These Strange Ashes

Since I’ve been home the number one question that people have asked me is, “What are you going to do now?” Big question. I have no idea. I have been stateside for three weeks now and have been up and down emotionally as I am working through the highs and lows of transitioning out of an intense season of life and returning “home” to the familiar. How does one end one season of life and start up a new one without spending time reflecting over the experiences, the emotions and the spiritual lessons? This is where I am now, stuck in between the ending of one season and the beginning of another. Where does one even begin to start processing through all that I’ve experienced in the last two years away from home?
Several months ago my parents mailed me a book they thought would be helpful for me to read as I entered this period of transition, and I’ll admit that it has been a helpful resource over these past three weeks. The book is entitled “These Strange Ashes” and is the account of Elisabeth Elliot’s first year of missionary life in the jungle of Ecuador. I have found comfort reading her honest words about the struggles and the guilt and the expectations laid out for the missionary life. It is intriguing to me that while I was in a different part of the same continent, in a different time and doing a different work, that we experienced some of the same challenges in the day-today life, some of the same spiritual lessons, and the same division of the heart. Elliot writes,
“It is hard for a young person with high ideals to learn that people cannot be hustled. They cannot be hustled into the kingdom of God, and it is well to remember Christ’s own descriptions of that kingdom: leaven and seed, things that work slowly and out of sight. We long for visible evidence of our effectiveness, and when it is not forthcoming, we are tempted to conclude that our efforts had nothing to do with the kingdom.” (p.135, “These Strange Ashes”)
I spent the majority of the two years I spent away from home, working in areas where I am not gifted. Starting a ministry from scratch is a difficult feat in and of itself, and we were a small team. For someone who feels the passion of the Lord rising up within her as she teaches and disciples young women to know and understand the word of God better, it was a long and emotionless season of ministry sowing the seeds of evangelism and not be able to “hustle” the people along to the stage of discipleship. So having left the ministry without discipling a single person, (at least discipling as we understand it to be) it is easy to then conclude that my efforts to serve the Lord were somehow in vain. My biggest fear is that God had no other purpose for me in these two years other than “obedience for the sake of obedience”. That all he wanted from me was to do this because He said to do it. As I sit here and process and I ask God the meaning of it all, I fear that I will receive no other answer, no other explanation that will give purpose to all of the trials and hardships that I endured while being a missionary. As I read through Elliot’s own experiences and trials I connected with her in her honesty of not loving the work that she was doing. She explains that it was not hard at the end of her term to leave the region she worked in during her first year of ministry;
“It was not hard to accept, and to leave the big, gloomy thatched house in San Miguel with its admixture of memories – the births, deaths, struggles, failures, losses and all the days and weeks of common, ordinary missionary life when I accomplished nothing visible or tangible, when I often wasted time and wished I were elsewhere and allowed my thoughts to go off in all directions except where they belonged.” (p.143, “These Strange Ashes)
I’m embarrassed to admit that I spent a good deal of my time in Peru wishing I were home, wanting to be doing other things that would seem to give more real sense of accomplishment. I worked out of obedience, but not out of love, and not out of desire to “save the world for Jesus”. Does that make me less of a missionary? I’m not so sure. When I think back to Jesus’ teachings and all the times he said, “If you love me, then obey my commands”. I’ve come to understand that I can love the Lord with my obedience just as well as I can love him with my words and my actions.
So now, three weeks into being home I continue to spend time thinking through all I’ve experienced, praying that God will speak to me during this time of transition and give me purpose now that I am home.
As for me and this blog? Well, now seems like a good time to wrap it all up. I’ve appreciated this outlet to help me share what I couldn’t take the time or space to share in my newsletters. So thank you to all of you who took the time to read it, and cared enough to share in this experience with me.
Most sincerely,
Bethany

When all is said and all is done

After approximately 750 away from home, I have made it to my final day in Peru. What a strange feeling to be at the end of this big adventure and to be saying goodbye to everyone I have come to appreciate here. This past week in Lima has been filled with lunches and dinners with friends, birthday parties and sightseeing. My roommates wanted to take me to the Park of Magical Waters – or a huge part with huge fountains, and I won’t lie it was impressive. We made stops throughout the week at my favorite restaurants and I’ve tried to make it through all of my favorite Peruvian dishes. Friday night I had my second going-away party, but this time it was just with the ADIEL pastors and their families. It was a lovely night of delicious desserts, laughter and good conversation. The pastors took time to pray over me, thanking God for my time here in Peru and praying over the new season of life that I will soon be entering. We joked, played games, said our goodbyes and that was that.

This morning I went to my last church service at La Vina del Senor, and after enjoyed a nice lunch out with my roommates. It’s a gray day in Lima and while I am tired from swimming in details and coordinating lunches and dinners and birthday parties, I’m very content with this last week in Peru.
For now my bags are packed (mostly) and my goodbyes said (almost) and now I just have one more evening ahead of me. How will I be spending my final hours you ask? I’m going to the Peruvian Circus! My roommate Elly is taking me to a Peru-style Cirque du Solei show in downtown Lima. Not a bad way to end the day! The show is called something I can’t pronounce and is based on Peruvian culture and history. Elly and I will be going alone as Meredith and Raquel are on their way to Chincha to help with a medical missions team from the states that is helping out one of the ADIEL churches here. So tonight it is just the two of us. Well I’ve only got about an hour to finish up my packing and get myself down to the circus tent, and then I’ll finally get to start the long trip home. Tomorrow morning a taxi is coming to pick me up at 4:00am to take me to the airport. My flight leaves at 7:00 and will take me to Miami, where I will go through customs, and then on to Dallas. Oh joy for international travel. I would love prayer as I travel tomorrow, that there will be no trouble checking my bags, or that they simply won’t get lost, that there won’t be trouble going through customs and that I will have a save flight. I’m so excited to be seeing you all soon. (and sorry about the lack of pictures recently, out internet in Lima has been a little funky. I'll post some pics once I get back state side)

Birthdays Celebrated and Lessons Learned

I suppose it’s inevitable when you get to the end of a season of life not to look back and notice all the things you wish you’d done differently. We go through life learning, making mistakes, becoming better people because of those mistakes, but that doesn’t help relieve the pain those mistakes caused. Such is life. As I finish this season of living overseas I can’t help but to take a mental catalogue of my two years and see the mistakes I made, choices and attitudes, successes and failures. I wonder how many wasted opportunities to make friends, practice my Spanish, or simply love someone well are part of these two years. Why is it that when we find ourselves in a situation where we can chose the comfortable route or the needed route, we so often chose what is comfortable?
I celebrated my 25th birthday this past Sunday, and since it was also my last day in Tarma, my birthday was paired with my despedida (going-away party). It was a lovely evening of seeing friends and contacts one last time, laughing and enjoying food together. I was humbled by the number of people who showed up to tell me goodbye. People that I’ve spent these past years trying to encourage to read the Bible, learn to love Jesus, and participate in our ministry. People whom I taught English to, and who have taught me Spanish, people with whom I lived my life in Tarma. I was humbled because as all these people took their turn telling me goodbye I realized how I had failed to love them well. I can justify my overall attitude and behavior in Peru by the circumstances that brought me here and the circumstances that divided my attention between my life here and my life at home, but in the end, aren’t the strong of heart expected to go above and beyond their circumstances? I wonder if I just accepted them and managed to live as best I could with them. I said goodbye to Tarma thinking about my list of things I would have done differently. On the top of that list would be to have invested myself and loved these people more. I’m sure I loved them fine, and sufficiently, but I could have loved them better, dying to self and loving them in a way that no one else has loved them.
So what do you do when you end a season of life with a long list of regrets? I suppose you tack that list to your mental bulletin board and vow to learn from your mistakes and make your future better because of them. I suppose at this point, 5 days away from returning to my own home and own culture, that is all that I can do.

Before & After / Old Rooms & New Rooms

With only 2 weeks to go, almost.

Come Monday, I will be down to my last two weeks in Peru. One week will be spent in Tarma helping my team with a week of summer workshops, and one week in Lima wrapping up legal ends (terminating my visa, paperwork etc.) and saying goodbye to the pastors of the ADIEL and the other ReachGlobal families. It has definitely been an interesting process to “transition out” of responsibilities, routines, and bedrooms. Wait, bedrooms? Yes, one of my goals before leaving Peru was to move completely out of my bedroom, and help Elsa move in. My room is a little bigger than hers, so it would make sense for her to have it once I’m gone. But I thought, why not take advantage of the “manpower” that is here and make the switch before I’m gone. So this week was spent swapping bedrooms, and then I began the work of turning Elsa’s old bedroom into the team’s new ministry supply room. Having sold my bed to some friends in town, I have been sleeping in a sleeping bag on a mat on the floor that I roll up each morning to continue the work of organizing the new room. We have several boxes of items that we have not seen since moving to Tarma last year, so this has been a great opportunity to downsize the general “stuff” that is around our house, and make an accurate log of the ministry supplies that we have to work with. This has been a fun project for me for several reasons. One, moving out of my bedroom was a large step towards making my way home, and transitioning out of my life in Tarma. Two, I love to organize things. When I was a little girl I would go to the grocery store with my mom, sit on a couple of packages of toilet paper and organize the shopping cart. So I guess I’m destined to organize things. I also love to get rid of stuff, whether it be throwing it out, giving it away or selling it. I love to downsize, and initiate the “less is more” policy whenever possible. I hope to wrap up the store room project this weekend and move on to our week of workshops before finishing out the week with my birthday/going-away-party. More to come on that front in a few days.

Happy New Year . . . 3 days early

Since the time-honored tradition of making resolutions for the approaching new year is upon us, I figure I’ll try to get a jump on the sentimental moments and start hashing out what summed up 2010, and what I promise-to-myself-that-I-will-do-no-matter-what in 2011.

2010This was a year of all things unfamiliar. It was a year of firsts, a year of overcoming insecurities, fears and doubts and a year of having to depend more upon God than I’ve ever had to do in the past. This was a year of changing relationship and learning how to deal with that change. This year I, among other things,taught 96 English classes, traveled between Tarma and Lima 7 times, got sick twice, helped receive 3 short-term teams, learned how to cook Peruvian food, marched in my first parade, and taught a workshop in Spanish to educated adults, owned my first pet (Pacha), and lived in a land where yes means no and birthdays are about more sacred than life itself. It was a busy year full of ups and downs and in the end I had to work hard to get through this year. I praise God for giving me strength for each day and for remaining faithful to me as I try to remain obedient to him. So with all the pleasure in the world I say out with the old . . .

2011By this time next year I will be turning 26, I will have been married for 6 months, and I will hopefully have a job doing something that I will hopefully enjoy. I could be living in an apartment or a duplex or a house, and I will most likely be enjoying the small aspects of life such as, carpet, instant hot water, bathtubs, Subway, the change of seasons, and the ability to nest (as in stay in one place for a long time, not actually build a nest). In 2011 I would like to see myself using my Spanish on a regular basis in some form, I would like to have an idea about what I might like to “do” long-term and have started the process of making that career happen. I would like to take each day as it comes and never end a day without thanking God for his blessings. I want to learn how to cook a turkey and how to tile a bathroom. And if possible, I want to take a vacation to Boston, a city I’ve never been to. I suppose I ought to include the self-help goals of losing weight and working on character flaws and such, but really I figure God is in charge of molding me and shaping me so I’m more or less content to sit back and allow him to make me better than I am.

So out goes one year in comes another, and as I sit here and joke about our traditions and obsessions with the new year, I reflect on the consistency of God’s grace and faithfulness, how he has taken care of us and brought us through another year of life on this earth. May we all glorify him more, serve him better, and reflect his love more fully in the year that comes.
God Bless,
Bethany

How does God call people to give their lives in missions?

John Piper says, “He does it, along with other influences, by the mysterious and wonderful awakening of fear-conquering desire for the work through the preaching of his word. He does it by helping us count the costs so there is no romantic naiveté about missions. And he does it by filling us with a longing to know these blessings to the full”. I would say that this is an accurate description of how God moves in the heart and draws people to the special calling of missions. I would also say that this is how God moved me so many years ago, first through the ministry in Mexico, later in Argentina and ultimately in my sorority in college. All “foreign” lands, all needing the love and truth of God and His word.
I was recalling this morning my commissioning the Sunday before I left home to give two years of my life to this calling, when I was asked, “Why do this? Why give two years of your life to this work?” I remember my response clearly – that beyond God moving circumstances and drawing me to this ministry, the greatest reason was that 60 years from now I didn’t want to look back on my life and wish I had done more. I used to be passionate, full of vision and possibility, not thinking about the risks but of the blessings. Maybe my response to Brian’s question two years ago was cliché, but it was true in my heart.
Now with only five weeks remaining in Peru I look back over my time and can’t help but to reflect and give an account of the two years I’ve spent in this church-planting ministry. Someone asked me once not long ago to describe in a nutshell my time in Peru. And as I thought about the question and gave my response, I couldn’t help but feel a bit discouraged at how I summed up my time here.
My missions experience in Peru has been passionless obedience, for the sake of obedience, to God’s call and God’s design on my life.
Where did that wide-eyed, passionate and visionary little girl go? Deep down I believe she is still there, but why did she leave me when I most wanted her to be present? As I think over my time here I have to admit that I am somewhat ashamed of my selfish grumblings and negative attitude driven mainly by dissatisfaction with where I am now that my formal ministry responsibilities have ended. I’m tired, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually and when it comes down to it, I just don’t want to be here anymore. How’s that for a super un-spiritual confession?

This morning I listened to a sermon by John Piper entitled “I Am Sending You Out as Sheep in the Midst of Wolves”. He preached on the passage of Matthew 10:16-31, and addresses the dangers, and the blessings of living out a calling to frontier missions. As he spoke and dissected the passage, as the blessings greatly outweighed the dangers I was convicted of my selfishness and lack of desire to be here. He notes that the first blessing is “The Blessing of Being Sent by Christ” – what a great privilege to be called by Christ and sent by Him to do a good work. What a great privilege. How must Christ feel by my dissatisfaction of this great privilege?
I was speaking to my mom the other day and was struck when she reminded me that God’s timing always has purpose, that there is always reason behind when we leave and when we come home. She was right, and I needed to be reminded of that. I have five weeks left and I now am faced with a choice to continue living these last days grumbling about how I would rather be home with my family, friends and fiancé for Christmas, or I can remember the blessings of being here, I can pray with all my might that God would reignite the passion I once felt for missions and I can move forward in forgiveness and grace remember that God has reason behind His timing.
I humbly ask for your prayers in these final weeks that I would choose to be “the better man”, and press on in spite of missing my loved ones during the holidays, in spite of being tired, and in spite of feeling unworthy to be here. Pray that I would take every opportunity to share the love of Christ with those I am around and that I would not waste a single minute that I remain a missionary of Jesus Christ.

Christmas Celebration

This past Monday night the ADIEL Tarma team (my team) hosted our end-of-the-year Christmas Celebration to end the “official” Bible studies for the year 2010. It was the best turnout that we’ve had all year with a grand total of 59 people in attendance. We held the event at Chavin, a local restaurant where we have given studies this year with the owner and her family. We played some games, sang Christmas carols, a sketch, testimonies and a short wrap up of our studies on forgiveness at Christmas. We celebrated with paneton and hot chocolate, the typical Christmas food of Peru, and welcomed several guests who have never attended any of our events before. We as a team are very satisfied with the turnout and the event in general, and it was a great way to end our official ministry for the year.
So what now you might ask? Well, Meredith and Julio are taking some vacation time this month, which leaves Elsa and me to visit contacts, invite people over for lonche, and celebrate the season together. While the official ministry is done for the year, we are no means done with personal ministry, unofficial bible studies and discipleship. We are also making plans for the 2011 calendar year and already have another University Internship week planned for the second week in January, this time opening up the week to both university students and adults. So we keep plugging away!

The Biggest Surprise of My Life!

Boy does good news travel fast! Even though most of you have heard the news, I figure I might as well post something to make the announcement a little more official. This past weekend, Meredith and I traveled to Lima (to Chaclacayo, a suburb just outside of Lima) to the house of our fellow missionaries, the Bruggers, to spend Thanksgiving with them and the ReachGlobal missionaries in Peru. I was excited to go mainly because it was going to be my last few vacation days of the year, and after the last short-term team I was ready to take a few days away from Tarma. Meredith and I arrived Thursday night and enjoyed all day Friday at the Brugger’s house, relaxing, and enjoying the quiet. Because Thanksgiving is not celebrated here in Peru (makes sense since the pilgrims didn’t land down here), the Bruggers had to work Thursday and Friday as usual (they are school teachers in Lima). So our official Thanksgiving celebration wasn’t planned until Saturday.

The entire morning was spent getting the turkey ready, making stuffing, guacamole, spinach and artichoke dip (thanks to my good friend Andi’s amazing recipe), pumpkin pies, pecan pies, cheesecakes, and other deserts. I was in charge of preparing the garlic mashed potatoes, and had just started mashing them in the giant pot on the stove (there were going to be 20 of us at dinner) when, out of the blue Denise Bruggers asks me to take a tablecloth up to the room where Meredith was setting the table for the kids. I will confess that I was confused and a bit annoyed that she asked me since there were 15 other people around not doing as much, but I took the table up to the roof anyway. Meredith was nowhere to be seen, which only frustrated me more, so I threw the tablecloth on the table and turned around to make my way back downstairs, only to come face to face with Jason! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him standing there with a huge grin on his face.

You have to understand that Jason and I had talked about the possibility of him coming down to visit me one more time this year around Thanksgiving, but in the end both of us decided that it would be wiser to just wait since I’d be coming home soon after. So he wasn’t supposed to be there, yet there he was! Overjoyed by the coolest surprise ever, I sounded like an idiot as I kept repeating my unbelief over and over again. Pretty soon we sat down and Jason started explaining all the reasons he had come. He wanted to see me, he wanted to help me move some of my things home, he wanted to spend Thanksgiving and his birthday with me, but the biggest reason was that he had a question to ask me – one that he had been wanting to ask me for over a year now.

That is when he got down on one knee and explained that Proverbs says that a man who has found a wife has found a good thing, and he had found a good thing in me. He asked me to marry him, and in my excitement I said yes before he could even get the ring out! I didn’t care, because his presence and his proposal was the best surprise of my life, and one of the happiest moments of my life.
It has been difficult to be apart from the person you love, especially for as long as we have been apart. But God has been so faithful to maintain us, to be our strength and our hope. And now we can celebrate in two joys: that I will soon be home and we will be together once again, and that we can now start planning our lives and future together. Thank you to all of you who have been supporting us through this season of separation, and who can now celebrate with us as we close this season and begin a new one.

We’re engaged!!!

Jason stayed the entire week with me here in Peru and we split our time between Lima and Tarma. Meredith organized a bit of an engagement/birthday party for Jason in Tarma, and we continued to celebrate with friends and contacts throughout the week. Now I'm down to my final two months in Peru, and am even more anxious to finish up and get home. I still have a lot of goodbye's ahead of me on this end, and I do want to finish up well. The time will go fast and I'll be home again before I know it, celebrating with all of you!

8 Weeks

This past week my ReachGlobal “Boss” or, church-planting coach, came to visit Meredith and me in Tarma. It had been a year since he had been here and it was fun to show him all that we have accomplished in 2010. We spent time talking about the future and what we as a team would like to see happen in the next 5 years or so. We talked about my transition as I finish up this season of ministry and head home to start a completely different season of life.
Today marks the start of my final 8 weeks in Peru. People have asked me if the time has gone quickly, and the answer always seems to be yes and no. Each day of transition into a new culture, of learning how to live on my own, doing ministry in different and sometimes frustrating ways made the time seem like it was crawling by. Being away from my family, my friends and Jason has been difficult as well. Yet now that I’m standing here a mere 8 weeks from home, I do wonder how the two years I committed to ReachGlobal has gone. My church-planting coach asked me a series of questions a while ago to help me process through the upcoming change and transition. He asked me:

Where do I want to go before I leave Peru?
Who do I want to spend personal time with?
What is the mark I want to leave on Tarma?
What can I do to help my team before I leave them?

These were valid questions that I have spent several weeks thinking through. The places I want to go are generally restaurants so that I can eat the typical food of Peru that isn’t widely found at home. The people I want to spend time with is a small group since I still do not have personal friends apart from my team and my tutor, Diana. I do anticipate that the hardest goodbyes will be with Stephen Hawking High School and my 60 students for whom I have come to care deeply.
When I think about leaving a “mark” on Tarma, my mind really draws a blank. How can one person really “mark” a community in just a year? What would that look like and how would it be accomplished. To be perfectly honest, I’m not all that concerned with leaving my mark on this place. What I want most of all is to have done all I possibly could to help this team and this ministry advance and grow. I want to come back three or four years from now and see that what I helped start has developed into a consistent, solid and God honoring ministry that is changing the lives of the people of Tarma. Could that be called a “mark”? I suppose. It is really the only mark I am interested in leaving.
As far as helping my team, I have discovered a few practical ways that I can spend these last weeks as I phase out of ministry responsibilities and start packing up my things. The house that Elsa and Meredith and I rent is a three-bedroom, without any closets. When we moved in we realized that we would need some place to store our suitcases, boxes and ministry materials. So we decided that in addition to our apartment, we would rent one room from the apartment next door that would serve as our storeroom. Obviously once I leave Tarma, there will be no need to rent the extra room since there will be one in our own apartment – so one of the things that I want to help my team with is to move out of my room and help move all of our ministry supplies and extra stuff into an organized space in the soon to be spare bedroom. It seems like a silly way to spend my last days in Tarma, but I thrive on organization, and I know that this is something that I can leave my team and my roommates with - something practical.
So there you have it, the grand plan for the final weeks of my life and ministry in Peru.

Stop! Oh wait, oh please Mr. Postman!

Well this is your official notice – To those of you who have taken it upon yourselves to encourage me with boxes of goodies and letters sent to our P.O. Box here in Tarma, I thank you from the deepest part of my heart. Getting mail is always fun, especially when you’re far away from home and when it’s not junk mail. But due to the few weeks that I have left in Peru, the Christmas season being upon us, and the general slowness of the Peruvian post, I would like to ask that no more letters/ boxes be sent to me while I’m in Peru because - - - I may not get them! Last year my Grandmother sent me a box the last week of November, and I didn’t get it until my birthday in mid-January. So unless you are okay with just my team receiving your goodies, I thank you for your generosity and love these past two years, and inform you that there is no need to send anything more :)

Satisfied

When I think of the word ‘satisfied’ I think about the many ways we use it. I am a satisfied customer. I am satisfied with the work. Or in Spanish, estoy satisfecha, to describe that I’m full and don’t want any more food. When I think of this past week of ministry with the Faith E-Free team from Wisconsin, I think of the adjectives happy, pleased, content . . . satisfied. The adjective ‘tired’ comes to mind too, but mainly I am satisfied.
It was an interesting change to go from working with youth teams to working with a team of adults, but I will confess that overall I enjoyed the adult team more. Maybe that is because any ministry we would do with an adult team fits better into where we are as a missionary team at this point in the Tarma ministry than a team of youth. The 6 days of ministry included cooking classes, basketball seminars, workshops on Administration and Finance, English classes, visitations, a painting project and workday as well as a final event. Our goal was to use this team of professionals to reach out to the professionals of Tarma, and in some ways, announce our presence. In the process of all our activities we got to know 3 English teachers from a public all-boys school in town that we had not had the opportunity to meet before. As a result, Meredith and I will be doing our Christmas Bible studies with them in English. We also met and have begun to coordinate with two social workers that work for the city who are dedicated to the graduating seniors of poor and broken families, to teach them values, finances, good decision-making skills and the belief that they can rise above their situation and circumstance. Because of the team and these events we are now able to coordinate with these social workers to give values classes and teach on the love and forgiveness of Christ in the schools of Tarma.
As the week went on I was able to spend time with and get to know individuals on the team and I was encouraged by their willingness to help and serve where we needed them to serve. They were very gracious with me as I learned how to lead in this context, and they were patient with me as I made mistakes. We worked hard together and by our final event we had made several new contacts and reinforced some old ones. It will be interesting to see how many new Bible studies will be started as a result of this team.
As I enter into my final two months of ministry and life in Tarma I hope that “satisfied” will be an adjective that I can use often. We haven’t seen an overwhelming amount of fruit yet in the ministry, and I’m almost certain that I will leave Peru and not know the full impact of my presence and time in Tarma until years later, yet I hope and pray that regardless of visible fruit, I will leave this country, this job and this season of life, satisfied.

When life hands you a new job description . . .

. . . can you still make lemonade? I'd like to think so because a nice tall, cold glass of lemonade would accompany well the hustle and bustle of preparing for a short-term team.

Back when we were preparing for our last team in July, Meredith told me to pay attention as she was planning on putting me in charge of preparing for, organizing, and heading up this team from Wisconsin. I paid attention, but didn’t really know what I was getting into until I started the work of preparing. List after list after list left my brain overly scattered and my calm shaken as I worried and stressed over forgetting important details like food, shelter, ministry. Okay, those were not things I really worried over, but let me breakdown for you the detail that goes into covering all the bases to host a ministry team:

- Coordinate transportation from airport in Lima to hotel.
- Coordinate hotel stay for one night in Lima
- Coordinate transportation from hotel to the bus terminal in Lima.
- Coordinate purchasing bus tickets for trip to Tarma.
- Coordinate hotel stay in Tarma.
- Coordinate three meals a day during stay in Tarma.
- Coordinate enough ministry activities to full a week spent in Tarma.
- Create and print a million flyers, invitations and brochures to advertise said ministry.
- Check to make sure you didn’t forget to invite someone who will get their feelings hurt by being forgotten.
- Double and triple check that you didn’t forget to invite someone who will get their feelings hurt by being forgotten.
- Run through every possible scenario to try to have all bases covered such as: power outage, thunderstorms, obnoxious drunks outside the door, uninvited guests trying to crash your event, etc.
- Coordinate snacks for ministry events
- Buy enough water to keep team hydrated during week spent in Tarma.
- Try to anticipate and provide for any medical needs or emergencies.
- Coordinate translators to be present at each and every event.
- Remember to write thank you notes to all contacts that helped out or allowed us to use their buildings, restaurants, spaces.
- Have a “follow-up-plan” ready to put into action the moment the team leaves.
- Coordinate purchasing bus tickets for trip to Lima.
- Coordinate transportation from bus terminal to airport in Lima.

I think that covers most of the bases, although at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if I did forget to schedule lunch one day, but thankfully I’ve got my team helping me out, and Meredith at the ready to remind me of something I’ve forgotten.

Despite the more stressful preparations on my end, I’m really looking forward to this team because this is one of the first weeks of ministry we will have dedicated solely to adults. We have invited over 300 people to attend workshops on administration in the workplace, developing your work team, finance, time-management, ESL, cooking classes and basketball clinics for coaches and P.E. teachers. We have invited school staffs and administrations, professionals and businessmen and women in Tarma, along with a few of our more faithful contacts. Our hope is to use this team to basically advertise the presence of our team and what we do, and hopefully spark some interest among adults and professionals to start a bible study in their homes and/or businesses.

Please be praying that the Spirit would move in people’s lives and hearts through the presence of the Faith E-Free team from WI, and that we would have new contacts join and commit themselves to the ministry. For me, this is my last flung effort to help the ADIEL Tarma team attract adult participation before I wrap up here and head home. We are teetering between faithful perseverance and discouragement about our lack of adult commitment and the standstill of our ministry. Pray that God would do miraculous things this week. Thanks.

The Final Events

As Stephen Hawking’s anniversary events started to wind down, they did so with a bang-of-a-final-show. Last Saturday night hosted the closing events for this year’s anniversary season. The students have been preparing for a month now, each grade to present its own performance of cultural dance. The event started off with a parade through town to advertise the show, with yours truly front and center holding the school’s banner (I’m convinced this became my role when not enough teachers showed up on time). Once we all got to Tarma’s coliseum we put on the finishing touches to the decorations, sound and lighting and waited for the people to arrive. And boy did they arrive. A third of the coliseum was filled by 7:00 and the show began. Along with the students of Stephen Hawking a group of talented college kids from Cesar Vallejo University of Dance (from Lima) were also present to perform various cultural numbers. Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe the night.
I felt like the proud mother of a baby who is first learning how to crawl. My kids performing with grace and cultural pride brought me close to tears several times. The pride in the room was contagious, and I was more than proud of how hard my kids had worked to perform their dances that night. For someone who comes from a culture of mixed cultures, there is a subtle sense of sadness when you see the long-standing history and tradition of another culture. We don’t have these traditions and dances and stories in our history, but it’s nice to appreciate those of someone else’s.
So the night was a huge success and all my kids were happy with the outcome. In order for you to experience the longstanding tradition of dance in Peru, I’ve put the videos of my student’s performances on youtube for your viewing pleasure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PidKNxNywOU&feature=feedu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJQ2NUpIzgU&feature=feedu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A85unl9O1w&feature=feedu

The Great Pumpkin Carving

Well as promised, here are a few pictures of my first attempt carving zapallo with my kids at Stephen Hawking. Overall I would classify this year’s attempt as a complete success! I think that the kids had fun and I enjoyed watching them stick their hands inside the zapallo and dig out the pulp, draw on an original face design, and cut it out piece by piece. I’ve really enjoyed sharing parts of our culture with the kids as I’ve taught them English this year. The point of this lesson was to learn six new verbs: to carve, to scoop, to put, to remove, to draw, and to light; and to learn the form of giving directions. We practiced the six steps to carving a pumpkin (zapallo) and then we put those steps into practice. I also took a few minutes to share with the kids the fable behind the Jack-O-Lantern. If you’ve never heard it, here it is for your reading pleasure (courtesy of Wikipedia):

A History of the Pumpkin
An Irish Fabel: One story says that Jack tricked the Devil into climbing an apple tree, and once he was up there Jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved a cross into the bark, so that the Devil couldn't get down. In the myths, Jack only lets the Devil go when he agrees never to take his soul. After a while the thief died, as all living things do. Of course, his life had been too sinful for Jack to go to heaven; however, the Devil had promised not to take his soul, and so he was barred from hell as well. Jack now had nowhere to go. He asked how he would see where to go, as he had no light, and the Devil mockingly tossed him an ember that would never burn out from the flames of hell. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which was his favorite food), put the ember inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place. He became known as "Jack of the Lantern", or Jack-o'-Lantern.

In America, the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became an emblem of Halloween.[5] The poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in 1807, wrote "The Pumpkin" (1850):[6]

“Oh!—fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!”

Busy little bees

I’m getting busier and busier and this is a good thing. In the last 4-6 weeks life in Tarma has been pleasant and (as we say here)tranquilo, and I was content doing the day-to-day of team responsibilities and not having an overwhelming amount of lists on my plate. But as the seasons are changing, so is the amount on my plate – and I’m actually welcoming the coming weeks of busyness more than I thought I would. I’m in charge of planning the upcoming short-term team from WI that will be arriving in Nov, and it has been an exciting new responsibility. The team will be here in 4 short weeks, and there is still a lot of planning and organizing to do. In the midst of the planning we are having our “end-of-Bible-study-Celebration” event tomorrow night which we are hoping to change from marking the end of s study to a monthly unified celebration (or worship service) where all of our separate Bible study groups can come together as the body of Christ. This has been a challenge because people generally don’t like to mix circles here in Tarma, and in the past, we’ve had few people show up to our celebration events. We are hoping to promote the event as we are trying to move forward with the church plant and will be having celebrations both in Nov and Dec as well. If people can learn how to interact better with each other, then there might be hope of regular unified services at some point in the future. Beyond this we are still taking the work day-by-day, praying that the Spirit would move in people’s lives and change people’s priorities.

In other news, next week I will start my 4th quarter at Stephen Hawking high school, teaching English. And to kick off the quarter I will be repeating the cultural lesson I gave to my students last year at the Instituto Americano, and teach the North American tradition of carving pumpkins. Those of you who remember the fiasco last year will remember that I discovered the hard way that the pumpkins here in Peru are not hallow, and it was more work than it was worth. So this year I’ve decided to use the zapallo – a pumpkin shaped squash, with hopes of a smoother carving process. I’ll have stories and pictures and maybe even some video to post next week. Wish me luck!

Life as I know it

Today is another day in the “normal” life of me. Just kidding, I don’t think normal and me should go in the same sentence, nonetheless, today is about as normal as it gets here. I’ve spent the morning working on my to-do’s for the week, exercising, preparing for my class at Stephen Hawking etc. This afternoon consists of said class, and a Bible study with some neighbors. The only abnormal thing about today is that Meredith is leaving for Lima to attend the annual ADIEL leadership conference. Elsa is already in Lima because she’s taking a week of vacation that will end with the conference, and Julio will be leaving tomorrow to attend as well, which leaves me alone in Tarma for the next 5 days. Why you ask? Well here’s my new “Life as I know it” summed up in one thought:
Each day that passes brings me one day closer to the end of my commitment with ReachGlobal, and that affects every decision, every rationalization, every strategy from here on out.
This weekend is Stephen Hawking’s one-year anniversary as an institution, and the weekend and month in general are going to be filled with celebratory activities and exhibitions throughout town. At this point in my term, it made more sense for me to stay and participate in these events, to continue to spend time with my students and fellow teachers, rather than to attend a leadership conference where I will learn things I would only have a few months to put into practice. So my team is off to Lima and I am content to stay here and continue on with life and ministry.
I had a very encouraging conversation with my church-planting coach this week, and I confessed to him that I’ve felt guilt because I’ve not been 100% focused on Tarma in the past couple of weeks. I am an incurable planner, and with my time quickly coming to an end here, I find it hard not to think ahead and plan for the next stage/season of life. As a result, I haven’t been 100% here. My coach encouraged me not to try to be. I am now entering into a time of transition and having a divided focus at this point is fairly common. I can’t tell you all how relieved I was to hear this. Because these days I’m having a hard time not thinking about home and the future life that awaits there. Bit by bit I’m closing one season of life and I will soon be entering another. But until then, I will do my utmost best to remain as diligent to my call, to work hard to do all that I can before I’m gone. And for now, that includes spending time celebrating the one-year anniversary of Stephen Hawking High school.

Am I a bad missionary? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just human.

I caught myself thinking it last night, and my first reaction was guilt. My second reaction was justification, and my third reaction was defeat. We were sitting in our living room minutes before our neighbors were to show up for our weekly neighborhood Bible study, praying over the lesson and the time we would be spending with them. Out loud I prayed that God would bring the people, that He would move in their hearts to give them a desire to spend time studying His Word and grow in their understanding of who Jesus is. Inwardly I was hoping that nobody would show up so that I could go to bed early: guilt, justification, defeat. Does this mean that I am a bad missionary? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just human.
I find it interesting that we as Christians so often model our lives, our perspectives and our ideas of good and bad in the same way that the Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus’ day did. I mean, how many of our beliefs and standards and practices are really biblical, and how many do we just think are biblical? When it comes to attitude and contentment, is it biblically wrong to be dissatisfied with situation and circumstance? I think some would say yes and others would say no, and I am honestly unsure of the correct response. But I do know, or at least I have come to know, that God is bigger than my humanity, and he won’t leave me alone to struggle through it. You see, it was my turn to lead the study last night, to ask the questions, to guide the discussion, to suffer through awkward silences when no one had an answer or wanted to answer, and frankly, I was just tired of having to try so hard to pull a good discussion out of thin air. So inwardly I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to.
But then, the door bell rang, and in walked in two neighborhood moms and 5 neighborhood children. Sigh. Here we go. Plaster on the smile and do the job, because that is why I’m here after all isn’t it? To do the job. And what is the job exactly, to plaster on a smile and teach about Jesus’ love? To some extent yes, but lately I’ve been learning that the job is less about me and more about Him. Yes, I know that this would seem obvious to any mature Christian reading this post, but understanding it in theory and understanding it in practice are two different things. Why? Because who wants to come out and say that they don’t want to share the gospel anymore? Who wants to take the responsibility to admit that maybe they don’t like ministry? Didn’t Jesus ever get tired of dealing with people who couldn’t understand his message? Didn’t Paul ever get tired of being away from “home”? We don’t really see these things in the scriptures do we, so our tendency is to think that what we read is all there was. Paul, the soldier of the gospel, God’s man taking the good news to the nations, never tiring, never hesitating, never frustrated with culture, always content to be living out of his trailer . . . I mean tent, and never putting down roots anywhere. Is that really how it was? I hope not. Maybe I’m in the wrong here, but I’d like to think that Paul, while an extraordinary believer and a gifted evangelist, was human like any other missionary or ministry worker. I’d like to think that he got tired, that he got frustrated by cultural barriers, and that some days he just didn’t feel like preaching the gospel. And maybe I’d just like to think that so that I’ll feel better about myself when these thoughts and feelings creep into my being. Because admitting that you’re tired of being a missionary is unbiblical right? But you see, these are the moments, precious moments when I struggle against what I think to be true and what I know to be true, and at the end of the battle I rest in the grace of my Lord. Because then it becomes less about me and more about Him. Last night I would rather have watched TV and gone to bed early than teach a Bible study to my Peruvian neighbors. But then God stepped in. He worked in spite of my attitude and tiredness, and He used the power of His word to speak into the lives of these women and their children. And I walked away encouraged, because I was reminded yet again, that nowhere in the Word does it say that I am responsible for saving everybody I come into contact with in Peru. Nowhere does it say that I am not allowed to admit when I am tired or discouraged or feeling defeated. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 12 that God’s grace is sufficient, that His power is made perfect in our weakness. So we boast in our weakness, we delight in our weakness so that Christ’s power may rest on us. So does wanting to watch TV rather than teach a Bible study make me a bad missionary? Maybe. Or maybe I’m just human, human enough to be used by the Lord, yet human enough to need him.

The “Go” of Renunciation

“. . . someone said to Him, ‘Lord I will follow you wherever you go’” ( Luke 9:57

Luke 9:58 are words that destroy the argument of serving Jesus Christ because it is a pleasant thing to do. And the strictness of the rejection that He demands of me allows for nothing to remain in my life but my Lord, myself, and a sense of desperate hope. He says that I must let everyone else come or go, and that I must be guided solely by my relationship to Him.

-Oswald Chambers: My Utmost for His Highest

Stephen Hawking

So in the past few weeks I’ve had a few great opportunities to interact with my fellow teachers and the students of Stephen Hawking High School. Two weeks ago on Saturday the school hosted a “Family Day” at a park outside of town. There were games and relays all morning, picnic lunches and a kite flying contest in the afternoon. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to spend time with the kids and meet their parents, to spend time getting to know the other teachers outside of the classroom. I will confess that after six months of teaching, this was really one of the first moments that I felt part of the school and part of the staff. I helped organize games, judged contests and laughed a lot as I watched my kids enjoy a day with their families and friends. This was also one of the first times I have seen the family emphasized since being in Tarma, and I realized what a cool thing I have the opportunity to be a part of when I think about this school. In the first year of its existence, I have seen the teachers really care for the kids, both academically and personally. I have seen the administration emphasize values and healthy growth. And I’ve been impacted by being a part of it all.
Another opportunity I’ve had to spend time with my kids has been through a series of tea-parties that I’m hosting for the girls of the school. I’m inviting each grade over at a time (generally 8-10 girls) for food, games and a craft, to spend time getting to know them better and hopefully opening doors for future involvement in their lives, even after I go home. Last week I held the first tea-party with my first grade girls, and although only two showed up, we had a really good time. Maritza is one of the girls I’m trying to get to know and hopefully disciple at some point, and Noelia is one of the other first grade girls who has participated in a few of our team events. My next tea party is scheduled for this coming Friday, so I’d prayer for the evening and my conversation with the girls.