My Life in Peru Pt 1

Greetings everyone,

For those of you who have not yet heard, I now reside in the nation of Peru, city of Lima. Beginning in a couple weeks, I will be a supervisor at an A.C.E. school here in La Molina for the next 10 months. I will be working with the Secundaria level (aka high school)... Should be fun. :) I finished my training yesterday, and am now an officially certified ACE instructor. Mother would be soo proud.

I boarded my plane in LA this past Tuesday at 6:50am and arrived in Lima the following morning at approximately 12:30am. Needless to say, yo estuve muy cansado. After I sailed through customs without a hitch, I was met by Bro. and Sis. Nix, Bro. Jaime and Sis. Julia Alva, Bro. Jose (Papa and Mama know who they are) as well as a thousand other people who, unfortunately, didn't seem to really care. :) We got home around 2am.

Traffic is awesome down here in Inca land; the Inland Empire's got nothing on Lima. The broken yellow lines painted down the middle of the streets are nice decoration... when you can see them. Here, the folks are very fond of creating their own lanes - the great thing about it is the police don't seem to care. Of course it creates mass confusion when you have a million huge buses loaded to the door with multitudes getting on and off at the oddest of places in the middle of the street plus a million personal automobiles plus 2 or 3 million taxis, all of them driving like I always wanted to, but Mama never let me... But at the same time its a great source of entertainment while commuting, granting you don't run too many people down on the way to church across town. As fun as all this may sound, it's not the only free entertainment on the road. At certain intersections, when the street light (which show pretty colors every now and then) turns red and after a minute somebody finally stops, it's at that moment that, among all the kids selling their wares from car to car, out come the acrobats. They're really very good - leaping flips into the air, cartwheeling, doing break dance type maneuvers... all in the front of the line of cars and buses honking and so forth. They do all this for tips, which is optional of course. It's also interesting watching them scramble out of the way when the light turns green. Waiting for someone who is in the middle of the street is unheard of. Ranked among the best of drivers here in Peru is Missionary Robert Nix, who, starting tomorrow at rush hour will be giving me driving lessons... JK

Changing the subject slightly, our church in San Felipe is great. The people are great and the building is huge. I will try to take pictures with a my friends at church tomorrow, and post them for you all to see. I met Heliot (H is silent) on Tuesday I believe. He's twenty years old; he's also the regional youth director. He's a really cool guy. It was easier for us to communicate once I got him to talk more slowly - same with Sebastia´n, who's also really neat. I love talking with the little kids too especially, because they speak clearly and slower. As I stated above, I will try to post pictures of the people here.

Thus far I have taken 204 pictures since Houston. (Thanks again for the camera Papa and Mama!) Below are a just a few that I thought you might enjoy.

The adult Bible study class on Thursday night in the lobby.

This man has to read his Bible with a very strong magnifying glass. He rides buses for two hours to church, then two hours home.

People either waiting to jump in a passing bus or to cross the street when the cars come to a stand-still.

Bro. Jaime and Myself. He lived in England for four years, so he speaks fairly good English.

The church in San Felipe. It used to be a cinema.

The night I arrived. At the Nixes home.

He's obviously selling stuff.

A sample of our daily traffic.

The architect said it's supposed to look like it's floating...

I took this from a window in one of the Bible school Classrooms. The Bible School is located directly above the church.

The most hospitable restaurant I've ever been to. All the servers and the maitre d' met us at the door as we left and every of of them shook our hands and thanked us for coming. One even went outside and opened our car doors for us. They sure know how to keep their customers!

Same place

My first Peruvian wedding...

The garbage truck workers around here apparently like their picture taken. :)

Notice all the little huts that cover the mountain side. These are the ¨barriadas.¨

In the middle of the barriadas we passed this Mormon church... didn't quite fit in with the surroundings somehow.

One of the taxis I'd love to ride someday.

The outside of the Nixes house. Most houses are walled for some odd reason.

Dino the guard dog - he doesn't know whether or not he likes me yet.

This is my home for the rest of the year... nice big backyard.

More to come soon...