Fire Hazard

Flying into Huánuco, I think the tips of the airplane's wings are going to touch the mountains we are descending into.  There's a valley, with seemingly just enough space for us to land.  To get back up, we'll be flying in circles until we can clear these foothills of the Andes.  As we touch down, brakes on FULL, I look to my right and see the green fire engine on the side of the runway, engine on, lights flashing, waiting just in case one of the two planes that lands here each day bursts into flames.  Welcome to Huánuco!

Traveling in Class

For my trip to Peru, my AWESOME online travel agency, Compete 4 Your Seat, found a free upgrade for me to Business Class, otherwise known as Clase ejecutiva!  The gourmet meal on the way down was worth the...wait, it was FREE!

Signposts

Coolest signage at the SIL headquarters: "Every Language Matters", and every language is listed...currently at 6,909.  For more info on world languages, maps, stats and audio recordings, go to the Ethnologue.

My ride

 ...has this license plate for one more day:

Home for Dinner!

The neighborhood:

The drive-through:

The heartstrings:

New Language Discovery

Should we add this to the list of over 2,000 languages still with no Bible?

On the Road Again

"Wide Open Spaces" keeps playing through my mind.  Being in Texas always feels like coming home, but that doesn't mean I don't get culture shock coming back here!  I wonder how much adjustment my taxi driver, Joseph, went through when he first got here.  After talking with him for a few minutes as we left the airport, he paused and said, "I don't understand it, but I've never had anyone ask about my family before."  For a man from an African culture that is very family-oriented, similar to those in Latin America, that was a shock.  


We talked at length about the minority language he grew up speaking and the story of how his family fled his hometown because of violence.  "Driving a taxi is better than pumping gas," he said about the job he's had for 10 years.  At the end, he refused my tip, saying I'd already blessed him enough.  Did Texas feel a little more like Africa & Latin America for a few minutes?

A Room with a View

My view at the Wycliffe International Americas Area meetings in Heredia, Costa Rica

Food, Glorious Food!

No one can convince me that I suffer much as a missionary, because I really enjoy a lot about Latin American life and culture! As you move into another culture, one of the first things you might notice is the food, so I'll start there! I feel I need to point out that I believe I have successfully executed my duty as Nathan's auntie to introduce him to classic foods by bring Cheetos into his life! You can't get those in Peru, so there were several bags of Cheetos at my goodbye party at the airport. You can tell that Nathan enjoys them as much as I do if you check out his orange-y, cheesy fingers and smile!


My travel from Portland to Peru took 24 hours, and part of that was a 5-hour layover in San Jose, Costa Rica. Yes, I was heading to Costa Rica the subsequent week to start language shchool, but my cheaptickets.com itinerary just happened to take me through San Jose on the way to Peru! I landed in the international airport in Costa Rica at 5am, bleary-eyed from the all-night flight. I dragged my bags into the tiny food court where I found...Burger King! I'm not a fan of fast food, but this was a fun introduction to Costa Rican food. If you want breakfast at Burger King in Costa Rica you get: gallo pinto (rice & beans), egg, and coffee. It can also come with tortillas for a little extra. Yummy!


Once in Lima, Peru (for 4 full days), I managed to indulge in a few Peruvian classics. Those are "chifles" on the left: thin, crispy, salty banana chips, and that's "cancha" on the right, which is toasted corn (think really natural corn nuts).


As a special treat, my friend Deborah and I met at Mangos, which has a lot of my favorite Peruvian dishes, and is perched inside a cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean. God does a good job of taking care of His loved ones, doesn't He?

¿Qué tal Lima?

Although it seems I spend a little of each month in Lima, our capital city, I'm not usually site-seeing and don't take many pictures. But I'd love to share some of the sites with you, so here is a little tour I took with some friends I babysat for a weekend with my friend Clare.

After visiting the catacombs under the San Francisco church (a must-do in Lima), we walked the few blocks to the main plaza, or Plaza de Armas. I like the ornate brown "boxes" which extending off many buildings, designed to give a cloistered nun, or any woman, a view of the street's activity without revealing herself.

Every city is designed around the main plaza. I forget how gorgeous this one is. It still has the feel of a plaza, being bordered on all four sides by important buildings. A number of the streets leading to it are pedestrian only, so there's a lot less traffic than you'd expect. Maybe the amoured cars and machine-gun-carrying troops help discourage lollygagging as well.

Of course our tour included a stop at an ice cream shop, and then we walked down a beautiful street that used to be under a canopy made of glass. After it shattered in an earthquake, they left the framing in place so the street still feels unique. They call this Postcard Alley because that's pretty much all you can buy here.

Peruvian Navidad

Looking for my Lima church's Christmas play, some friends and I stumbled into an Episcopalian service. It was a beautiful church, and these windows depicting the early life of Christ were done by a local artist.

The play charmingly included lots of child actors, and the story described the U.N. searching hard for world peace when there was only news of war...eventually finding it only in Jesus Christ. I really liked the Peruvian Baby Jesus.

(The girl in red, black, and white, is a classic take on the criolla culture, originating with Africans who were taken here by force, and now have made a huge impact on Peruvian culture, especially along the coast.)

Jan, Ruth, and I went down the Lima coastline for lunch one day. If the drop off and highway weren't dramatic enough, the restaurant with this view is called "El Salto de Fraile", literally "The Jump of the Friar" and has a coinciding folktale of a love-sick (of course) monk who jumps to his death. The tiring job of recreating the jump falls to this strapping young man:

Hasta Pachas

Come along with me on a trip to Pachas, one of the Quechua villages that held the 5th in a series of 5 workshops on the Women of the Bible this past weekend. We'll take the Bensons' truck, pack the back full of supplies for the workshop and the following graduation day, and drive about 6 hours out into the countryside. The road will be bouncy and the other drivers will be unpredictable, but around every curve will be breathtaking views of the hills and valleys of the Andes.

Now we're traveling from up from about 6,000 to around 11,000 feet. The air is getting thinner and it's chilly all day long, unless you're standing directly in the sun. We slow down for herds of sheep and goats, as well as the occasional donkey. This one has an albino baby!

Now that we've reached Pachas, we're driving up to the church, unloading all of our stuff, and parking the truck down by one of the participants homes near the plaza. Every town in Peru has a central plaza, or town square, and this one happens to have a bell tower too.


We are staying the next few nights in these rooms on the church property. The trainers are getting together tonight to adjust their lesson plans, to account for the absence of their leader hasn't been able to make it due to her late-stage pregnancy.

I am having fun reconnecting with Kayla, my 8 year-old friend, whose mom is on the teaching team. We are playing with my camera and telling Bible stories. Her mom has done a great job training her, because when Í try and translate what Jesus says from English to Spanish, she always has a correction for me. She remembers the Bible verse and my translations aren't that great yet!

Tomorrow morning, we'll all get up as soon as the sun rises, and start the first day of the workshop. But for now, it's time to snuggle under layers of wool blankets and get some sleep.

Jungle 101

Weather: Hot and sticky like you forgot to leave the fogged up bathroom after your shower

Flora & Fauna: Even within the city limits of Pucallpa, the largest city around, it's lush and green, and there are butterflies, birds, free-roaming pigs, and sounds in the night that I could never identify.

Surprising fact: Peru is 2/3 jungle, the popularity of the Andes leading to the assumption that Peru is mostly mountainous.

Streets: 1/2 paved, the other half are red dirt roads - "Pucallpa means 'red dirt'" and it is red, everywhere!

Transportation: Mostly by moto-taxi, half motorcycle, half covered backseat, that lets the red dust in, but not the sun

Languages: Dozens of people groups and languages separated by hard-to navigate Amazonian rain forest

Food: Fried plantains (bananas), lots of crazy fruit, fish, palm heart salad, cocona salsa...

People: Even more warm and friendly, lots of music, flowers, offers of help, low crime rates, but struggles with poverty, familial abuse, and justice (just my opinion)

Why was I there? I got to facilitate at a workshop for the leaders of 3 indigenous missions groups. More on that in my next blog.

Homeward Bound

I was so glad to see Portland, Oregon, out my airplane window on September 10th. I still can't believe home is only a plane ride away. It was a gift to spend time with my family, and visit churches and friends during my two weeks in the Northwest.

Of course time with niece Katie, who is such a big girl now, was one of the highlights! We went to the zoo and were both excited to see the elephants up close.

Of course there wasn't time for everything and everyone, but I had a rich time with every person I was lucky enough to see. I had the chance to meet with a missions group at my church, share at a recruiting event, and spend time with the "family" I have at the church I grew up in.

Getting to hang out in person with friends was something I really had been looking forward to. A group of girlfriends threw a tea party, and we all had tons of fun over 5 gourmet courses and many, many pots of tea.

I spent my last few days in Colorado, spending time with my dear friend, Deedra. We took a drive up into the mountains on 1 of the 2 peak days per year to see the aspen turning. What great timing by God! I felt His hand of direction and provision throughout this trip.

Huascarán!

At 22, 204 feet, Huascarán (Wahs-kah-RAHN) is the highest mountain in Peru. You can see the orange trunk of a queñal tree in the foreground. They are believed to grow at a higher altitude than any other tree.

While in Huaraz for a Bible dedication, we spent an afternoon at Lake Llanganuco, which sits at 12,464 feet on Mt. Huascaran.

Machu Picchu!

I had heard so much about Machu Picchu that I assumed I would be underwhelmed when I finally visited--boy, was I wrong! It was my third trip to Cusco and this time I finally made it all the way to Machu Picchu with my friend Karen who was visiting from the States. It felt surreal, like a different world. Aside from the fact that you are walking in and around ancient Incan ruins, Machu Picchu is set high up into the clouds so you almost think you're in heaven. Since only one of the original Seven Wonders of the World still exists, they are holding a world-wide online vote to elect the "New 7 Wonders". Click HERE to cast your vote (for Machu Picchu!).