Things Americans have that most Peruvians seem to think are unnecessary

- Winshield wipers
- Pleain water to drink at a meal
- A funcional speedometer
- 2-ply napkins
- Defrost
- Fresh fruits and/or vegetables at a meal
- More than 2 nights without church activities
- A planner
- Disticition between the type of food eaten at breakfast, lunch, and dinner
- Using the piano sound when playing the keyboard
- Idle hands during worship at church
- A yard without chickens, pigs, and/or ducks

ADVENTure

our first christmas together

(warning: kat is longwinded) advent is typically known in the liturgical calendar as the four weeks prior to December 25. it is a season of anticipation and preparation for remembrance of Christ’s birth and is usually celebrated by readings and teachings that center on the second coming of Christ. this year, luke and I decided to prepare by focusing on a theme that fits our current situation: we have been reading the stories of ordinary people from the Bible that the Lord called away from their comfort zone and their life to a completely new place, so that He could use them to accomplish His will and also so that they could be taught. some of the characters we met were:
*jonah (jonah 1-3)
*the Israelites on their exodus from Egypt (exodus 12:31-exodus 16)
*abraham and his family (genesis 12-genesis 15)
*joseph when he was sold by his brothers (genesis 37-genesis 41)
*mary and joseph (luke 2:1-20)

through the stories of each of these people, I was amazed at the faithfulness with which each person did not hesitate, but rather was quick to obey and follow the Lord’s calling. luke and i are truly living into this advent story as we are on this journey. early last year, as soon as we were engaged, we took a leap of faith and bought plane tickets to quito, ecuador (before we had really even started to plan the wedding). we both felt a strong desire in our hearts to travel to South America, not knowing exactly what God had in store. some would say it was the holy spirit prompting us. there’s no way we could have ever predicted the experiences we have had up to this point. we both just knew we were being called to leave and so without hesitating, we left!

motokars, the main source of public transportation in pucallpa

in leaving and finding ourselves somewhere completely new, I am reminded that it is often in these spaces when we are away from all things known and comfortable that i become teachable. in these vulnerable moments where my focus is solely on God and my reliance upon Him, i can see clearly the things that my mind is normally too distracted to see.

in the church here, I have found myself in moments of discomfort, mainly caused by the fact that things are different than what I am used to or have experienced in my life. when I take a step back and observe, i can see beauty in the fact that my brothers and sisters here are without a doubt in love with the creator of the universe and that their lives are being affected in tangible ways by that relationship. God is moving here for sure! I am reminded of a verse I read while living in Nicaragua several years ago. Habakkuk 1:5 says, “Look around at the nations; look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.” the reality is that I probably wouldn’t have believed what God is doing here in Peru, and that is why I was brought here to see it in person. seeing God do big things reminds me that He is not the small idol I often tend to turn him into.

the luz divina church in pucallpa
part of our desire of spending time with the church here in Pucallpa was to have a community of believers with whom to celebrate Christmas. not until last week, however, did we realize that this particular church does not celebrate Christmas. everyone else in Pucallpa does, just not the church we have connected with. we would say “feliz navidad!” and they just smile at us politely. we have heard various explanations, the most common one being that nowhere in the Bible does it say that Jesus was born on December 25th, so how do we know to celebrate on this given day? on Christmas eve, there was a church business meeting and yesterday, on Christmas day, there was a church service, but Jesus was not mentioned by name- in regards to his birth or his life. rather, it was a prayer and worship service, typical to the one held each Saturday night.

making sugar cookies (note the PVC pipe we used for a rolling pin)

that being said, we were able to carry on some of our own Christmas traditions, such as making and decorating sugar cookies with some of the young people and handing out candy canes this morning in Sunday School. we have also been able to learn what a typical Peruvian family does to celebrate the season. during the week leading up the Christmas, there are “chocolatadas” held around the city, in which certain organizations, such as churches, hand out hot chocolate and panetonne- an Italian inspirited sweet bread filled with raisins and other candied fruit, donated by the government, to neighborhood children. most families prepare to eat ham for their Christmas dinner, and to do so, must kill a pig in preceding days. that being said, I witnessed my first butchering and am officially turned off any meat besides chicken. at midnight on Christmas eve, the town comes alive with the noise and lights of fireworks. children and adults of all ages can be found in the street lighting their shoddily made firecrackers, which generally are made of some gunpowder rolled in paper, with a fuse attached. the noise continues for at least an hour, making it impossible to sleep. also, consumerism is just as alive in Peru as it is in the United States. going downtown guarantees a glimpse of all the town rushing about to buy gifts that they don’t have money for and that their children don’t actually need. how have so many people lost touch with the reason that we are celebrating in the first place?

luke with his afternoon soccer club

when luke and I first arrived in Pucallpa, we came with ideas of volunteering and giving of our time. as it turns out, we have been giving more of ourselves through relationships with the people we have met. luke enjoys passing his afternoons playing soccer with the neighborhood boys, teaching rock, paper, scissors, and giving drum lessons to young people at church. i have bonded with many of the young ladies here who are all on vacation now, and we spend our time trying to speak in each other’s languages, and me learning how to make the killer fruit juices we are treated to here. we are putting into practice what paul writes in romans 12:16 “don’t be afraid to enjoy the company of ordinary people.” we are observing faith in action. we have been able to visit many of the satellite churches in the area and share a testimony of the ways we have seen God in our lives on our trip. we have both felt a strong personal desire to listen to God and grow in our relationships with him, both individually and together as a married couple.

we leave this Thursday to head to lima, where we will see a few more sights in peru, before heading through chile, argentina, and uruguay to arrive in paraguay, hopefully mid-february to spend time with luke’s family there. we will take with us fond memories of our time here and the brothers and sisters in Christ that we met. we will also leave challenged to act on the things that we have seen and encouraged by the fact that our Messiah is indeed ALIVE!

Shout for joy!

(via luke) This month we will spend more time in church than we will spend all next year at Imago Dei. We have landed in the town of Pucallpa, in the Amazon jungle of Peru with the church of Luz Divina (church services Tue, Thu, Sat, Sun AM, Sun PM, Potluck Wed). Months ago we contacted Jennifer Harris, a missionary from Salem who has lived here for the last 10 years. Before meeting us, she welcomed us to stay in the church apartment, and let us know that there are constant projects happening in town if we wanted to volunteer. (http://www.jensjungleministry.org/) We decided to spend the month of December here, and quite a blessing it has been. Here is an account of the ways we have seen God in the last few weeks.

Psalm 66
Shout for joy to God, all the earth!
Sing the glory of his name;
make his praise glorious.
Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!
So great is your power
that your enemies cringe before you.
All the earth bows down to you;
they sing praise to you,
they sing the praises of your name.”
Come and see what God has done,
his awesome deeds for mankind!

Before arriving in Pucallpa, we stayed with Pastor Juan Bautista in Huánuco, a town that claims the best weather in the world (we’re not convinced). His family’s hospitality was incredible, and the first night when we went to church with them (they had us preach in Spanish), the church presented us with gifts and they all lined up to greet us. In Huánuco we were able to share stories, games and cultures with youth and kids that flocked around the house. They were incredibly grateful that we would care to visit them and their town, and treated us like royalty.

Someone has to be the net

One day our children will look just like these!

Upon arriving in Pucallpa, we were immediately invited to go farther into the jungle to a farm. Before we knew it we jumped in a fully loaded truck, then a boat, and arrived as fresh food for the mosquitos and other bugs.



The grand event was a church anniversary celebration farther up the river in a small town. The next day, we traveled another 3 hours in a boat and were welcomed warmly with big bowl of chucky beef stew. Those living here are not the loin cloth, bow and arrow type Indians that we have seen in movies, but the living conditions are rustic. The church celebration included several church services, kids time with the American gringos, a wedding (small and simple), a 2 am meal followed by church until 5 am. After the church service/wedding, we were invited up as special guests to say some words to the church. After that, we stood with the bride and groom to be greeted in the greeting line, and we all ate cake that was both accredited to the wedding and my birthday. The overwhelming kindness and hospitality have been incredible, but sometimes I wish we could just blend in a little more.


Us with the happy couple

The first nights of our stay in Pucallpa were spent in the wonderful “Hermana Ana’s” house. Because the status of our bowel movements were not quite normal, the outhouse provided felt particularly uncomfortable. On top of that, 90 degree weather plus 80% humidity, bug bites, and no fan made for a hard night’s sleep. What I learned about hospitality from Hermana Ana is that true hospitality is extended without reservation and is not self-conscious or apologetic. She said “what I offer is simple but given with great love” and extended what she had to us with great love, no matter how humble her living circumstance are. Lesson learned: no excuse for withholding hospitality.

Eating on the farm in the jungle is a very different experience. The idea of a supermarket makes no sense to them. They rely on the provision of God through what food is in season or what animal they can kill. They eat lots of meat, but they kill it and cook it all themselves, and every woman knows how to gut a pig, chicken, fish, or monkey in 2 minutes flat. God does provide for them, and in turn they are generous with his provisions.

Pork for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

From the Peruvians here, we send authentic greetings to our brothers and sisters in Christ! Be encouraged! And remember, this Christmas live a little different. Worship more. Spend less. Give fully. Love all.

machu picchu.

when we pause for a moment and think about our lives, it is not hard to think about all the blessings that we have in our lives. there are all the obvious ones that i have spouted off in the past years like friends, family, and health. this thanksgiving, i found myself thankful to be without a job (so that i could be here on this trip), thankful for the hug of a mother (who travelled from countries away to visit) and thankful for a spouse with whom i am blessed to grow, learn and adventure with. thankgsiving this year found us not where it has in years past, sitting around the table overflowing with great food and even better company, but rather, at just about the time most people in the states were probably going for their second piece of pumpkin pie, we were huffing and puffing our way up to the top of machu picchu, one of peru's most visited tourist destinations.

my mom, deciding to cross yet one more thing off her bucket list, ventured to peru two weeks ago to see what we were really up to down here. meeting her in lima was just the start to a very adventurous week in which i'm pretty sure we saw and did more than i think luke and i had done in the previous two months. we were treated to a flight to cusco (rather than spending 24 hours on a bus), where we set up camp for seeing the sacred valley, a lush and fertile valley, and LOTS of incan ruins. after a few days, we took the train to the town of aguas calientes (at the base of Machu Picchu). we went to the (not so hot) hot springs for a soak. the highlight of the trip was taking the bus up to the park, on a windy switchback road. there, we joined the throngs of tourists we had come from around the world to see one of the seven man made wonders of the world. finally, we arrived at what felt like the top of the world. we spent a whole day exploring around this lost city of the incas, learning what life was like back then. it was unreal to be standing on top of the hillside with the whole stone city below. my mom is a trooper for getting to the top and i admire her persistency!

after machu picchu, we headed back to lima for a few days to discover the city there. before we knew it, we were sending here off back to the states. what a quick trip, but it was wonderful to have a touch of home here with us to remind us of all those who love us, those we miss, and all we are thankful for at home. we hope that you find reason to be grateful in each day we are blessed with! want to see more pics? check out my mom's facebook album by clicking here.

the cordillera blanca

(from luke) Greetings from the rainy season in Huaraz Peru, at the base of the Cordillera Blanca, mountains I never knew existed. This is the ¨tallest tropical mountain range in the world¨ (whatever that means). we did find that climbing to a lake at 14,600 feet above sea level gets your heart going. The weeks were spent camping at various lodges at the base of the mountains, so that we could feel really rustic (and cheap) but still have the luxury to go inside whenever we wanted. No words really describe the sights that you see in any mountains- when the clouds clear to a huge peak or the bend of a path gives you a clear view of a new waterfall cascading down the rock face. We have been enjoying the beauty and the simplicity of camping and hiking for several weeks. No words or pictures can really portray nature, but we will give you a few here to look at. Next week: Kats mom arrives and we travel to Cuzco, Macchu Pichu, and the Sacred Valley! Happy thanksgiving! Hope you find yourself with plenty to be thankful for, much as we are. (ex: new baby niece, new sights to see, a new marriage and a chance to see family!)


Laguna 69 at 4650m


A waterfall we found on the way to Laguna 69


Valley of Quillcayhuanca




our mobile home

beach or mountains... why choose when you can have both?

(kat´s ramblings)
when thinking about where to go on a honeymoon, luke and i pondered some of our favorite ways to enjoy nature. the beach, a river, the mountains. and now that we are actually on our trip, turns out we haven´t had to choose, but rather have been able to enjoy all of the above! since our arrival to peru, we passed through the less traveled northern parts of peru on our way to the beach. i was having a bit of a sore tummy, so we basically bummed around the beach called Huanchaco for a week. we enjoyed falling asleep to the sounds of crashing waves from the comfort of our tent, drinking lots of mate while marvelling at the beauty of the waves, and eating lots of fresh mangoes (which are currently costing about $1 for 6 or 7 mangoes). we explored some ancient ruins of the Moche people, took our first night bus, and landed in Huaraz, the gateway city to exploring the Cordillera Blanca (some of the tallest mountains in South America). from our base at a lodge way up in the hills, we have been able to be amazed day after day by the stunning, jagged, snow covered peaks poking out from behind the andes. taking walks into valleys and following winding rivers, climbing up ridges to glacial lakes, and enjoying the daily light show that is sunset in the mountains, we have been so blessed to see the creativity of our heavenly father. we are now back in huaraz before heading up north to enjoy more of the cordillera before my mom gets here in one week to enjoy thanksgiving and machu picchu with us!


little fishing boats called caballitos in huanchaco made out of totora reeds

since being in peru a few weeks, we have noticed a few differences from life in ecuador. sure, there are the obvious things like the currency, the increased amount of quechua (an indigenous language spoken by people who live up in the mountains) that is heard, and the food. but there are also some more subtle differences and one of them would have to be the fact that peruvians are always willing to stop whatever they are doing to engage in a conversation with us- to tell us about their country and ask us about ours. i could write for hours about peruvian culture and how we have experienced it, but want to tell you about two different times in which we felt this particular friendliness of peruvians.

1. we had just arrived in the city of trujillo, peru on the coast and were ready to begin our exploration of the city. armed with our dinky map that the lonely planet guide book gives us and barely legible street signs, we headed towards the plaza de armas (the main square). in our wanderings, we landed in a plaza that was full of girls all dressed in school uniforms and a few in elaborate costumes. we realized we must have made a wrong turn and just as we were about to turn around to fix our mistake, luke was being pulled on both arms by pre-teen girls that were guiding him towards what seemed to be a display of sorts. in spanish, all the girls soon crowded around and encouraged the gringo to try a variety of food dishes prepared with camote (sweet potato). they asked us about where we were from and what we eat, and a myriad of other questions, the whole time giggling every time luke would try a new food. after we tried all the dishes, several gals took pictures of us with their group. as we left, we asked them to point us in the correct direction and we walked off, chuckling to ourselves at the novelty of being extranjeros and they were all beside themselves that they have succeeded not only in getting someone to check out their display, but the fact that we were americans to boot!




2. a few days later also in trujillo, we were headed back to the city after exploring some ancient ruins. we landed in the plaza de armas (that we were looking for a few days before) and decided to sit and enjoy some terere to kill time because the power was out in the whole city, meaning that we would not be able to get money from any ATM (a few restaurants had generators, but not the banks. go figure) the power was supposed to come back on at five (or at least we were told that by everyone we asked), so we just chilled and people watched. soon enough, a japanese man we had met on our tour of the ruins showed up and we started chatting with him. he generously shared some tomatoes with us that he had just got from some farmers and before we knew it, there were three children who timidly came up and started questioning us about why we were eating tomatoes plain, and not with anything else. these simple questions led to more and more and before i knew it, i was busy talking to these children about any and everything that has to do with life in the US. boy, was i thankful to have a little photo book of our life to share with them! distracted as i was by these children, i didn´t even notice the crowd begin to gather around luke. soon, there were 15-20 adults talking to him! (imagine that we are literally just sitting on the curb and everyone else is standing up around us). luke starts showing our postcard book of oregon, and explaining the guampa and bombilla for mate, our buckets, and anything else that pops into these curious people´s minds. an hour passes. SEVERAL people wander over and ask ¨¿que venden aqui?¨ (what are you selling?) we just had to laugh. we were selling nothing, but rather just sharing about us and our lives and that was enough to entertain people who chose to listen to us on a sunday afternoon in the plaza. we finally excused ourselves, not wanting the crowd to grow any bigger.


from both of those experiences, we learned to always take a genuine interest in the lives of the people we come across, although it´s something that we´re still working on and will be for awhile. we also learned that everytime we get ¨lost¨, we end up finding something that is much more memorable than what we set out to find in the first place!

as each day comes and goes, we cannot help but be incredibly grateful for all of our friends and families that gave us the gift of this trip. we are having ordinary and extraordinary experiences daily that are allowing us to experience a new place, practice our spanish and grow our love for the latin american culture, and get to know each other more and more, while learning how we work together and can grow as a couple. for that, we say MUCHISIMAS GRACIAS! we think of you all often.

Dirt Roads

(from luke's perspective)
We made it to Peru! We took quite a few modes of transport to get here, mainly because we decided to take the dirt roads: the ones that sometimes don't show up on the maps we have. The route began in Vilcabamba Ecuador, headed south in the back of a few pick-up trucks, then onto a bus-that-used-to-be-a-Pepsi-delivery-truck, then across the border to a shared taxi, on to another shared taxi, into a moto taxi, then a big van, and a bus, and a few more busses, i think. The main pass through the Andes was on a road that took us 200 kilometers in about, uh, 9 hours. Every corner that the bus went around was preceded by a loud honk, the kind that says "i'm coming around the corner, and there is not enough room for you" (whether a car, animal, or person). One lane, no guard rail, and some tremendous sights out the window. We have now ended in the town of Huanchaco- a beach town in the Peruvian desert after crossing mountains, hiking to Gocta waterfalls (770 meters tall), wandering markets, and eating our fair share of mangos (just now coming into season) and avocados.



Gocta Falls, Peru

We have learned that when taking the dirt roads, a different side of a country shows. These were the places that have always been less accessible and visible to the tourists. We are reminded of the way that many areas of the world live- their poverty and hurt unseen. Whether it was a 7 year old shoe shiner, asking for money for his brother with cephalitis, or the grandma begging for change, or the brothers selling Chicle in the Chinese restauraunt, looking over the large platters of food; hurt can't be ignored. They have asked for money for so long that their request is mumbled- they instead ask with their eyes. Part of me wants to "play God" for a while- give all the money I have away, because it's tiring to be the privileged ones, no matter where we go. But I won't do that. I am comforted to know that the good news of Jesus is that he is there in the suffering of his family and he doesn't ask us to carry that burden.

For me, I think a better start is to experience it and let my heart be changed, then let my heart lead my actions. The greatest problem might be that we so easily insulate ourselves away from the pain that goes on everywhere around us. For some strange reason, Kat and I have the chance to be Bohemians Benditos- blessed to roam around for a time and take the beauty and the pain in with open eyes- to let both impact us. We will continue with open eyes here as we travel. We look for dirt roads to take us to places that have many stories and experiences to show us. We will allow our hearts to be impacted, and we will be changed.


the road, etched into the mountain side, near Chachapoyas, Peru