Seeking the Southern Cross

What a week it has been since the last team has left. As I mentioned in my last update, God is throwing me head-first into literally every different type of mission work possible during my time here in Peru. This past week I have been doing Construction. Not just your simple mixing concrete and nailing things together construction, Im talking hard hat necessity and steel toed boots for 10-12 hours work days. I wake up every morning around 5:45 (and if you know me AT ALL you know thats a big deal. I dread waking up early more than I do final exams) and eat and catch a combi or taxi to the work site by 7:45-8ish. During the day the boss man Mr. Gary, two teachers from La Molina Christian School, and myself worked. We put together metal jacks and studs and laid the foundations for the walls of the entire second left upstairs side of the school. We got the walls up and then began the fun work (sarcam) of lifting the rafters and trusses onto the top of the walls and nailing them down. Once all that was done we hung the celing planks and then put in insulation and drywall. If anyone ever needs someone to use a drill, saw, hammer, ANY type of construction tool from now on, Im pretty much a pro. Not to brag or anything. I enjoyed the work because as time passed it was obviously visable what we had done as the walls were built, celing put on, etc. It was also frustrating work in the begining because of having to learn new ways to use these "easy" powertools. Also, construction is nothing more than math, being the English and Spanish major I am that caused many a headache for me many a times. I had to almost hourly pray for patience not only for myself but also for those working with me. Thankfully today was our last day on site and tonight the last team comes in and we begin to prepare for the english camp trip we are taking the youth group on down to the beach. Apparently the beach is colder than the city so I am packing ALL my warm stuff. I am really excited to be able to work with teaching english! Speaking of, the owner of La Molina Christian schools worked with us a few days this week on the site as well and today when I left he told me when I graduate I have a job in his school teaching English if I want it. Job security in a foreign country at 20 years old? Terrifying. Not going to even think about that until the time comes.





More updates: I had worms. What does this mean? During my time in Manchi either during the first team and VBS or the third team and the Medical Clinic, I got the worms that literally every patient we treated had. How did I know this for sure? Due to the graphic context in how I discovered the worms in my stomach I´ll put it like this: I learned it in the bathroom. Thankfully a medical team was here and gave me Abendelzol which kills all worms for at least 6 months. So unless I get them from something in the US, the worms in my system are DONE. Thank God.





Also, Peru had its independence day yesterday, I had work until 6 but when I got done I went home and celebrated with my Peruano family. We ate Peruano food and watched fireworks and Peru´s volleyball match against the USA. On independece day here, every house is required to fly a flag from its roof. The streets were pure red and white, so cool. Tula knited me a Peru bandera to wear on my shirt all day. Vivé Peru!





I only have one week left here and as my time is wearing down I find myself at the paradoxical cross roads of extreme joy and unstated sadness. I can´t wait to return to my home and family and dog and friends but I dont want to leave the life I´ve come close to mastering here. Its a weird feeling and I have NO idea what I will say when I get the dreaded question, "So, Cary, How was Perú?" Not sure how to say I loved it and I hated it. I dreaded leaving and I was also ready to go. It was the hardest and best thing I´ve done thus far in my life.





The stars came out last night as the smog cleared finally over the city and I finally saw the southern cross in the sky. It is a constulation you can only see south of the Equator and it is absolutely beautiful.





One week left to eat, enjoy, love Peru and prepare for my return back home.





Chao.

Team Three

Hello all! Once again it has been quite a while since I have been able to update you all on the goings on in my life. It has been a little over two weeks and we have had another wonderful team come through here in Lima. But before I talk about them I want to tell you about the blessings I have had working with some of the members of the Church before they got here.

One of the members of our church is a very elderly man who I will name Fruvi. Fruvi is nearing tripple digits and is almost completely deaf. He lives in Salamanca with his wife right across the street from the church. When Fruvi wants to talk he screams and the majority of the time is is jumbled. His wife understands him perfectly and their love is so apparent. I had the opportunity to go sit with him and just talk for a few hours. He prayed to recieve Christ with Pastor Mark a few weeks ago and now loves to talk about Christ. This man has been set on fire and it is so blatently obvious. When he prays he sits looking up with his eyes open, just talking to God. His love for our Lord is so inspiring. I also got to work with a man I will name Diego. Diego is the last of his brother and sisters alive from their birth father. All of Diego´s brothers and sisters who were born from the same father have died from an un-named disease similar in every way to MD. Diego is now in a wheelchair and can hardly walk, I had the opportunity to push him around Salamanca in his Chair for an hour or so. We did not talk much but his joy at being outside and moving was tangible in his eyes. Never once did he complain about his life, his disease, nothing. I learned a lot from that short hour with Diego.

Moving on to Team Three:

This team was from non other than Sweet Home Alabama, bringing with the the joy of the South (Auburn family, sweet tea drinking, and even some Bammer fans, and other SEC loving brethren).

One of the things I have loved about this summer is also one of the things that has been the hardest. Every team that comes in comes with a different specific type of mission be it VBS, Scientific talks, or Medical Missions. This has been trying because it is exhausting to prepare yourself mentally over and over again for different week long focuses. But if you know me at all, you know I love to dabble in everything I can so the fact that I have been able to basically go on 3 mission trips with 3 different goals has been wonderful for me. I love being able to test the waters of different short term mission trip focuses to see where I can potentially be the most useful in the future.

Gettting back on track now. This third team from the glory land "up south" was geared towards medical missions. The team was composed of thee doctors and members of their church. It was incredible to see their heart to serve here, the first meeting we had with them they began by telling us even though they are here for medical missions their main purpose is to glorify God in any way they can be it babysitting for the missionaries, doing construction, anything. Their heart of service was beautiful and very apparent.

We spend the first day in Casa de Gloria with the girls and their babies getting medical check-ups and advice on how to better care for themselves and their children. It was great spending a full day in Casa and loving and laughin with the babies and the mothers whose ages range from 13-18. These girls are beautiful and the transformation they undergo in the house is incredible. Every girl that has come to the house has become a Christian, Praise be to God! I love these girls and am learning so much from them.

The next three days we spent up in Manchi doing a medical clinic from 9-3/4ish. We rented out a house where a bus is parked in the nighttime. In this alleyway where the bus is parked we set up our stations: Triage, three consulation areas with the three doctors, the pharmacy, and then the evangelism center. Over the term of the three days we got to see over 250 people. I worked in the Pharmacy as their translator. When the patients would get done with their docotor they would come to us and I would ask them to sit and waut for us to fill their prescriptions. I would help count pills and sort them into bags and write directions on the bags along with the other two Pharmacy Tecs who were both Auburn Family! Then I would be handed all the meds and would call out the name on their paper and explain the pills: what they were for, how many to take, how many times a day, amd to keep them out of reach of small children. It was wonderful for my spanish but very strenous for my brain, to say the least. I had to explain problems ranging from womenly issues to worms to constipation to calcium, iron, and vitamin pills. Needless to say, my vocab grew this past week. It astounded me that every single patient we say had either parasites, worms, or both. It was heart breaking. After I explained the medicine I said we also had medicine for the soul with our pastors in the evangelism center and incredible almost every patient wanted to talk to the pastors. It was beautiful to watch their gratitude for the medicine to turn prasies to God or even learn about him for the first time. It was a beautiful week.

In Manchi it is very needing. The houses are humble abodes composed of plywood, cardboard, tarps, and metal. The streets are pure mud and the air is a continual fog of rain and smog. It was hard to see people live this way, and even harder to see their joy. The children in the clinic and the parents all were smiling, they were so grateful and warm to us and it was so humbling.

The team left yesterday and it was hard to see them go, I consider myself blessed to have spent time with them this past week in Manchi.

Team Two

Hello everyone! It has been a while since an update post, sorry to keep yall waiting I have been really busy with the second team here in Peru. Since my last update a lot has happened.

I discovered that the reason my laptop won't turn on is because it got rained on in my room from one of the holes in the roof. I didn't even realize this until the rain coming in one night woke me up and I saw the puddle; right beside where I charge things. I consider it a blessing that nothing else has been ruined, God is good! The rain ended up making Black Mold form on the walls and all under the carpet, I discovered this when I discovered the awful smell in my room was not my old socks and shoes but the strange new formations growing on the walls. I learned the word for mold in Spanish (Moho) and told Tula who graciously moved me into the room next-door on the roof. It does not have as many roof holes and is incredibly warmer and mold free, a tad smaller but as I said from the beginning I don't really need a huge room, I'm never really home anyways!

Moving onto the team: This second team was from Virginia and their mission in Peru was completely different from the VBS of the first team. This team was 11 people composed of Nuclear Physicists, Biologists, and Nasa Employees as well as their wives and children and fellow members of their church. They took their team to "Uni" (Universidad Nacional de Ingenieros) which is Peru's most prestigious Engineering College. At Uni they put on four "Charlas" (conferences/ talks) about different things ranging from CH4 production and it's effect on the atmosphere to NASA's ideas on Wing Morphing and Transformation. It was really cool because while I could barely understand these concepts in English, the students at the school just ate up all the talks and loved asking questions at the end. The last talk was on how the design of the Universe and everything in it proves our Universe has a designer (God) and how science itself points to this realization. This caused many awesome opportunities to talk with the students about God and the Gospel over lunch in the cafeteria and the next day when we rented out a restaurant close to the school to continue to discuss these important questions. At the restaurant Alex and I talked with two students about the Gospel, one who I will name Brayford did not believe in God, Heaven, or Hell and preferred to only live day to day and said maybe if he ever had a big problem in his life, he would turn to God but for now because there is no formula that proves tangibly God's existence, he choses to believe in nothing. Nihilism. We debated with him a long time and battled using the sword of Scripture and by the end of our talk he said after his final exams (this upcoming week) he would come to our church. The second person we talked to I will name Brusella. Brusella did not believe in the divinity of Christ. What she believed is he was a man who lived a beautiful perfect life for us to imitate, but when he died, he died and is not in Heaven right now on the right hand on our Lord and God full of life and pure power, pleading to the Father on our case as we enter coated in his blood. We debated with her and turned to the Gospel in Scripture found in Ephesians and John, and after a long conversation she said she too would come to our church after her finals. We prayed with Brayford and Brusella and then went with the team to dinner.

Yesterday we went to market and also down to the ocean to watch the surfers on the waves. In Peru there is not sand, just rocks. It was awesome to watch the surfers tear up the huge waves. I grabbed a handful of the rocks, they are composed of so many colors and while it is unlike any beach I've seen, this beach is absolutely beautiful. As the water touched my feet I was reminded of my past summer in Myrtle Beach, SC on LP and my night time walks on the beach singing "Jordan's Stormy Banks." To all my LP friends, I love and miss you all. I will be at Furman this upcoming year so we must meet up and yall ALL need to come to a football game at AU in the Fall!

Yesterday we also got to go to Peru's pyramids in the middle of the city, completely encroached upon by buildings but still absolutely beautiful. On the tour I met a man who was traveling alone around the world. He was from Germany so I told him I have family in Frankfurt and my Dad was born there. We talked a lot about Germany, USA, and Peru and also the Gospel. He was a Christian as well and it was encouraging to spur each other on. Thats what has been happening in my life, I only have a month and 2 days left here which is so crazy to me.

Mom and Dad and Leiron and Mimi and Pops and Uncle Houston and Cleo and Elvis and Charcoal I love and miss you all and can't wait to be at Rosies with yall when I get back! Anne, Lisa, Isabell, Kelly, Emily, Julia and Emily I miss hanging out on the mountain with yall, I love you all and can't wait to get back together. Landrum, Ruthie, Matt, Suzanne, Laura, Stephen, Michael, Olivia, Chelsea, Cameron, Quads, Spoons, Claire, Ian, Sasser, Jay, Mark, Ian, Jack, Susie, Cecil, Tay-Swift, Ashy, and any/everyone else that falls into the category of my AU people I love and miss you all and can't wait for this fall!

If you have any questions you'd like to know, just post a comment and ask!

Romans 15:13

-Chao, Cary

Mystery or Schedules

"Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is an overdevotion to reason. " -G. K. Chesterton

Strange quote to start updates with, but this past week I have not been able to get Chesterton´s words out of my head. I am currently digesting "Orthodoxy" by Chesterton and I am finding so much of his novel is mirrored with my experiences here in Lima. Insanity, when I think about it, is a box that people are either put into or put themselves into. It is caused from an overdevotion to details; perhaps and obsession with acumulation, power, prestige, money, fun, love, experience, or perhaps a chemical disbalance in one´s brain. Whatever the cause, once one enters this "box" of insanity there is little or no chance for escape.

In America I see so many people on the television, on campus, my friends, even some of my own actions that, if continued, would lead to this, "overdevotion of reason." To some around me it is blatently an accumulation of power through title, friends, weath, and even experiences that ensnare. Once one starts on the track of building up your own image at the sake of everything else, little can be done to kill that beast. Trying to be "somebody" only promotes the temptation to further your own image as a body, but the problem is you are a soul and attempting to further the image of body over soul is sin. "build yourself up and be somebody" is a lie the world feeds us from our high chairs as we watch Sesamee-Street until we transition to watching Wall Street.

In Peru, the church promotes the building up of each other in Unity found through our equally dirty hands, constantly washing ourselves in Christ´s blood.

When I ride the combi from place to place I find myselff overly stresed if I am running late, but in Peru the common joke is not to worry about the time the watch tells you because Peruvian´s run on "Peruano Time" aka give or take 30 minutes on each and every end. I found myself questioning why I was so obsessed with this idea of time and realized because if I am late in to something in the States, it is rarely understood as acceptable. It either inconviences someone or disrespects them because they value their name enough to project it´s power upon this alloted time slot. But here, if you are late it is really 100% ok. Insanity or Reason?

Imagination is one of the reasons I love being in Peru. The mystery the desolate mountain´s hold, the beauty in the cold smog at night, the adventure of every dangerous Combi ride. For me and for Peruvians, these things do not die.

Imagination frees oneself up to be ok with accepting that you can not do it all, that mysteries must exist because if they did not, God would not be as powerful as he claims. What kind of god would he be if we could unravel all his mysteries by a mere 4-year degree at a college? But, thankfully, they do exist and for that we must praise God! His mystery and wonder is what imagination stems from. If it come not from the unknown and thus the creator of the unknown, it is not imagination; It is reason deduced from classes and books and harsh experiences. Imagination is a gift.

I love the mystery of Peru and am learning more daily to be ok with the unknown. Not because it is unavoidable (though it is) but because all that does exist, God rules. When I return to the states, I must try harder to stray away from the temptation of overdevotion to reason and the insatiy it spawns.

Imagination is sanity, and the two are both only found in our Lord.