Estoy en Peru

Hola amigos! Estoy en Peru ahora!

I'm sitting in the Lima Airport waiting for the rest of the Lifetree Adventures team to arrive, drinking a white chocolate mocha from Starbucks and acting very American. I'm actually sitting at the exact same table that Jeff, Christina, Ryan, Amy, and I sat at on the day we left Lima back in June. I'm nostalgic that way.

I wish I could say my Spanish has dramatically improved in the last three months, but dramatic would be an overstatement. I'm far from fluent and get confused very easily. However, I have managed to live most of the last 12 hours pretty much only using Spanish, which is an exciting thing. I've been able to avoid taxis, walk to the hotel, check into the hotel, sleep, eat breakfast, get a massage, ask how to connect to the internet, check out of the hotel, walk back to the airport, ask Peruvian Airlines where the heck the flight was that my friends were supposed to arrive on, and order a grande white chocolate mocha from Starbucks all in Spanish.

Mostly I just nod and say si and then things magically happen around me. Like just now, my lunch appeared that I apparently ordered in Spanish.

Also, I've decided I might love Peru almost as much as I love Canada only because on my flight down here yesterday I sat next to this Peruvian guy who now lives in Oklahoma but was on his way to visit his mother and he made my day. He asked me what I was going to do in Peru and I briefly told him and we then had the most awesome conversation about God that I've had in awhile. And by "conversation" I mean that he spent about 45 minutes telling me what he believes about God and the ways he has been hurt by church and Christians but that he really wants to still believe in God. It was an honor to get to listen to him and ask him questions and be his friend.

Then he told me I was lovely, which was kind of him, and that I shouldn't wait around long for guys who can't make up their minds because I'm lovely and kind and someone will see that someday and make a wife out of me. This is what I love about Spanish speaking cultures - they are very frank and don't hold much back. He's married and he was definitely not hitting on me, but there's just a general way of uncensored speaking that I love and appreciate about Spanish speakers. Sometimes it's nice for a single and sometimes lonely girl to hear a man tell her she's lovely.

But the best moment was when we started talking about part of Lima called Miraflores. I said the word "Miraflores" to him and he busted out laughing. This was the first Spanish word I had said to him in the whole 6 hours we had been sitting next to each other. I asked him why he was laughing and if I had said the word wrong and he said, "No, no, no - you said it perfect. Your accent is perfect - I just wasn't expecting you, a white American girl, to have a perfect Spanish accent." Then he said it with a bad American accent and said "That's how most Americans would say it."

So I'm grateful to be here and grateful that God put he and I next to each other for 6.5 hours yesterday. I usually don't talk much to people on airplanes but I'm glad for the conversation that was had and the way God used it to encourage me and hopefully to encourage him.

Please be praying for us this week - for health, for safety, for my Spanish abilities, for humility, for productive work to be done. Pray for Ricardo and his family and the ministry he does among the Shipibo people and for the visit to Flor de Ucayali village that we will make on Wednesday.

Please also be praying for the Cox family. Derek went home to be with Jesus this morning. There is never anything easy about death even when we know that the one we love is whole and perfect in God's presence now. I'm grateful for the amazing witness Derek was to Jesus throughout his battle with cancer but grieved that we have temporarily lost this brother for the rest of our earthly lives.