Hasta Pronto Cusco!

Perspective is a strange thing. The amazingly primitive Cusco airport that I hailed as my "introduction to the third world" just a month ago seemed strangely technologically advanced and westernized this afternoon when Ben and I returned to head home-after all there was a billboard for McDonalds right outside! And the "somewhat backwards" Lima airport seems now to be a perfect hub of technology and modernization. I am sitting in a Starbucks and could buy food at Papa Johns, McDonalds, or Duncan' Donuts. A month ago I would have criticized these restaurants as proof of a homogenous over dominant western culture, but right now I simply welcome the idea of hot cheap food that I know won't make me sick. I'm not sure that that is the change of perspective I expected from a month long mission trip to Peru, oh well.

In all seriousness, I know that my perspective has changed in grander and more profound ways. Honestly, could my eyes, which have gazed into the vacant ones of a shepherd boy left in complete isolation high in the Andes day after day or looked upon stray dogs and crippled desperate women along Cusco's narrow cobblestone streets, ever see the world in quite the same way again. I think that these new eyes may have been exactly what God intended for me to gain from this adventure. Through my experiences in Peru, both good and at times trying, I have learned to see the world and my place in it in a different light.

I now understand rather than simply know that people live in completely different ways than I do, for I have walked past a mud hovel high in the Andes and handed out paper gliders to children living there who have probably never seen an airplane, or taken a shower, or visited a doctor to receive a vaccination.

I now understand that other countries function quite differently from mine, for I have walked up and down the streets of Cusco discussing university strikes, government corruption, and the ordeal of gaining a visa with my Spanish professor.

I can now see more clearly that Christ is the light of the world for I have seen villages dark with hopelessness without him.

I now understand how much I need his light. These weeks alone with my brother in an uncomfortable foreign culture have shown me how much I need God's love, mercy and patience.

I now understand how truly small and incapable I am. The problems of the children at the project were too large for me to solve on my own. What were my corny games and broken Spanish to a hungry child with a broken home? I simply don't have the skills to affect real tangible changes in their lives.

I also understand now that none of us are capable of affecting real lasting change on our own. Only an incredibly capable God working through incapable people can bring real eternal change. I know this because I have seen him working through many people like me in Peru to change lives.

I know that I didn't change the world, or even a corner of it, while I was in Peru. The problems there are so big and my time there was so short. I will be happy if I made one of the kids at CORASON's week a bit happier or encouraged them a bit in their difficult lives, or if I made the load a bit lighter for the owners of the cafe, or brightened someone's day with some coffee and a smile. I may not have made much of a tangible change in Peru, but the change my time their has had on me may very well be eternal. The things I have seen there, the people I have met, and the truths I have learned will affect every decision I make. My eyes have been changed by what they have seen. They have been given a glimpse of God's complex world and his eternal plan. I doubt that they will ever be quite the same. For this I am truly grateful.

Gracias Cusco, and hasta pronto!

Scenes in Cusco

Our time here in Cusco is just about up and we are beginning to set our sights on home. My suitcase is now full of gifts and dirty clothes as I have set out a ration of semi-clean clothes to wear home and am ignoring the others in hopes of not having to pay for another load of laundry. In a similarly frugal fashion, our diet now consists of avocados, peanut butter, oranges, and 20 cent rolls as we are trying to avoid another trip to the ATM. However, though our journey may be nearing an end I have continued to learn from and be surprised by many of my experiences here. Below are a few short vignettes of favorite moments. I hope that you enjoy them and that they paint a clearer picture of what my time here in Cusco has been like.

• Tuesdays at CORASON mean deportes, so we climb up a steep flight of dusty stairs to a cement slab enclosed by a broken chain link fence. Surrounding the slab are dusty weeds and flattish rocks, here we set down our bag full of ratted up balls and puzzles and wait for the kids to descend. And descend they do, with squeals of "futbol", "hermana", and "caballo"-referring to Ben and his piggyback rides. For the next two hours I turn a jump rope, point out pieces of block puzzles, and generally try to lovingly control chaos. Today I watched some of the kids pick through the trash to make parachutes out of plastic bags and ratted string and a two year old struggle up to the top of a ledge to grab a half deflated beach ball and then grin as he threw it down. I listened to girls count off the number of their jumps in broken English and cheer excitedly when they passed 50. In short I watched children thrive in an environment that should stifle them.
• This morning, business at the coffee shop was slow, a general fatigue seemed to have fallen over Plaza San Blas, and no one seemed particularly eager to throw off this ennui with a cup of coffee. So rather than brewing, I sat on a bar stool and watched Cusco through the frame of the cafe door. Quite a picture was being painted outside. Sleepy tourists laden with heavy backpacks and suitcases passed in search of their hotel room and a bed. Native women with babies wrapped on their backs in colorfully striped bags walked up and down trying to sell their bracelets and hand woven scarves. Bohemians and gypsies laid languidly on benches or lazily juggled. Children ran to the corner store to buy candy. Stray dogs of all sizes and an alpaca passed by. As I watched the unfolding scene, I wondered about each character. What were their lives like, where did they sleep, what did they eat, what was the last book they had read? Could they even read? What were they thinking about in this short moment when our lives touched and we became part of the same lazy morning in San Blas Peru.
• It is an hour and a half into my Spanish lesson. The room is cold and my tea has become tepid. My throat is sore from reading aloud, and my mind is numb. My tutor looks tired of trying to come up with conversation, and I wish that I could spare him his struggle. In short, I am not at all prepared to have a serious conversation in Spanish. But that is exactly where I am headed. To practice reflexive verbs, my teacher asks me if I am a dishonest person. To the best of my ability, I answer that I try not to be because I don't think it is right. He asked me why, I respond with some vague reference to my belief in God, and he asks me about this said relationship. In my best Spanish, which is still quite limited, I try to explain my faith. My teacher, a young Peruvian man, probably not much older than I am seems unconvinced. I try again with ample hand motions and frustrated pauses to explain the beliefs on which I have based my whole life, perhaps not surprisingly I fail. At the end of my lesson I have exhausted my voice and my vocabulary. I leave the room with an "hasta manana" and quick prayer that I haven't said anything heretical in my limited Spanish.
• At 7 pm it has been dark for about an hour, and the streets are quite cold. To escape from the wind a bit, Ben and I duck into an open cathedral. For a few minutes we stand inside. Staring at the elaborate gold engravings and the twinkling candles of the faithful surrounding us. Then we leave the warm still sanctuary to go find some dinner. On my way out, I am greeted by three pathetic beggars, a toothless woman, an aggressive crippled man, and a silent defeated looking old man. I put some change in each of their cups and then continue on to a bright warm restaraunt where I eat my fill and then some. The night is lovely and the food delicious but I can't get the image of the three desperate faces out of my mind.

Well, those are just a few glimpses into my life in Cusco, I hope they give you a better idea of what my life here is like. I have loved it, I have learned from it, and in many ways it will be hard to leave it.

Lake Titicaca

For years I have heard about Lake Titicaca in Geography class and read about in National Geographics. I knew it as the highest lake in the world with a terribly funny name ( I mean really how horrible!). But sitting in those classes, I never imagined that I would actually visit the lake. However this weekend during an adventure that involved, reed boats, a sleeper bus with "camas", a tiny motor boats, and quite a few interesting characters and sights I did just that.

The adventure began with a nine hour tour bus ride to Puno. The tour was interesting and the guide nice, although his habit of explaining everything in English and in Spanish became a bit tedious as my Spanish is now good enough that I could fully understand both explanations. We stopped in the small town of Andahuaylillas to view "the sistine chapel of the Andes". It was a beautifully gaudy baroque style church in which the Catholic faith of the Spanish and the traditional belief of the Quechuan speaking locals blended together in a truly traditional syncretic fashion. At the front of the church was positioned Cristo de los Temblores, a statue of an Andean dark skinned Christ that the locals had an easier time accepting because of his dark skin and supposed power over earthquakes. For lunch we ate at a traditional buffet which featured lomo saltado, a beef dish, quinoa soup, and a group of traditional musicians playing covers of famous American pop songs such as "Hey Jude" on pan pipes. We stopped at another town to view some more Incan ruins, which I am afraid to say were a bit lackluster, perhaps all my sight seeing has "ruined" me. There was a festival of sorts in the small town, though I must say it didn't seem very festive to me. The landscape of this area-the altiplano is quite barren and gloomy and doesn't quite lend itself to parties. Gone are the farms, bubbling brooks, and scattered eucalyptus trees that surround Cusco. Replacing these are rolling hills covered entirely by yellow straw. In this almost alien landscape, no trees can grow and the only vegetation to be seen is the small tufts of grass that cling to the hills like barnacles. With the constant wind and dry cold, I can imagine it is quite a difficult place to live and I can't blame the townspeople for being less than festive. Really what kind of party has only trash and fruit peels for decoration and wind for music? The next two towns, Juliaca and Puno, were quite ugly little squatter towns. With no vegetation surrounding them to soften the harsh lines of the concrete houses and tight streets, the towns seem to have grown like malignant weeds out of the yellow earth. The houses are made out of concrete, but are never quite finished due to a tax on completed buildings, so poles of rehbarb stick out of the tops of roofs like spindly cornices. After our long ride, I was quite thankful to reach our hotel. It was very nice and I enjoyed the television and hot high pressured shower-my first in Peru.

The next morning we woke up quite early to eat breakfast and watch the sun rise over the lake's blue waters-truly lovely. Then we boarded a tiny slow-moving motor boat for a tour of the lake's islands. Our first stop was at the Uros Islands, an otherworldly group of islands created entirely out of yellow reeds and mud. The islands were incredible, everything on them made of reeds, homes, boats, gardens, even a mini guinea pig island. The tour book described them as being like something from a fairy tale and I quite agree. Though in true Disney fashion they did seem a bit over commercialized, the local women singing "Row row row your boat" as we left. We then continued by boat to the beautiful Tequile Island. It was a beautiful island of red earth and green trees that rose majestically out of the clear blue water surrounding it, looking quite like an island in the mediterranean. In the distance, I could see the white scraggly peaks of the Andes in Bolivia-amazing. The people of the island were equally impressive. With matador-like costumes and a completely communal way of living they seemed like characters out of a history book. Unfortunately I have no pictures to document them as these people believe cameras steal souls. After lunch of very fresh fish and a walk across the island we boarded the ship to leave. Unfortunately during our stay the wind had picked up creating white topped waves across the lake. Our poor little boat was tossed to and fro by the powerful waves, and for a bit our tour director was doubtful that we would be able to make it back to port. But, after a quite rough ride, we were thankfully able to make it back. Back in Puno, we three waited for our bus home, wasting time and trying to stay warm by hopping from restaurant to cafe to internet bar. Finally, around 9:30 after a brief stay in the bus terminal (quite a cultural experience) we boarded our bus. The bus was nice, with seats that laid back almost completely, and despite the biting cold I was able to sleep for most of the 6 hour journey home. We made it back to Cusco around 4 this morning, quite tired but also very thankful for our interesting, eventful, and most importantly safe trip to Lake Titicaca.

A Few of My Favorite Things

My time in Peru has certainly been a time of new experiences as I have gotten to know my little corner of Cusco more intimately. In all reality, some of these experiences have been unpleasant and uncomfortable-these have certainly taught me a lot about my world and myself and I am thankful for them. However many of the sights, smells, sounds, etc. that I have gotten to know while in Cusco have been lovely. Some of my favorites include:

• The sense of independence I feel walking to the nearby locals' market to buy my daily ration of mandarins and avocados. There is something exhilarating in haggling over a few soles in Spanish with the local women and then walking home through the cobblestone roads.
• The warmth of the sun on my face as I sit on a bench in Plaza San Blas, pretending to read my novel while listening to the babble of the nearby fountain, the whining voices of Peruvian street vendors, and the multilingual chattering of the many tourists who inhabit the square.
• The lights of the houses that dot the hills surrounding the city like Christmas lights, transforming Cusco into a fairyland of sorts at about 6:00 every evening.
• The pungent smell of fresh coffee when I manage to make a drip latte perfectly.
• Hearing the children at CORASON call out "Hermanita, hermanita" when they want my attention.
• Abram, my favorite little two-year-old's snotty dusty smile when I kick him an inflated rainbow beach ball. He truly is the only one who will ever be impressed by my soccer skills
• The sound of popular praise and worship songs sung in Spanish.
• The sound of firecrackers going off in the plaza every morning. Of course I enjoy this much more if I am already awake.
• The shining image of Cristo Blanco illuminated with arms outstretched that I can see on my walk home at night.

Sorry that was a long list, I suppose I have found a lot to love in Cusco. As we continue our last two weeks here, I would ask that you pray for:

• Ben's health, his allergies have really been bothering him lately and this has made him quite miserable.
• Ability to communicate in Spanish.
• The cafe is undergoing a bit of a change in leadership, so a smooth and peaceful transition for all involved.
• Openness to what God is trying to show us in our time here.

Thanks for joining us in our time here!

A Weekend Adventure

This weekend Ben, Kahler, and I embarked upon an adventure of sorts through the Sacred Valley (an area of small colonial towns and ruins about two hours outside of Cusco). Early Saturday morning Americo, a taxi driver, picked us up in San Blas Plaza and for the next two hours we winded down dusty roads listening to a strange conglomeration of American pop music and traditional Quechuan tunes. The rolling hills, patchwork farmland, and scraggly snow tipped peaks, provided comfortable landscape for my meandering thoughts. I enjoyed watching Peru from my car window, it is strange that women in completely traditional dress and livestock of any kind, donkeys, pigs, sheep, even llamas have become so familiar to me that I don't think twice when we pass them on the road. On Saturday, we visited Chinchero, Moray, Salineras, and Ollantaytambo. In Chinchero we climbed some incredibly steep cobblestone steps to see some traditional Incan terracing, and an ornately decorated colonial Catholic church that was being bedecked with flowers in honor of an approaching wedding. In Moray we hiked down a terraced ampitheater of sorts which Ben aptly named the Incan Coliseum. The travel book claimed that the ancients used the site as a laboratory of sorts to try different farming techniques at different elevations, but I am not convinced that it wasn't simply an ancient concert center. In Salinas, we saw hundreds of salt pans used to mine salt from a nearby salty spring. It was a strange sight, hundreds of little white pools full of coarse, shiny salt crystals. Ollantaytambo, is a quaint little colonial town that is one of the only cities that still looks as though it might have in Incan days, small cobblestone streets, water diverted through the main road for irrigation, etc. I enjoyed walking through its charming streets and among its impressive ruins. Atop a mountain near the city is an impressive stone fortress where the Incans took their last successful stand against the Spanish. It was a truly awe inspiring place. Ollantaytambo was a lovely place during the day, but after sundown, around 6:00 in Peru, it became quite a ghost town. So, we three simply returned to the small, clean, spartan hostel room we had found earlier and entertained ourselves with the limited non-electronic supplies we had been able to fit into our backpacks. This morning we explored the HUGE market in Pisac. The Sunday market there was incredible, tiny stands selling stuffed llamas, traditional textiles, pan pipes, ceramics, and more all for a "special price just for you" as far as the eye could see. We enjoyed walking through the labyrinth of stalls and bargaining with the vendors to buy gifts for friends and family, resting only to enjoy empanadas baked in a huge traditional "horno". The empanadas were "muy rico" but I couldn't help but be a bit disturbed by the cuy castle right next door. The squeaks coming from the guinea pigs that I knew would be sacrificed to the fire had a stifling affect on my appetite. It was a lovely weekend capped by two church services tonight, one in Spanish and one in English. I feel blessed to be on such a grand adventure and look forward to another week of work.

Getting into the Swing of Things

Over the past few days I have developed a routine working in the cafe, going to language school, and volunteering at Project C.O.R.A.S.O.N. Though the days are a bit long from 8:15 to 7:00 with just a 45 minute break, I have thoroughly enjoyed the work. Working in the coffee shop is fun, I enjoy meeting people from across the world and making drinks. Currently I have mastered most of the coffee drinks and can make pseudo lattes, cappuccinos, and mochas using a drip coffee system (which may seem rather ghetto but is really quite mod according to a New York customer yesterday). Language school has been really helpful but also really intense. Basically for two hours I sit in a room with a Spanish teacher and we have a long conversation in Spanish. It has forced me to build my vocabulary and really think about the tenses I use. For the most part I can manage decently but yesterday when the conversation turned to faith and the Bible I felt as though I was in way over my head. My teacher expressed his own doubts about religion and asked me if I had any, in the end I just said a quick prayer, answered as well as I could and hoped that I didn't say anything heretical. After language school, I work in the cafe a bit more then head to Project C.O.R.A.S.O.N. By bus, it is about 35 minutes away. Riding the bus out to the project was quite an experience. A Peruvian bus is not really a bus in American terms, rather it is a large van with poles on the ceiling, stuffed with people standing and sitting haphazardly. A little boy runs by the side of the bus, calling out what stop the bus is approaching and jumps in when he can no longer keep up. It may be a bit of a crazy ride, but for a fare of only 60 sentanos, I am willing to squish against my fellow passengers and duck my head. The project is very well organized, with great facilities and many kids who come regularly. Some highlights of the past few days there were, watching the kids try for two hours to blow up a massive beach ball by passing it around and blowing for about five minutes each, painting the kids faces to look like animals, and playing "Simon dice" with some enthusiastic little girls. Over all I like working there and hope to develop good relationships with the kids.

Well that is basically what I have been up to these past few days, it has been busy but I am enjoying having work to do and look forward to the rest of my time here.

The past couple of days.

After our travels across Peru, Ben and I have finally settled in Cusco and have spent the past two days getting our feet under us and learning the lay of the land so to speak. Kahler, who has been traveling with us, returned to Casa del Aguila where she will be teaching English. So Ben and I were on are own to explore the town. Some highlights from the past couple of days included:

• Shopping at a Peruvian supermarket-mayonnaise is sold in bags, milk comes in unrefrigerated boxes, and the fresh meat market smells interesting.
• Exploring the rainbow flag covered plaza mayor. The rainbow flags represent Cusco not the homosexual movement as I initially thought
• Eating dinner at Senor Carbon-literally Mr. Meat, where one is fed meat until he or she surrenders.
• Going to church at the meeting place- a much needed opportunity to worship, focus on the word, and fellowship with other believers from across the world.
• Seeing the Temple of the Sun, with a Spanish convent built on top of it in the middle of Cusco.
• Meeting the other volunteers I will be working with.

As you can tell it has been an interesting couple of days. Tonight we are going to an English pub with some other volunteers to play Pub quiz-a British tradition that we Americans had never heard of before. And tomorrow, we will begin our work here in Cusco bright and early!

Adventures and Misadventures in the Andes

Since Thursday, I have travelled 10 hours on a train, 9 in a van, 11 by foot, slept in a tent, eaten some interesting food, and had quite an adventure. Early Thursday morning we woke up to catch a train to Machu Pichu. We rode for about four hours through little towns and along beautiful mountain rivers until we at last made it to the outskirts of the Amazon jungle. There we found Machu Pichu, high on a green mountain. It is a magical place. All around this abandoned Incan city scraggly peaks covered in dense green vegetation rise majestically to the sky, wisps of clouds clinging mysteriously to their tips. The city itself is amazing. It is basically carved into the side of the mountain using locally quarried rocks. Scattered throughout the city are amazing proofs of the Incan's superior astronomical knowledge such as models of constellations and incredibly accurate sun dials. As I walked through the stone passages of the city, I couldn't help but wonder about the ancient people who lived here in such isolation. What were their days like? What prompted them to build a city so high in the clouds? When they looked out over the mountains what did they think about? Slightly melodramatic musings I know, but Machu Pichu lends itself to melodrama.

We said good bye to Mom, Dad, and Nathan at Machu Pichu and early the next morning started on our backpacking trek to Larez. To get to the starting point of our hike, we rode in a van along winding dusty for about five hours. We began our hike just outside of Larez, a sleepy little town where there is only one central telephone and incoming calls are announced by an intercom system in the town square. The town is so isolated, and so strangely small and self contained that it reminded me of something out of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. We hiked along a steep trail with llamas carrying our gear. The steepness of the trail and the incredibly high altitude made hiking difficult. In order to combat the altitude and put a little spring in our step, we chewed on coca leaves, a natural stimulant among other things. Our hike took us high up in the Andes, by young children guarding their family's herds who peered out at us from silent dark eyes, and Quechuan speaking women garbed in traditional dress. We finally arrived at our campsite, a dirty field full of dogs and locals selling their fares. We ate dinner huddled in a small tent and then went to bed underneath the most spectacularly bright stars I have ever seen. Loud dog fights, below freezing temperatures, and nausea made sleeping difficult. But finally we woke up to continue our hike. Unfortunately I had picked up some sort of food poisoning ( a sketchy breakfast in a market the day before was the likely culprit), and so my hike back to Larez was a bit less than enjoyable. We did finally make it into town. And after a quick dip in some local hot spring, we started back to Cusco. We made it safely back out of isolation and after some medicine and about fourteen hours of sleep, I am happy to report that I am feeling much better. Tomorrow Ben and I are going to begin working in the cafe and serving in an after school program. As we begin this part of our trip my prayer requests are:

• That we would be able to build good relationships with the people that we are working with.
• That we would find our way safely around Cusco.
• That we would not get sick
• And that we would be able to truly serve these people.

Livin' on Cusco Time

Yesterday was a good day. We played AWANA games with the kids at the school (AWANA's is a church program for kids and we brought some of the game supplies to Peru with us). The kids loved playing the games and I enjoyed watching as the the third graders very carefully practiced the three legged race by tying shoe laces together, the "jefes" among the children loudly and persistently instructed the others, and the four year olds simply dragged around a rope for tug of war. After playing, we all piled into a van and serpentined up small dusty roads clinging to the side of the Andes. We drove along these hair-pin roads high into the mountains to see an old mountain resort from the 20's that had fallen into disrepair. The resort was breathtaking, and the views magical. Being there was like stepping back in time. With its pillars, seclusion, and whiskey bottles left from the workers, the resort felt like something from a Hemingway novel, though that may change as local missionaries are working to turn it into a Christian resort. We continued for a while longer to visit a small town high in the mountains. It was hard to believe that people could live and that a city could thrive in such seclusion-yet the little stores and children playing soccer on the plaza seemed to prove they could.

Today I gained a clearer understanding of the meaning of the phrase"Peru Time". We woke up early to catch a bus back to Cusco around 10:o0, the ride back to town is about an hour and a half generally so we planned to get lunch and tour the city. We waited at the orphanage until about 1:30 when, greeted by the cheers from our entire team, the bus arrived. We then set out for our journey. After about two miles the driver got out to putter on the axle-probably not a terribly good start to a drive through the Andes. We then continued to drive quite slowly (probably due to the problem with the axle), stopping several times to brake for traffic blocks, a common happening due to the huge chunks of the highway that have been washed away during the rainy season. Finally, around 5 we made it to Cusco! I love it here, the hostel is very neat and homey, its owners kind, and the cafe downstairs looks like it will be fun to work in. The hostel is located on a plaza in the touristy section of Cusco. Mrs. Dyer, one of the missionaries we are working with says it is the more bohemian section of town, and Ben and I are looking forward to checking it out. Cusco seems to be an interesting beautiful city, with tiny twisting roads, fresh markets, and red brick homes. I am sure I will love living here.

Pictures of the city, hostel, and Machu Pichu to follow.

Pictures Paint a Hundred Words

Day Two and Three

I am typing these words from a small clay brick cabin in a valley of the Andes Mountains about two hours by bumpy switchbacks from Cusco. It is dark outside, dark in way that it isn’t at home. There are no street lamps and the only light comes from the sparkly clear web of stars. Not only are these stars strikingly brighter than any I have seen before, they are in fact different stars, I guess one can see different constellations in the southern constellations than in the northern but I am sad to say I don’t know enough about stars to be able to tell much difference. Through the window I can hear a single panpipe’s breathy tone played by a neighbor orphan who must be trying to pass a long winter’s evening, no small feat as it is completely dark here by 6 o’clock at night. By day’s light you can see the white and blue plastered walls of the school and farm buildings, dusty roads along glistening irrigation ditches, bright red poinsettias (growing naturally!), and the bright faces of about 200 children. It is in a word a magical place. We arrived in Cusco after a terrifying but breathtaking plane ride through the Andes. Immediately upon deplaning the dusty foreign landscape and startling altitude assured me that I was in fact in a foreign place. The two-hour drive to La Casa del Aquila provided a good introduction to the place I will call home for the next month. We passed through little market streets smelling of fresh bread and slaughtered chickens, along steeps switchbacks, and by countless alpacas, horses, and cows. Upon arriving at the orphanage we took a tour and enjoyed a meal of fresh produce meat and rice (basically what we will eat at every meal-simple, good, and healthy). Today we introduced some AWANAs games to the kids-I am happy to report that the pleasure of tug of war is cross cultural the kids loved it. My dad also ran a health clinic. He saw about 35 people with ailments ranging from stomach aches to dog bites and was able to provide care and comfort to many very grateful people. I enjoyed playing with the children and using my limited Spanish. I have found a little three-year-old friend, Rosalinda. She was basically attached to my hip all day, and her mother tried to convince me to take the little girl to America, part of me was very sad that I couldn’t. This afternoon we worked to clear an area to build a small home for the cook at the farm. I think Ben enjoyed using a machete. All in all it was a good day. I know this is a long post, but it seems that so much has happened. I love it here and feel very blessed for the opportunity to come my prayer requests are:

· That the people here would find the hope and of Christ.

· That the children we played with could know true joy.

· That the patients Dad say could be healed and comfortable.

· That we could continue to find ways to help these people.

· That everyone would continue to feel well.

Lima, Peru!

Just a quick post from gate numero ocho in Lima, Peru. We arrived here safely late last night, and made it through a labyrinth of customs and immigration relying on a combination of rote "airport-memory", adrenaline induced Spanish, and luck. After catching a few hours of sleep in a nearby Ramada hotel, we ate some breakfast, fresh fruit, stale sweet bread, and room temperature whole milk, and miraculously maneuvered our way through the airport maze again. So far the generic international feel of the airport has lessened the impact of being in a foreign country. In true global fashion there is a McDonalds, Papa Johns, and Dunkin' Donuts in the terminal. And, as Mom has demonstrated time and again, if you speak slowly and use enough hand gestures most people still understand if you speak in Spanish. Really the biggest difference is simply that all the signs have bigger Spanish writing above the English translation and that all the prices are in Soles (the local currency there are about 2.75 in each dollar). But I am sure that the impact of being in Peru will hit as soon as we walk out of the generic bubble of an international airport into Cusco.

El Viaje a Peru...the Beginning

Duffel bags stuffed with jump ropes and Spanish children's books have overtaken the den. A big red suitcase sits on my bed stuffed with long underwear, jeans, and sunscreen. Spanish translation guides, travel books, and boxes of imodium litter the kitchen table. It is nearly time for a journey to Peru.

As many of you know, my brother Ben and I will be spending about a month in and around Cusco, Peru volunteering with local missions and learning more about this place and the people who live there. After months of preparation, we will begin our journey tomorrow at 1 o'clock. Tomorrow, my family and I will be flying to Lima, Peru and, then continuing on to Cusco on Sunday. Upon arriving in Cusco, we are planning on driving out of the city a bit to La Casa del Aguila, a farm and orphanage. For several days we will volunteer there, playing with the kids, running a medical clinic, and basically doing anything else we can to be a blessing to the people living there. Then after a trip to Machu Pichu, my parents and younger brother Nathan will fly back home and Ben and I will return to Cusco where we will stay for the next three weeks. While in Cusco, Ben and I plan to work in a coffee shop run by local missionaries, volunteer with an after school program for local homeless children, and attend language school.

So that is basically what we are planning for our trip. But, as it will ultimately be God and not us who charts the final itinerary of our journey, I am sure that the actual events of our trip may be quite different than these initial plans. I am also sure that this trip will be more right than anything I could have planned. As the story of our journey unfolds, I plan to document it with pictures and posts here on my blog. I hope that you will join us in Cusco by reading about the people and places we encounter there and by praying for us. As we begin our journey I have a few specific prayer requests:

• That we would be able to genuinely show God's love to the children we will be working with.
• That the local missionaries we are visiting would be encouraged and blessed.
• That my family and I would be safe and that we would get along well while we are traveling together.
• And ultimately that God would direct our paths and teach us what we need to learn.

Well I think that's all I have to say on this side of the hemisphere. I will write again from Cusco, Peru. Hasta luego!

A Good Year

I wanted to write something to mark the end of my first year at Baylor, but I didn't really have any great insights or observations to share. It has been a wonderful, life-changing year, but I am sure that anything I could write about the abstract, remarkable ideas and experiences that have and and are changing me would seem sappy and abstract. And, after all, it is not these large things that change us in the end. It is the small daily things we choose to love that slowly mold who we are-cliche perhaps but true. So in order to document my year at Baylor, I have decided to make a list of the small things that I have loved there.

1. The roses that I can see through a window behind the pulpit at DaySprings.

2. The glint of the sun on Pat N. Eff at twilight.

3. Taking out my earplugs to talk to Amy before going to sleep.

4. Driving to get a diet coke with Emily Davis.

5. The corner desk behind Dr. Pennington's office.

6. "Studying" in the Narthex.

7. Reaching the final question of my reflection.

8. Having my phone hi-jacked by Anna (though I didn't really love this one at the time).

9. Squeezing way too many people around a circle table for dinner then discussing free will, physics, and "ambigu-dates"

10.Passing the Peace.

11.The library's strange sliding shelves.

12.The random notes that the bells play.

13. The acoustical anomaly.

14.Seeing the BSB fountains before facing chem lab.

15. Dr. Pennington's "dry bones" and other idioms.

16. Unlocking my mailbox and finding a letter.

17. The gravel crunch of the bear trail.

18. Anna's ability to correct my comma problems.

19. Baking cookies in the gross 4th floor kitchen and eating most of the dough.

20. Laying on the grass and watching the tree limbs and clouds.

I know that there are many more things I could name but this is all that is coming to mind now.

Thank you to all who have made this year what it has been. I have loved it and am looking forward to another year full of lovely things.

What I Know for Sure

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a fairly uncertain person. I am uncertain about what major I want to pursue, uncertain about what job I want, uncertain about what classes to take etc. Sometimes I get so distracted by all the possibilities that I have trouble seeing clearly. Sometimes the truth is so hard to understand that everything I say and do needs qualifications. But there are some things I do know for sure.

I know that I know very little but there are some things i know for sure.

I know that some things are entirely good, and that some things are entirely bad.

And I know that while snow cones and genocide are among these things, people are not.

I know that each person is a story full of incongruities and beautiful phrases.

I know that this is easy to forget.

I know that there is no man in the moon, even though I have never seen its lonely rockscapes.

I know that I will die.

I know that I don't really believe this.

I know that the world was here before I was and that it will be here after I am gone.

I know that the same God who raised men from the dead allows the death of innocents.

I know that he is good.

And I know that he is not accountable to me.

I know that I love and am loved, even when I don't know why.

I know that the sun will always shine again.

And I know that it will always rain again.

I know that though I don't know how to ask the questions there are answers.

I know that e=mc2, but I don't really know why.

I know that plants change colors because of Carotenoids but could be convinced that they are painted.

I know that there are some things we can never know but that that shouldn't keep us from trying to learn them anyways.

I know that you can't know where you are going but that you should always try to know where you are.

And I know that there are thoughts, and dreams, and ideas that can never be conveyed with words.

But I know that because we are human we will always need to try.

I know that I know very little but there are some things i know for sure.

Seven Stanzas of Easter

Here is a poem that one of my professors introduced me to last semester. I love it and find it to be a beautiful reminder of the true power and mystery of the resurrection. Hope you enjoy, and have a blessed Easter.

SEVEN STANZAS OF EASTER
By John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

An Afternoon Undocumented

I wish that I could paint this afternoon with writing as a painter does a landscape. I'd use my words as watercolor. With my adjectives I would shade. With nouns I'd create perspective and with verbs dictate the hues. I would cross hatch with commas and stipple with semicolons. Yet, I was never much of an artist. Why should my picture of words be any different than my stick figures?And, besides a thing loses the majority of its charm the moment it is captured. So I will let this afternoon bloom undocumented. Perhaps it will come to beautiful fruition under the direction of a more skilled artist-the eye.

Joy on the Spectrum

After some consideration and prodding from friends, I have decided to adopt my own little virtual corner and start a blog. I have had some mixed feelings about the blogging trend. In some regards it seems a bit self indulgent and presumptuous. I have had doubts that anybody would actually care to read my own limited musings (and they may not, only time will tell). I just wasn't sure that anything I could think or say would be interesting enough to merit the electronic space it would occupy. But, in the end, I gave in to the temptation to share. Perhaps I am like the sinners begging Dante to carry their stories out of Hell into the world above, my story may not merit recognition but I still want to share it. I think that this desire to communicate, to be known by what one writes, is something that I share with most people. After all the "tell all memoir" is not a new idea, people have been confessing since Nebuchadnezzar grazed in the field. Though our generation may seem obsessed with sharing every detail of our lives, we are not the first to want to do so. I think that people, as a whole want to be known, we want to tell people what we really think, and we want them to acknowledge, that yes, our thoughts are significant. So here I go, perhaps I will somehow stumble on something significant.

Those who knows me well will recognize the title "Life on the Spectrum" as a reference to my mother's ongoing observation (hopefully joke) about my compulsive, moderately neurotic tendencies. I thought it was an appropriate title for my blog. Like all of us, I fall somewhere along many spectrums. At five foot six inches, I am somewhere comfortably in the middle of the height spectrum; I have never been considered particularly petite or terribly tall. I am probably closer to the outer ranges when it comes to the spectrum of tidiness; I persist that compared to some I am quite neat, but by my mother's standards I am a complete, incurable slob. Again I fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of intelligence; though able to hold my own on most standardized tests, I will never be invited to join MENSA. And perhaps most importantly, I find myself somewhere along the grand spectrum of life. At nineteen, I have passed out of the foggy days of young childhood, the awkward tween years, and the whirlwind of high school, but I have not yet completely entered into the "real world" of independent adulthood. I am a college student caught in a sort of limbo here in the middle, trying like, so many my age, to figure out what should happen next. So here I sit, living on the spectrum, between knowledge and ignorance, between idealism and cynicism, between grace and works, between here and there. And, like all of us, I am looking for joy as a I travel down these spectrums. Wherever you fall within the spectrums of your own life, I hope you will join me on this search.