Rock Barney: Peru Day 3

Glorious day three! We were up and at 'em and having breakfast at 7:00, all eager to board the bus and head to the orphanage in Huaycan. It is about a 45 minutes or so by bus to the orphanage, El Niño Emanuel. We pulled up to a big blue gate, handed out balloons (globos in Spanish), and prepared ourselves to play with kids. When they opened the door, confetti burst everywhere. Kids were lined up, hands ready to fling confetti at the nearest living creature. No one was immune to the confetti massacre.

The kids were hugging and jumping and doing anything to get our attention. The balloons didn't stand a chance. We were handing them out left and right, and the most popular activity involving balloons seemed to be blowing them up until they popped. Within about 15-20 minutes, all the balloons were in pieces. We spent time talking to the kids in the broken Spanish that we knew, asking them their name, ages, and other simple questions. The problem is that when you speak to a kid in Spanish, they think that you obviously are fluent, so they start speaking 90 to nothing and assume you understand them. But thank God, smiles and hugs and kind looks transcend language barriers, and we received just as many as we gave. We were taken on the grand tour of the rooms where the kids slept. They were separated by gender and then by ages, so there were two rooms for the girls and two rooms for the boys. The kids were so proud of their beds and their rooms. They would grab you as you walked into their room, shout "Mi Cama!", and walk you over to their bed, beaming as if they had found some sort of treasure. We found out that Direct TV had recently chosen to shoot some film there at the orphanage and had bought new beds, repainted, and installed satellite TV there, which we found interesting, but a huge blessing to them.

They brought us into their church, which was unfinished. The roof was not complete over the building, but what was built was beautiful. The headmistress gave us a warm welcome, thanking God for sending us and thanking us for coming for the week. Some of the older girls led a song and prayer. We were standing in a circle in an unfinished church in the middle of an orphanage, listening to a group of children on their knees crying out to God in another language. It was truly beautiful, a picture of the global church entreating God together. I don't know what those children were praying for, but I know I was praying for the wisdom to know how to love them, the grace to love them more, and the expansion of God's kingdom through these children and this orphanage. God is a global, prayer-answering God.

We all started playing around with the kids while some of our leaders met together in the cafeteria type area. We were just starting to play jump the creek when the guys were called to the school building. Now when I say school building, what I mean is a small portion of a building with a flimsy tin roof, concrete floor, and plywood doors and walls with some artwork or posters on them. The team had drawn four squares on the ground where we were going to have to dig some holes for footers so that the building could add on a second story. This would be no problem in the states, maybe taking a few hours, a day at most. All you would need is a jackhammer and a backhoe and it would be taken care of. But when your jackhammer is a rockbar (which I humorously thought was called a rock barney until I was corrected later in the day) or a rebar chisel and your backhoe is some broken shovels, things get complicated. We pounded through the first layer of concrete and started digging, thinking that surely we could finish one of the four holes in the first day. Not so. We dug about 12-18 inches and discovered to our chagrin that there was a second layer of concrete. We started breaking it up, but it was definitely going to take more than the time we had left. We had to head back to Chosica, a little disappointed that we had not finished, but encouraged by our Peruvian brothers and sisters and the love they showed for these kids.

Laura: So while the guys started digging their holes, us girls hung out with the kids.  We started with a bible story about Jonah told by Caroline.  The kids were actually attentive and although they said they had heard the story before, they were responsive and participated as Caroline told the story and asked them questions.  Jorge, see photo, was a little too excited to sit still and listen.  Instead he was proudly showing off a bracelet I had put on his arm.  Then we embarked on crafttime.  Now I knew this would be interesting, I taught first grade Sunday school for several years and learned that even with kids that speak your own language crafttime can get crazy.  It proved to be pretty funny with kids that could not understand us!  Richard, one of the Spanish speaking members of our team, helped explain the craft to the kids and we went for it.  I was flustered from all the kids grabbing glue and glitter, but the kids were not phased by the confusion at all.  They seemed to really enjoy making the craft and honestly did a great job.  After that we figured the kids had been sitting long enough so it was playtime.  We played with the kids for a while before packing up and heading to the bus.  I remember thinking as we rode back to camp, Lord, please allow me to rest well tonight, I will need it for tomorrow!

That afternoon was really relaxed. We had a long break after lunch, and after swinging around the rock bar and a mallet, a nap was the place to be. After dinner, we headed to the main plaza area in downtown Chosica. What an interesting experience! We had a private bus throughout the week going back and forth to the orphanage and most other places, but this night we took public transportation. We walked a few blocks down the street and hopped on a bus. When you are a group of 15 Americans and 5 Peruvians beebopping down the streets of Chosica at night, you don't get glances; you get stares. We must have been a sight. We took the bus to the plaza and went up to this pretty gazebo type structure. It had a fountain in the middle with a statue that said "La Novia del Sol," the girlfriend of the sun. Unfortunately, all public parks in Chosica are closed on Mondays for maintenance, so we saw pretty much nothing there in the park. We walked down to an ice cream shop, where we all scrambled to find our favorite flavors. Instead of the tried and tested chocolate, I figured I would go local. I tried some lucuma ice cream, which was really quite tasty. I'm awful at describing tastes, but one girl who tried it said it tasted like sweet potatoes and honey, which sounded fairly accurate to me. Since there was nothing else going on in the park itself, we walked over to a small arcade type place with different video games and other fun stuff. I played Jim in a quick game of air hockey, we watched people play basketball and gave it a shot ourselves, and just acted kind of goofy.

It was a fun way to end the day, spending time with our friends. We got to experience some of the things they do for fun as well as enjoy a little taste of home with our ice cream. One thing I really loved about the trip was Jim and Betty's spiritual leadership. No opportunity was missed to spend some time talking about the things we learned or that God was teaching us throughout the day. Every night ended with a time of reflection, kind of recapping the day and sharing what we did and learned. God used so many things throughout the week to teach us about his character and our own lives as well. We headed off to bed around 10:00 looking forward to our second morning at the orphanage and our first night in the churches in town.

Hormones and Yo Quiero Ver Te: Peru Day 2

After our long night of planes, claims, and buses, we were able to sleep in until 10 a.m. on Sunday morning. I decided to forgo a shower, which turned out to be a good idea since all the water was cold. We had a nice breakfast of a fried egg, two hard rolls, and this drink that tasted like a combination of oatmeal and eggnog. Thankfully, we had nothing planned for the day other than going to a church around 6 o'clock or so. We headed down from breakfast and decided to play some soccer.

Let me tell you a little something about soccer. First of all, people from other countries typically know how to play soccer. It's wildly popular pretty much everywhere. Secondly, soccer requires a whole lot of running. I played football in high school and absolutely hated days when we had to run. The great thing about football was that you would run really fast for about 4-7 seconds and then get a break until the next play. Not so in soccer. In fact, the vast majority of soccer is running. So, we played for about an hour and a half or so. It was great fun, although our Peruvian friends made us look like fools. We eventually played a pretty good game of ultimate frisbee as well.

The place where we stayed was a Baptist camp type place. There was a cafeteria up at the top of the hill and a bunkhouse down the hill where we slept. Thankfully we were able to room with our spouses while we were there. It was a pretty funny sight, Laura and I had our own room of 5 bunk beds. Right outside of our rooms was a nice sized field with two soccer goals, as well as a basketball court set off to the side. What caught us most off guard when we stepped out from our rooms that first day was the mountains all around us. We had come in so late that we weren't able to see them through the darkness, but we were surrounded by huge mountains. We could not have asked for a better place to stay.

We ate all of our meals for the week there in the cafeteria since we knew that it was "clean" food. Eventually it turned into one big guessing game. The breakfast edition was "How will the egg that accompanies our two hard rolls be cooked this morning?" Lunch and dinner was a contest to see how many ways we could eat rice and chicken (though there was some beef in there a meal or two). All the food was very good though, even if we were sick of rice by the end of the week.

That night we were able to celebrate the fourth anniversary of a church in Huaycan. We arrived at a park downtown and jumped out into our first experience with the Peruvian people. Laura and I followed Jim and Betty around, eventually meeting the pastor of the church. He led us up onto the roof of the church where most of the women of the congregation were cleaning dishes that had just been used in cooking a serving the bull that the people just enjoyed. The people were friendly and obviously very curious. Most sat and stared at us for a while, though we were able to talk with a handful through an interpreter. The question of the day came from a lady that Laura and I started talking with about our parents and other things. She asked, "What animal do you kill when you want to celebrate something in America?" Jim explained that we bought our food, which was mind blowing to her. We ended up talking about the pros and cons of injecting chickens with hormones, which is probably the thing I would list as least likely to talk about on a mission trip. Regardless, the people were absolutely wonderful and hospitable to no end.

The church service was very different in a lot of ways from services in America, and even different from the church service I attended in Venezuela. Lucho, who was our contact Jim and Betty have worked with over the past three years, led worship for half an hour or so. The band was an eclectic mix, sporting traditional instruments such as guitar, drums, and keyboard, but in addition to these instruments there was an assortment of different Peruvian flutes, a saxophone, and a tiny stringed instrument that looked like a mandolin. Lucho was the lead singer, and man did he have a great voice. They sang several songs that none of us were familiar with, but we did sing Open the Eyes of My Heart. If you have never been in a service where there are multiple languages being sung at the same time, I highly recommend it. When God promises in Revelation 7 that there will be people from every tribe, nation, and tongue around the throne in heaven, it is a beautiful picture to catch a glimpse of that here on earth.

Jim was the guest preacher for the night. He preached on the Parable of the Lost Coin, Luke 15:8-10. He did a great job of preaching and our friend Emanuel interpreted. After the sermon, there were a few questions for our group, as well as prayer. We left about an hour and a half or more after the service began, and the people were still singing when we left! It was an awesome experience and encouraging for the work that we would be doing in churches later in the week. We all went to bed that night excited for the work that lay ahead of us, knowing that God has been at work in the Peruvian church long before we landed.

Crosswinds, Luggage, and the Learning of Patience: Peru Day 1

If you are familiar with David Platt or The Church at Brook Hills, you probably know that there is a strong emphasis at the church regarding disciple-making around the globe. While we spend most of our lives here in Birmingham, we have been challenged to take the Gospel to places that are outside of our own context in order to reach the lost, help the poor, and equip the church. To this end, 14 members of the small group Laura and I attend were able to spend the last week serving alongside our brothers and sisters in Peru. I've had the privilege of going on an international mission before to serve in Maracaibo, Venezuela in the summer of 2007, but this was Laura's first time to go on a mission trip and our first time to go together as a married couple.

We left Birmingham on Saturday the 19th and were scheduled to land around 11:30 or so in Lima after a stop in Miami. That was the plan at least. We taxied out on the runway to take off for Miami and right before we got into position to take off, a crosswind kicked up that was too strong for the extremely tiny plane we were on. We sat until the wind died down, but by then there were storms in the area, so we sat on the runway for about an hour. No big deal at that point: we were all so thrilled to be going that nothing could get us down. We got to Miami safe and sound and waited to board the plane to Lima. First off, we ended up boarding about 30 minutes late because they had overbooked the flight and had to get some people to volunteer to go on a later flight. Once we were on the plane, we sat there for an hour before we ever moved. About thirty minutes after boarding, the captain comes over the loudspeaker and says, "Uh... the, uh... reason we are not taking off, uh... is because we are over our weight limit, uh... They are unloading some cargo, uh... so hopefully we should be able to leave soon. Thanks for flying American Airlines." We are all thinking that cargo means some extra Cokes or something. Then we look out the window and see them taking off pieces of our luggage! Laura and I watch as the bag containing my sleeping bag and Laura's sheets is taken off the plane, put on a cart with a lot of other luggage, and wheeled away into the sunset.

At this point, I was pretty frustrated. The plane was seemingly taking forever to get going, and I had no idea how Laura and I were going to survive without our sleeping stuff. On the plane ride to Lima, I really began to doubt, to think that somehow something had gone terribly wrong since we lost our luggage. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit began reminding me that he had all things under control, there was not one moment that was not going according to God's plan. I'm a very impatient person and I like to have things under control. It gives me a sense of comfort to know that I can change the circumstances or at least know what is coming next. I spent some good time in prayer on the flight to Lima, confessing that I really needed God to teach me patience, to break me of my desire of independence. I've been learning and trying to practice being conscience of my dependence upon God for every thing in my life. He gives life. He sustains life. He is the foundation for all things, yet sometimes I want to be my own foundation. I'm glad our luggage was lost. I'm glad that I got frustrated and convicted of my sin of impatience. I need those lessons and want to cherish those times. "For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." (Hebrews 12:6)

We arrived in Lima around 12:30 or so. We had to file claims for the lost luggage, which was an interesting process in itself. I've never lost luggage on a flight before, so it was all new to me, especially so since we were in a different country. What made it even more interesting was that we had no idea where we were staying. We knew we were staying in Chosica, but had no idea the address or name of the place we were staying. I thought this was weird all along (back to my control issue), but we trusted Jim and Betty, our trip leaders, who had been there before and knew what they were doing. Jim had to talk to security so he could go out and meet the team that was picking us up so that he could find the address to hopefully get our luggage there. We got out of the airport around 2:00, or so I think. We were all so tired at this point that I don't really remember the time. We were greeted by the team who was there to pick us up, hoped on buses, and headed for the place we were staying in Chosica. It was an interesting first experience in Peru, but as I said, it really taught me some things about myself and illuminated an area in my life that I really need God's help in. Laura and I crawled in bed around 4:15 a.m., ready for a good night's sleep.

Question of the Week: Radical Spending

What does it mean to sacrifice your money and spend your money in a radical way? Laura and I had a great conversation with Bill and Debbie, Laura's parents, about this tonight. It's something that our church has discussed and is practicing throughout this year, but I think that it can get confusing to some people, and even needs some clarification in my own mind. Laura and I will be thinking about it and hopefully share some thoughts later in the week.

P.S. As you can see, we are back from Peru and everything was amazing. We will have a blog update coming soon.

Heading to Peru: June 19-26

            So I think most of you know, but for those of you who don’t, Ryan and I are heading to Peru tomorrow!  We wanted to let you all know what we will be doing and how you can be praying for us. 

The Lord has blessed 14 members our small group with the privilege to travel to Peru this summer for a week and work alongside fellow believers there to serve the poor and make disciples of Christ.  We will be serving in three communities located in the Rimac River Valley about an hour's drive northwest of Lima.  These communities are Chosica, Chaclacayo, and Huaycon, which are considered to be in the foothills of the Andes.  Our primary place of service will be at El Niño Emmanuel Orphanage helping in the construction of a bakery that will not only bake bread for the children, but will also provide bread to sell in the local community as a source of income for the orphanage.  We will spend an equal amount of effort in disciple-making activities with the children, including bible story time, crafts, and games that point to the truth of the Gospel and that demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ.  In the evenings, we plan to do adult disciple-making by teaching in two or three of the churches located within these communities.  We are excited to worship alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ in Peru and to literally live out the Great Commission by "making disciples of all nations".

We humbly ask for your prayers. Please pray that our love for the children in the orphanage will be a witness of Christ’s love for them.  Also, Ryan and I will be teaching one or two nights in one of the Peruvian churches.  Please pray that our teaching will be glorifying to God and clear to the Peruvian people (of course with the help of a translatorJ).  We are depending on the Lord to allow our presence be an encouragement to our Peruvian brothers and sisters and that they would learn more about being disciples of Christ.   Lastly remember the lost of Peru in your prayers.  We are asking God to use our presence, directly or indirectly, to help reach the lost of Peru.

            We thank you for your love, support, and prayers!  We will try and update while in Peru, if we can't then we will just update when we return home.

Birmingham Eats: Saw's BBQ

When Laura and I moved into Edgewood, we were dying to try every restaurant, shop, and store around us. You see, Edgewood is a cozy area in Homewood with a very quaint and small strip of about 7 shops or so. There are a few places that immediately caught out attention, the first one being Broadway BBQ. Being from Alabama (and also being wannabe foodies), we love BBQ, and nearly everyone you talk to in Birmingham is going to have their personal favorites. We swung Broadway one evening right before closing time. It was an interesting experience. The food was not bad, but neither was it exceptionally good. It was a small restaurant and never very popular when we saw it, and that night we happened to be the only two in the joint (which for an introvert like me is ok, but a bit eerie). I really wanted to like it, but just didn't.

So when Saw's came around sometime last fall or so, I expected much of the same. We waited about a month thinking the crowds would die down, but they never did. We ventured over one night to give the place a shot.

The first two things that struck me about the place was the way in which it was similar and different to other BBQ restaurants. It is similar in its decor, with license plates, football garb, random beer signs, and a number of other random things strewn across the wall. I'm not knocking that by any means, seeing that it is often interesting and definitely eye catching. Still, it has been done. The thing that is  different is the size. The building is pretty small, seating probably 10-12 tables. I'm more used to Jim 'n Nick's or Tin Roof or Birmingham's Dreamland, places with tons of tables and a waiter or waitress coming to take your order while you sit anonymously in a booth. Typically, I like the anonymity, so I was a little nervous about the size.

We had checked out a menu online before we left, so we know what we wanted as soon as we got there. Laura ordered a pork sandwich combo and ordered a pork stuffed baker with sweet tea. We found a table in the back and within a few minutes a young man had brought us our food. First, let me tell you that portions are quite generous. I'm used to potatoes with a dab a meat to fill out the potato, but usually it is more of the other stuff. This potato however was overflowing with great looking pulled pork, had plenty of cheese and sour cream, and a good helping of Saw's sauce, a treat in and of itself. Laura's sandwich was huge! She had to take some BBQ off of her sandwich just to take a bite. Their pork is phenomenal. It is cooked overnight and pulled when they are ready to serve it, making it perfectly juicy and tender and lean. Their sides that we have tried have been great, made fresh daily and tasting wonderfully as well. We tried their chicken the other day as well and were not disappointed. I just met a friend there last night who decided to try their ribs, which he raved about long after licking the sauce off the last one.

Overall, Saw's is far and away my favorite restaurant in Birmingham. I've always had a good experience, leaving full and satisfied with both the service and the quality. If you have not tried it yet, please do so. You will not regret it and I think you will be returning very soon!