Back in Peru!

3.5.10

Well, I´m sitting in the St. Luis airport waiting for my flight to Miami, and then to Lima. Definitely didn´t think I would be here at this time yesterday. We serve a God not only of miracles, but a God that takes joy in fulfilling our hearts desires. One of my dad´s friends ended up giving me a free flight back to Lima, which is a miracle because everything was pretty much full because of spring break. So, I should be able to spend Tuesday night through Friday night with my best friend and her team from A&M, which I am so excited about. I was bummed about not getting to spend the first couple of days with them, but I know there was a reason I am coming in today and did not come in earlier or later. I know that God has a plan and I am so excited to see it. We are supposed to go to Pachecutec tomorrow and Thursday and witness and work with a house church, so I could not be more excited about that. Pachecutec is the city that is right next to Ventanilla (the city where the orphanage is located), and it is a very poor but huge district. I have not spent a lot of time in Pachecutec, so I am excited to be able to do that. It will also be neat to see what other house church is like, since that is something we too have been working on.  So, we´ll see what God does. I´m so excited.

3.16.10

So today was an incredible day. It was scary, interesting, great, sad, fun, confusing, frusterating and a dream all in one. We got up and went to devotional after staying up entirely too late talking (wouldn´t have it any other way =) and then left for the clinic which was in Villa Maria, a district of Lima. Carly, me and another girl ended up being on a team together, and I ended up translating for our team. That was interesting because I have never translated like that before. Plus, I still am not completely ready to be translating medical spanish...but anyways, we made it. It was a little frusterating because the patients that came in would sit down and some of them would just start talking about anything and everything under the sun that was wrong with their bodies, and some of them wouldn´t tell us an important symptom until we had been with them for 20 minutes to an hour. Many of their stories kept changing too, which made translation hard. At one point there were about three or four different translations going around...poor Carly! That would be impossible for any doctor to diagnose. So, it really was a learning experience for us all. It´s always frusterating to be  presented with a problem and not feel like you can help the person. And helping a person in one day who has had a problem for 20 years is not easy....as we found out with one of our patients...

The really cool thing is that we got to pray with all of our patients and share the gospel with them, which was really neat. I am so thankful for the opportunity to do that. The people at the church that hosted us at the church were so sweet too. They fixed us a traditional aji de gallina lunch (yum) with some chicha morada (mmmm!)

Then we came back to the hotel and Carly wasn´t feeling well, so we went and got pizza and brought it back and ate it. Then we watched some Smallville, House, Ace of Cakes and some other great American shows in English =) Today Carly has not felt well (good ol stomach stuff...) so we´ve been able to stay in and relax. Please pray for her healing.