Over the mountains and through the tunnels

This week we made our 18th trip as a family over the Andes mountains.  Trips 19 and 20 are in a month from now.  This trip isn't just any old road trip.  It is an intense drive of windy, twisty turns, huge drop-offs with no guardrail, jaw dropping scenery, and crossing over "the top" which is at 16,000 feet.  There are 19 tunnels, roughly hewn from the mountains and at least 120 very annoying speed bumps!

We have our landmarks and we guage the trip, not by hours, but by these.  We try to leave early in the morning from Pichanaki and the drive starts out with a bang.  Dramamine is the only way Lucas can tolerate it and usually, there are headaches all around.  Our first landmark is La Merced, the town where we stop and buy organic coffee and jelly.  Next is San Ramon, next Tarma, with its beautiful little villages and fields of flowers.  Next is our "chicken sandwich stop" at the restaurant Tambo, in the town of La Oroya, which is freeeeeeezing every time.  The toilets are like ice cubes.....just a little t.m.i. there.  Next is "the top" called Ticlio, where there are almost always snow capped mountains to feast our eyes on and we have difficulty drawing a deep breath because of the height.  Once we start heading down, the trip is still wicked windy but starts to be a bit easier.  We always stop at "Mana" in San Mateo to use the clean bathrooms and buy imported snacks like Pringles, M&M's and really good cafe con leche to go.  After that, it's pretty fast into Lima where we're welcomed with the dirt and rock mountains and of course, the traffic.

Depending on how long since our last trip, we may head straight to McDonalds, Starbucks or just home (Brent's parents' house).  From Lima back to Pichanaki, our stops/landmarks are basically the same, with a few variations, depending on how hungry we are or how quickly we want to get back.  When we arrive back to our apartment, we are greeted with intense heat and a layer of dust covering everything.

We've decided the trip is just too easy as it is, so we've added traveling with a puppy, just to shake things up a bit.  Bella travels in her kennel, usually throws up at least once but sleeps most of the way.  We do take longer on our stops so she can take care of business.

I enjoy these trips because of the family time, the memories we're making, the laughs we have together, and the amazing creation of God, but don't necessarily like the danger of it.  Did I mention that it is all two lane and there is constant passing, jockeying for position, idiot drivers, etc.?  Yeah, there's all that too.  Praise God for His traffic angels......and I really believe we have them!

Ashaninka volume 19

It was so good to be back tonight and to see all of our friends ready to learn!  We sang, laughed, smacked at mosquitos, watched the chickens walking around, played with the puppy and the frog, learned more about God and got a little closer to this special family.

We were so encouraged at Eduardo's participation tonight.  For the first time, he stayed for the whole study, answered questions and accepted some reading material from a discipleship class.

For the second time in the last few weeks, we have been told about the pishtaco, which is said to be a white man who steals organs from chilren after he kills them.  He has some kind of backpack or jetpack that allows him to fly.  He has a watch that detects how many people are in a house and if they are asleep.  There are stories.  They sound fantastic and unbelievable to us.  I felt sorry for the kids as they listened to the scary stories tonight.  I felt like we were around a bonfire at camp telling ghost stories except these people really and truly believe this.  White men have been killed out of fear that they are a pishtaco.  

Recently, Brent went up onto the side of a mountain with some friends and a man there was afraid of him, asked if he wasn't a pishtaco and wrote down our license plate number, just in case.  Our friends thought it was funny because of Brent's being a pastor and all.  I didn't quite see the humor.

As always, we trust God for protection and trust in His perfect, loving will for our lives.  We also hope our Ashaninka friends will know a life with less fear because of their relationship with an all-powerful Father.

Resuelto ~ Resolved

RESUELTO ~ this was the theme at teen camp this year.  Resuelto means resolved....as in....God has resolved my sin problem, God has resolved my salvation....and because of this....I will be resolved to live for Him, I will resolve to make wise choices in my life.

400 people on a campground built for 200 max.  We do this every year.  Six pop tents for the 50 girls who didn't fit in the dorms, 20 girls packed into a room with 12 mattresses, 40 boys sleeping under a huge circus tent....on the grass.....ooooh, just writing this makes me cringe.  These kids have such great attitudes and are such troopers!  After all, they keep coming back and we keep squeezing them in!

It has been our prayer for years to own our own camp property and now, this has become a reality.  My in-laws, the Williams, missionaries in Peru for 40 years, have overseen the purchase of a property and now, we are all just anxiously waiting to get started building on it.  This will allow us to divide this large group of young teens into two different weeks of camp each summer and will open so many doors for other camps and retreats.

Out of the 40+ kids who received Christ this week was Flor, who turned 14 the first day of camp.  She is from Pichanaki and came with us this year, along with Kelly, our Ashaninka friend.  We don't know a whole lot about Flor because she is extremely shy and hardly talks at all!  We do know she lives with her father and little sister and that she loves to laugh and play.  Flor is now a sister for eternity and we look forward to getting to know her much better in the months to come and assisting her in growing in her new life.

Oh, the stories I could tell.......sisters who saved their money all year long to pay for camp and to buy camp t-shirts, the rape victim who finally got the help she needed, the 70+ raised hands saying they didn't have the money for camp but God had provided, the middle age lawyer who decided she wanted to spend the week sleeping on a thin mat in a roomful of giggling girls so she could counsel and befriend them, the American woman who didn't speak Spanish but shared her testimony from her heart and touched many, the boy who gave his life to serve God full-time when he finishes school..........and so many more.

What a blessing and a privilge to be a part of camp in Lima ~ Aukallama Radical 2012 ~ May God bless this outreach in ways we can't even begin to imagine.