Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The highly anticipated week has already flown by






Yesterday morning I put Jason on a plane at 4:30am and hopped an 8:00am bus to make the trip back to Tarma. Fortunately I didn’t have to make the trip alone as Jim Panaggio, one of the ReachGlobal missionaries in Lima, was planning on spending a few days in Tarma with the team. The trip felt longer than normal, but we actually arrived in good time. I was exhausted from not having slept the night before and from having another emotional goodbye at the airport. As much as I am glad to be here in Peru doing what I am doing, it is rather difficult trying to do the long-distance relationship thing alongside :) My time with Jason was wonderful and we were able to do a lot of fun things together, most of which centered around eating! We made the trip to Tarma together where he was finally able to meet my team, and we spent Thanksgiving day together. Thanks to a few people from home, we were able to put a delicious and traditional Thanksgiving meal on the table. Meredith impressed us all by cooking a golden 12lb turkey, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, and the rest of us helped out with the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans and pie. Jason and I spent some time touring the city and meeting the people from our neighborhood and bible studies. Jason really made an impression on a group of youngsters at the bus station due to his rather large frame! The rest of our time was spent in Lima, which included a birthday celebration on the ocean, and a typical Peruvian church service. The time went too fast, but I suppose that was to be expected. Jason made the trip home okay, and now we will be finishing out the year doing what we’ve gotten so good at doing: email!
As for me, I am back in full swing with my team finishing up the Christmas bible studies and planning a final Celebration Night to finish off the study. It is going to be on the 15th of December which will mark the end of our trial run of small groups. We will then spend the week of Christmas and New Year’s in Lima, and come back at the start of January to begin our second round of ministry.
The strangest part about it being December is that it is getting warmer, not colder! We may even spend a day or two at the beach! Who would have thought that a Peruvian Christmas would involve drinking hot chocolate on the beach!

1 comment:

JEM said...

What beautiful pictures! I will email soon...just want you to know I'm praying for you when my mind takes a rest from the law! What a tall man you date!