Works of Art

Butterflies are everywhere in the jungle! I had to chase after these and take about 30 pix to get these shots. Thank goodness for digital cameras!

It's a Jungle out there!

Last weekend I spent my first night in the jungle! Traveling down the eastern slope of the Andes, we reached Tingo Maria in just 3 hours.

We spent about 30 minutes waiting for these two bus drivers who were nose to nose in the middle of landslide debris. I heard that's not very long to wait for someone to back up. Ironically they were from the same bus company, but neither driver felt he should be the one to move. You can imagine that nobody gets very far down the road when cars are line d up single file yet facing both directions!

Emily and Katie, two friends who work with Paz y Esperanza (see blog about the River Swing), came with the Bensons and I. It was a great break from "the routine", which doesn't feel much like a routine yet. :) I'll post more jungle pix and stories soon!

Graduation Night!

I first met these four CEFMA graduates when I took a Quechua grammer class my first week in Huanuco. A few Fridays ago, they graduated from the CEFMA program, which is 3 summers long, and prepares them for service in missions here or around the world. The theme was from Hudson Taylor's life, which is really exciting for me because my greatest dream for these people groups is to see them reaching the world for Christ! Everyone wore the traditional dress from their area. (Check out the 2 different styles and colors of hats the women are wearing. Hats and the patterns and colors of clothes are among the clues you can use to know what part of the Andes someone is from, even before they open their mouth. Just in case you are wondering, no one ever thinks I might be from around here, and they usually guess correctly that I'm from the States!)

Training teachers

2 weeks ago we held the next in a series of workshops for 14 Huamalies Quechua women. They are being trained in adult education and Bible study, and will be teaching workshops for another 60 women over the next 6 months. These 60 women are leaders in their churches and they will be teaching at least another 500 women between now and December. What a great chance to empower these women to teach and train others! It's also thrilling to know that, for the first time, these hundreds of women will get to study the Bible in their own language!

Photos: Jan leading a lesson planning session; Bottom left: Keila, a new friend!; Bottom right: Celestina practicing teaching

Adventura!

Yes, that’s me, out over the river! I’m riding in what they call a “river swing”. Really it’s a metal chair on a pulley system, so the guy across the river can haul people over to his side of the river. I had taken a bus to a spot about 30 minutes out of Huánuco, where my friend Elena and I got off. We shimmied down the hillside to the river swing, Elena in heels! Once across the river, we crossed a few fields and then reached our destination: the Paz y Esperanza camp. It’s basically a retreat center for this group that works toward justice and restoration for those that have been abused-- physically, emotionally, or politically (i.e., restitution from the years of terrorism).

During the summer (Dec-Feb in Peru), they hold camps for different age groups where kids to adults can play, let down their guard and hopefully grow. I enjoyed seeing the age group for this week (adolescents) playing with each other, sneaking into the swimming pool, working on art projects…and was moved when I heard that they had all started the week-long camp pretty shy and withdrawn.

The trip back home was the most eventful part though. We’d picked the day of a transportation strike to visit the camp, so once we’d hiked back to the river, crossed it on the river swing, clamored back up the hillside, we couldn’t find a bus to catch. We waited and waited, hoping. After my friend started talking about needing to stay near this one home we’d seen and not walking down the road (which I was thinking would be more fun than standing around), I realized we probably didn’t want to be out on a rural highway alone at night.

Since the sun had already set, we decided to go into high gear. Our only hope: hitchhiking. I rolled up my sleeves so my blindingly white skin had the best chance of literally blinding drivers off the road. ;) After waiving, jumping and miming our problem to 20 different drivers, we were getting desperate. The truck that finally stopped? I think I almost pulled it off the road myself. Our angels of mercy were seven guys heading back from a day of work in a big, beat-up farm truck. I was glad for a chatty, native-Peruvian companion, and that God held back the rain until just after we got inside the truck!