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.