'll try to keep all you who are supporting me updated on life in Lima these days!
First off, let me just tell you that God's rocked my world the past couple of days. We all know the "ask and you will receive" verse; yeah, I'm receiving blessings in abundance!
Let me tell you how this has all unfolded.
Background information. I've felt pretty useless the past few weeks here. We've been finding different things to do in addition to our English ministry, but I still had a ton of downtime each day. Yeah it was nice being able to sleep in and be in the Word as I pleased throughout the day, but I was wasting soo much time I felt. I came here to serve, not to be lazy. Not fluently speaking the language of a place really puts a limit on doing street evangelism and such, and the organizations I'd contacted, such as World Vision, hadn't gotten back to us on opportunities. Last week I was frustrated most of the week just because I was hanging out all day in the house, and I didn't know how I could be out ministering more.
So Sunday was "one of my better days" as my Maw would say. For those of you who don't know, I've had bed bugs/allergies/something biting or irritating my skin since the end of July, and we haven't been able to figure out what it is. It's like I get rid of them, and then a week later they find me again. We fumigated, and I moved rooms, and they moved with me. We fumigated again, covered my beds with giant plastic bags (which are still there. no worries if I wet the bed though!), and they still came back. We stayed at someone else's house for a week, and I was still getting them there! So needless to say, I'm wayy over itching and scratching!
Soo.. Melissa and I were staying at a missionary family's house all last week while they went back to the states. So Sunday I woke up and took my sheets off the bed first thing so they'd have clean sheets when they got home, and what did I find? A teeny tiny little ANT! and not just one of them, but 2,3,4,5,6 of them in different places on the bed! This is where my "better day" began.
In addition to feeling like I wasn't doing a thing in Peru all week, I was spreading ants to other people's houses and they were going to start getting bit too. I cried, a lot (go figure), and just really felt like packing my bags & coming home this week. If I was useless here, and getting eaten alive by the pestilence, SURELY I was just in the wrong place & this was a sign for me to go home. I basically pitched a lil pity party for myself for a while. Finally I came to my senses and knew I just needed to be still before the Lord and just listen to Him and let Him calm me. So I went to Romans 5 where it says "endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame." Ok that was cool and somewhat encouraging, but I needed more. So I flipped to Romans 1 and just kept reading and reading. It talked how we're all fully of sin, and not just petty "little sins", but we're disgusting in our sin, and NONE of us are righteous. None of us deserve the love of God. But through faith in Jesus Christ, God will redeem us righteous. So I just pitched a fit before God, the Creator of everything, and then I see how absolutely useless I am to anything that matters in the world, but it's through faith in His son that I am redeemed. Ok Gerica. Feel dumb yet? It's this faith thing I was lacking. I just somehow forgot that God is faithful, and that He's taking care of me in every circumstance, so I should be faithful to Him and trust in that. Man did I feel ridiculous and embarrassed!
So Monday rolls around, and Melissa and I had a meeting scheduled in the morning with a missionary couple who do inner city missions in Lima. She said they'd love to have us help with their English ministry there on Wednesday nights. Then I asked about any orphanage ministries they work with (cuz I miss my daycare babies), and she said they had one who actually needed an English teacher a couple days a week! So we took a bus downtown and saw there office, and then stopped by the orphanage. This is where the "ask and you shall receive" plays in. We just stopped to see if they needed someone, and they were quick to say yes, and asked me to start on Wednesday! People, that's TOMORROW! So now Wednesday and Thursdays I'm going to teach 1-4 grade English at an orphanage downtown. So instantly I went from having empty mornings and some empty evenings, to having all day Wednesday full and now Thursday mornings. Kinda cool huh?
But the story doesn't stop there! We then went to the Llorens's to visit with them after their trip to the states for Mrs. Tammi's mom's funeral. Just a side note, this is the coolest family in Lima Peru, and they have been so great to us and love on us like we're their own. Such a blessing to have that here, and I'm soo very thankful for them! Anywho, they brought us good news of "house sitting" for 6 months for a missionary couple going stateside in November. PTL we get out of this gloomy lil house we live in now! They also wanted us to consider taking on some more logistical work in the future. And we all know that I'm a walking, talking UPS commercial in that I LOVE LOGISTICS! So yeah. Went from an empty plate when I woke up Monday morning to considering if I had enough time to take on anything else! How neat is that!
We come home for a bit, and God just blessed me with great conversation and a full heart for my friends back home. Then we went across town to help with a translating group one of our friends is starting, and had good fellowship and learning time there. *Pause. One day I'm going to write a blog on my experiences with Lima transportation, get excited.* And then we came back, and I just had more great conversations with people. It just made my heart sooo stinking happy to see how God's working in people in different ways all across the globe. And I'm soo tremendously blessed that He's allowing ME, the one who threw a temper tantrum in front of Him Sunday, take part in sharing and growing with these people! He's allowing me to see the effects of not giving up on people, the importance of knowing what the Bible says on certain things, how to rejoice in blessings with others, humility, His hatred for sin, the importance of standing firm on the Word and its teachings, and share in the excitement of new believers. WOW. Mind blowing how cool this all is.
I must stop now and go plan my lessons for tomorrow and Thursday, but I write this book of a blog just to encourage any of you who are reading to stay faithful. God's got ya. His love is steady and His faithfulness never ends.
First off, let me just tell you that God's rocked my world the past couple of days. We all know the "ask and you will receive" verse; yeah, I'm receiving blessings in abundance!
Let me tell you how this has all unfolded.
Background information. I've felt pretty useless the past few weeks here. We've been finding different things to do in addition to our English ministry, but I still had a ton of downtime each day. Yeah it was nice being able to sleep in and be in the Word as I pleased throughout the day, but I was wasting soo much time I felt. I came here to serve, not to be lazy. Not fluently speaking the language of a place really puts a limit on doing street evangelism and such, and the organizations I'd contacted, such as World Vision, hadn't gotten back to us on opportunities. Last week I was frustrated most of the week just because I was hanging out all day in the house, and I didn't know how I could be out ministering more.
So Sunday was "one of my better days" as my Maw would say. For those of you who don't know, I've had bed bugs/allergies/something biting or irritating my skin since the end of July, and we haven't been able to figure out what it is. It's like I get rid of them, and then a week later they find me again. We fumigated, and I moved rooms, and they moved with me. We fumigated again, covered my beds with giant plastic bags (which are still there. no worries if I wet the bed though!), and they still came back. We stayed at someone else's house for a week, and I was still getting them there! So needless to say, I'm wayy over itching and scratching!
Soo.. Melissa and I were staying at a missionary family's house all last week while they went back to the states. So Sunday I woke up and took my sheets off the bed first thing so they'd have clean sheets when they got home, and what did I find? A teeny tiny little ANT! and not just one of them, but 2,3,4,5,6 of them in different places on the bed! This is where my "better day" began.
In addition to feeling like I wasn't doing a thing in Peru all week, I was spreading ants to other people's houses and they were going to start getting bit too. I cried, a lot (go figure), and just really felt like packing my bags & coming home this week. If I was useless here, and getting eaten alive by the pestilence, SURELY I was just in the wrong place & this was a sign for me to go home. I basically pitched a lil pity party for myself for a while. Finally I came to my senses and knew I just needed to be still before the Lord and just listen to Him and let Him calm me. So I went to Romans 5 where it says "endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame." Ok that was cool and somewhat encouraging, but I needed more. So I flipped to Romans 1 and just kept reading and reading. It talked how we're all fully of sin, and not just petty "little sins", but we're disgusting in our sin, and NONE of us are righteous. None of us deserve the love of God. But through faith in Jesus Christ, God will redeem us righteous. So I just pitched a fit before God, the Creator of everything, and then I see how absolutely useless I am to anything that matters in the world, but it's through faith in His son that I am redeemed. Ok Gerica. Feel dumb yet? It's this faith thing I was lacking. I just somehow forgot that God is faithful, and that He's taking care of me in every circumstance, so I should be faithful to Him and trust in that. Man did I feel ridiculous and embarrassed!
So Monday rolls around, and Melissa and I had a meeting scheduled in the morning with a missionary couple who do inner city missions in Lima. She said they'd love to have us help with their English ministry there on Wednesday nights. Then I asked about any orphanage ministries they work with (cuz I miss my daycare babies), and she said they had one who actually needed an English teacher a couple days a week! So we took a bus downtown and saw there office, and then stopped by the orphanage. This is where the "ask and you shall receive" plays in. We just stopped to see if they needed someone, and they were quick to say yes, and asked me to start on Wednesday! People, that's TOMORROW! So now Wednesday and Thursdays I'm going to teach 1-4 grade English at an orphanage downtown. So instantly I went from having empty mornings and some empty evenings, to having all day Wednesday full and now Thursday mornings. Kinda cool huh?
But the story doesn't stop there! We then went to the Llorens's to visit with them after their trip to the states for Mrs. Tammi's mom's funeral. Just a side note, this is the coolest family in Lima Peru, and they have been so great to us and love on us like we're their own. Such a blessing to have that here, and I'm soo very thankful for them! Anywho, they brought us good news of "house sitting" for 6 months for a missionary couple going stateside in November. PTL we get out of this gloomy lil house we live in now! They also wanted us to consider taking on some more logistical work in the future. And we all know that I'm a walking, talking UPS commercial in that I LOVE LOGISTICS! So yeah. Went from an empty plate when I woke up Monday morning to considering if I had enough time to take on anything else! How neat is that!
We come home for a bit, and God just blessed me with great conversation and a full heart for my friends back home. Then we went across town to help with a translating group one of our friends is starting, and had good fellowship and learning time there. *Pause. One day I'm going to write a blog on my experiences with Lima transportation, get excited.* And then we came back, and I just had more great conversations with people. It just made my heart sooo stinking happy to see how God's working in people in different ways all across the globe. And I'm soo tremendously blessed that He's allowing ME, the one who threw a temper tantrum in front of Him Sunday, take part in sharing and growing with these people! He's allowing me to see the effects of not giving up on people, the importance of knowing what the Bible says on certain things, how to rejoice in blessings with others, humility, His hatred for sin, the importance of standing firm on the Word and its teachings, and share in the excitement of new believers. WOW. Mind blowing how cool this all is.
I must stop now and go plan my lessons for tomorrow and Thursday, but I write this book of a blog just to encourage any of you who are reading to stay faithful. God's got ya. His love is steady and His faithfulness never ends.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
My Room!
So, I realize I haven't posted a blog in over two weeks. Crazy sorry
guys. I really have no excuse besides life really isn't that exciting,
and the exciting things that do happen, it's unsafe to take my camera
there!
Anywho, for the sake of blogging, I thought I'd give you guys a mini update on life, and show you my (somewhat) clean room!
First off, life in Lima is weird, and we're still trying to figure out what exactly we can do to be doing more. We have English class 6 nights a week, Melissa teaches 3, I teach 1, Michael teaches 1, and the other is just translating. However, things may change soon. Fact: everything in life is subject to change. That's the one constant here. Change is inevitable, and that's its own blog on another day. Anyways, only teaching one class a week gives me lots of free time, that I'm trying to fill in productive ways. I'm looking into volunteering for World Vision or some other children's home in Lima, and also going to one of the poorer areas of Lima once a week or so and doing whatever I can there (I'm going Friday for the first time, so I'll be able to tell you more after that!). I'm really looking forward to getting involved with more here in Lima. I hate wasting days/time. Really, I do. I just have no idea what I can do right now and I'm going a lil crazy! But the Lord is good and He will provide me with whatever opportunity that will glorify Him the most and I have no doubt of that!
Soo.. on my not busy day today, I cleaned my room. And by clean, I mean moved back into my room for reals. If you didn't know, I've suffered from bed bugs or awful allergies to something since i've been in Lima (all of August). We sprayed mattresses, clothes, sheets, pillows, and basically everything else in this room, twice. The last time we wrapped everything in plastic and let it sit for a while before washing it. So hopefully, if it was bed bugs, they're dead now. Last week we stayed at a missionary family's home, so I didn't have to move back in my room until Saturday. I had the Limanian dridge (sinus cold/junk/bellyachin) all weekend, so today was the day I actually tidied up! (don't judge! what I call tidy may not meet your standards! :P)
Sooo yea! That's my tiny little room, ALL of it! In cleaning up today, I found this tiny empty jar. It's what the oil for my oil lamp I wrote about earlier came in. It's soo tiny and so cute, I couldn't throw it away. So I found a use for it! It's my flowery bobbie-pin holder! So stinkin cute!
Well, that's all I have to say for now. Stay tuned in til next time!
Anywho, for the sake of blogging, I thought I'd give you guys a mini update on life, and show you my (somewhat) clean room!
First off, life in Lima is weird, and we're still trying to figure out what exactly we can do to be doing more. We have English class 6 nights a week, Melissa teaches 3, I teach 1, Michael teaches 1, and the other is just translating. However, things may change soon. Fact: everything in life is subject to change. That's the one constant here. Change is inevitable, and that's its own blog on another day. Anyways, only teaching one class a week gives me lots of free time, that I'm trying to fill in productive ways. I'm looking into volunteering for World Vision or some other children's home in Lima, and also going to one of the poorer areas of Lima once a week or so and doing whatever I can there (I'm going Friday for the first time, so I'll be able to tell you more after that!). I'm really looking forward to getting involved with more here in Lima. I hate wasting days/time. Really, I do. I just have no idea what I can do right now and I'm going a lil crazy! But the Lord is good and He will provide me with whatever opportunity that will glorify Him the most and I have no doubt of that!
Soo.. on my not busy day today, I cleaned my room. And by clean, I mean moved back into my room for reals. If you didn't know, I've suffered from bed bugs or awful allergies to something since i've been in Lima (all of August). We sprayed mattresses, clothes, sheets, pillows, and basically everything else in this room, twice. The last time we wrapped everything in plastic and let it sit for a while before washing it. So hopefully, if it was bed bugs, they're dead now. Last week we stayed at a missionary family's home, so I didn't have to move back in my room until Saturday. I had the Limanian dridge (sinus cold/junk/bellyachin) all weekend, so today was the day I actually tidied up! (don't judge! what I call tidy may not meet your standards! :P)
 |
| bunk beds!! |
 |
| closet area, minus the closet... |
 |
| shoes! yes those are all the shoes i brought.. |
 |
| desk area |
 |
| book case, minus the flower jars! |
Sooo yea! That's my tiny little room, ALL of it! In cleaning up today, I found this tiny empty jar. It's what the oil for my oil lamp I wrote about earlier came in. It's soo tiny and so cute, I couldn't throw it away. So I found a use for it! It's my flowery bobbie-pin holder! So stinkin cute!
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