Well, to continue the fun adventures here in the Andes, we decided to have Christmas in June. Remember being in GAs and sending things to the missionaries for Christmas in August? Well, we couldn´t wait that long. So we had a mini Christmas last night.
Saturdays are our rest days here, so we had planned to take yesterday and go visit Suasi Island out in the lake. We heard it is really pretty. There is a huge resort there where it is $350 per night, per person. We just wanted to ride the boat over there and explore. Turns out you can´t go over there without staying there. The lady was very nice and told us it was only $350 to stay... We declined. So, long story short, the Jeremys and Alison and Kelsey went hiking in the morning to gather firewood. Then we all had lunch together. Then the same group went out hiking again. Emily, Sara and I stayed at the house. I was able to spend a lot of time journaling and reading, which was really nice. At 3pm Jeremy and Alison had promised some kids we would play soccer with them. At 3pm the hiking group wasn´t back so Emily and I went out in search of some kids we had never seen and didn´t know where to meet. After a while, we finally found them and they led us to the cool hidden makeshift soccer field on a hill in a backyard. They had goals made out of big sticks stuck in the ground with one across the top to make a pretty legit goal. We definitely learned that soccer will take everything out of you. After just a few minutes of playing on a small field Emily and I were both sucking air and needing to sit down. Soon Jeremy and Alison joined us and we played a bigger game. Luckily the ball went rolling down the hill quite often, so we had a good number of chances to catch our breath. Alison and the Peruvian boys ended up beating the rest of us by 1 pt. After that we headed back so supper could get started. We had chicken burritos-fajitas with guacamole. It´s definitely my favorite meal here. Jeremy and I made almost the same thing, just without the guacamole, a week ago. It´s so good. We´re hoping to get tortilla chips from John and Sonia courtesy of their special shopping trip. You can´t find them most places here. Anyway, while dinner was cooking, Kelsey made no-bake cookies and Jeremy made apple cider. So, after dinner we all went upstairs, started a fire, and ate cookies and drank cider. Then Jeremy L. got out the guitar and played some songs, which soon turned into Christmas songs, because it just felt like that kind of night. It was so much fun. We even sang Feliz Navidad, a family favorite. It was a great relaxing night. I felt like we were missionaries stuck in Peru for Christmas, unable to make it home, so we were all celebrating together. Kelsey wasn´t initially crazy about the Christmas-ness, but she said she would be on board if we went all out. So, the last Saturday we are here, July 24th, we are planning on having a full out Christmas party, complete with reading the Christmas story. It´s nice having fun group things to do together to relax.
Today is cleaning day, so we spent the morning sweeping, mopping and cleaning bathrooms. It didn´t take much time at all. All that is left is any personal laundry we want to do. We have found that Sophia´s store has pretty much everything we need, so we don´t have to do much market shopping like we had thought. Jeremy L., Sara and Kelsey went to the medical clinic to help out for part of the day. Hopefully they are having a good time and are useful to the medical staff. Kelsey is a nursing student and Sara will be starting medical school in the fall.
Friday night we all got together after dinner and shared our stories with each other. It is impressive the memory capacity some of us have for memorizing stories in a foreign language. Jeremy L. was also there to share his story. I have still been struggling with memorizing my story. I have the first page down, but it is the longest so there are 2.5 left. I am actually thinking and praying about switching to the next story in line, the 10 Commandments. Emily and Jeremy L. have both also memorized the Creation Story, so hopefully they will be able to cover it. I just don´t want to waste the next 3 weeks trying to struggle with this one story. The 10 Commandments is shorter and I think I could memorize it faster than I could finish Creation. We will see whether that´s what I end up doing. Pray my memory ability expands! Also pray for the stories that will be shared this week.
I think that´s all the exciting news for now. We have been having really good worship times together in the mornings. We are going through Philippians and sharing about what God has been teaching us. Overall health has been pretty good lately. Trash day is tomorrow, hallelujah! We missed last week because we didn´t know when the truck came, so we have a collection of bags in our garage. In other good news, people seemed to have sobered up after the fiesta this week. I think that is all the good news to share for now. Thanks for your interest and prayers!
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