The Gringos Went Over the Mountain

This internet is really starting to frustrate me. One second it works, and the next it has lost the email that I just spent 20 minutes typing. Sigh. But I must remember that any internet at all in the middle of the Andes Mountains is a blessing. Let me tell you about our week.

Sunday, we attended a new church that we found off the side of the road by chance. We got there at 9:00 and everyone was eating. We just knew that they were going to bring us bowls of food, and sure enough they did. Let me tell you, there´s nothing like rice and potatoes in the morning, eaten in a barn area surrounded by sheep poop. Sorry I always talk about poop, but there´s a lot of it around here. After we finished eating, we went inside their tiny church building. Since we are probably the only gringos to have ever visited their church, we got prime seating, right up front. After singing some songs in Quechua (they gave us a songbook to use), Wade brought a short message and an old preacher translated his Castellano into Quechua. It was a good service and we left feeling like we can really help this church out.

Ok, about the festival, taking up Monday and Tuesday. It was Lampa´s 180th birthday, and apparently everyone in Peru wanted to celebrate it by crowding into our little square and watching the parades of marching bands from the surrounding communities do their thing. The marching style of those not weilding an instrument was slightly Nazi-ish, and a little freaky. Away from the parade, vendors were set up selling everything imaginable, from food to clothing to little nick-nacks that no one has any use for. It was fun, and we ate some good barbeque chicken with potatoes for lunch both days. One night we had alpaca shish-kebobs from dinner. After eating off the street both days, and getting ice cream out of little grubby coolers for dessert, I am surprised we aren´t dead. But I guess God was with our stomachs. We passed out so many tracts these past two days. Almost everyone we handed them to was eager to recieve and read them. In the US, if we passed out that many tracts, we would find half of them on the ground later, but here in Lampa, we only found one. It was great, and Wade got to practice his street preaching.

A few little kids picked us out of the crowd and kept following us around, asking for money. It took all I had not to clock one in the nose, but eventually he went away. Getting stared at constantly started to get old after awhile too. I had the urge to yell, "Yeah, we´re white. So what?" several times, but what would that accomplish? More stares. It is something gringos have to get used to, I guess.

Thursday morning we biked out to Puca Cuesta again and tried to tell the story of the Ten Commandments to a restless bunch of kids, but they got bored quickly and wouldn´t pay attention. So we tried the time-proven remedy of song, and it actually worked. They sang another song of their country for us, and we sang the chorus of "I´m proud to be an American" for them. They clapped for us, but it was an awful rendition on our part.

When we left the school, we went to meet Señor Valeriano to have a Bible study, but he wasn´t home. So me and Dave decided we wanted to climb a mountain. We scanned the range for the highest one we could see and headed that way. Wade really didn´t want to come with us, and even after our persuasions he stopped at the bottom and decided to return to Lampa alone. It was kinda sad, but we knew he would have died on the way up, and we would have had to drag his body back down, so I guess it all worked out for the best. The peak we chose seemed to get farther away the higher we climbed, but finally, after an hour of hard work, we made it. What a view. We saw what we thought might be Lake Titicaca in the distance, but we weren´t sure. Could see for a really long way though. Miles and miles. It was great and coming back down was much easier. It was good to get to talk and I really enjoyed the afternoon. Hopefully we will be able to do it again.

Today is Friday, and when we woke up this morning, Wade informed us that he wasn´t feeling too well, and his stomach was messed up. He really didn´t feel like biking out to Moquegache, so me and Dave decided that we could handle it by ourselves, and headed out. The ride out there was the best so far, and we didn´t stop for any breaks until we were almost to the community. I was kinda nervous about having to teach the class without Wade, but me and Dave taught them a new song and then we did the creation story. The kids were really attentive and even asked when we were coming back after we finished. We walked out of there feeling very good, and we think that Moquegache is our favorite community so far.

Tomorrow we are returning to Moquegache for a Bible study with the adults. We told the kids to tell their parents, and so we hope that people will show up. Please pray that this Bible study will really take off. Also, pray for our Spanish. It is much different speaking to kids than speaking to parents. And pray that Wade is feeling well enough to go with us. I can handle kids, but I don´t know about adults. We need all our forces healthy and ready.

I can´t believe that one month has already passed with us here. Time passes both quickly and slowly in Peru, and you never can tell how a day is going to go. Our Bible studies with Señor Mendez are going well. He always has a lot of difficult questions, testing both our Spanish and our theology. Hard stuff, but we enjoy it.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.