Get Naked

What? I have now been in Peru for 17 days? As surreal as it all seems, it is my reality. It has been a crazy two weeks...I think just now I am starting to settle into the rhythm of life and feel a little more like myself.

As I mentioned in my last post, everything around me in new and unfamiliar. So often do we hear about having a childlike spirit, but I don’t think I have ever really considered what that means. Last week, the Church took us on a quick journey through the book of Job, and I couldn’t get this tidbit out of my head:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.       Job 1:20-21

Job had everything going for him, and in a split second, his earthly world came crashing down upon him. And what did he do?? He literally stripped himself and became totally vulnerable to Almighty God. I don’t know. It made me think about all the barriers I put up around myself...how I try to disguise my vulnerability. In the past two weeks, I have found that this is not an option. In order to survive I have to make myself totally vulnerable to not only God, but the people who surround me in my life. I mean, let’s just think about it for a second, when we all came from our mother’s womb, we were perfect innocent vessels. Everything we now know was taught to us, if we are lucky, by a loving  family. I pray that I never fool myself into thinking that I know everything. Each person around us has something new to teach us, and God has an infinite amount of new surprises to offer us if we only let Him.

So metaphorically speaking, GET NAKED. Stip yourself of all the false armor we put on trying to maintain our pride.

Now, for what you all have been waiting for....PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Family:  Jessika, Alejandra,Cecelia, Tim, Me, and Benjamin

My Home

If this tickled your interest, here are more pictures...Bienvenidas a Puntos Corazon Santa Rosa

Ok, so real quick, I will try and answer some common questions such as how is the weather, food, community, and what our schedule is like more or less.

Ok, in case I haven’t mentioned, I am in Lim,Peru in the neighborhood of Barrios Altos. It is about a 30 minute walk to downtown Lima. As are all big cities, more or less ‘El Centro’ (downtown) is super clean and touristy, then you cross over a huge street and are in our neighborhood, full of run of the mill folk, dirty dogs, and lots of dog poop and trash in the street....o and a plethora of food vendors whether it be something simmering in a potorfresh produce. As far as the weather goes (remember the seasons are opposite around here) it is pretty drab. Since spring just began, sometimes it is warm in the afternoon, but more or lessit is always overcast and literally and never rains...literally Lima doesn’t have a drain system...because o yeah, we are in a desert...making for lots of dust everywhere.

Food. More or less lunch is the main meal of the day and always really good. Pretty much it always involves rice, chicken, and something else-. Everybody tries their best to try and make peruvian food (we have a cookbook). I have yet to cook a meal becauseI am still in what they call a ‘free month’ meaning that I have yet to be assigned a day to be in charge of the house, and just follow people around, and can take a break when I feel like I am abou to go into overload. For breakfast we eat bread with jelly and butter and maybe drink some coffee or malt. For dinner it pretty much is the same, but sometimessomebologna, lettuce, and lunch leftovers are thrown into the mix. And o yeah, LK chamb, I have taken to drinking hot tea.

My new family is pretty rockin...everyone is really lively and quite the jokesters, so it makes for constant entertainment. They are always there to help me figure out something new or repeat the same word in Spanish 15 times until I pronounce correctly. Literally,without them, I would be a goner.

Every morning we wake up for morning prayer at 7:00, then read for 30 minutes (right now I devote that time to working on Spanish) and then we eat breakfast.Depending the day, different things happen in the morning... On tuesdays we clean, on saturdays we go to cemetery to play with the kids whose parents sell flowers, on Mondays we go to the House of Peace which is a home for children with disabilities run but the sisters ofMother Teresa’s order. Then we eat lunch, take a siesta if time permits, and then at 3 we open the front door for whoever wants to come and pray the Rosary. Normally a handful of kids will trickle in and then they really start coming because until 6 pm someone stays at the house to play with the kids while the rest of us go out and visit people in the neighborhood. Normally we go in pairs of two and each pair will visit anywhere from1-3 different homes. Our Home has been in the neighborhood for 16 years so there is a plethora of people we visit. At 6 we come back home, pray evening prayer and then usually go to Mass at 7pm at our parish (LaVirgen de Mercedes). Then after that, four night a week, young people come over and hang out. Benjamin can play just about whatever you ask him on the guitar so that often becomes the source of entertainment if not a game or a group conversation. Then at 10 pm we pray night prayer and then go to sleep. Wednesdays are our free days where we are free to do whatever we please, whether that be sleep, pray, frolick about the city, use the internet, go to the Sister’s house, or all of the above.

I love turning the corner onto our street because there are always people in the street ready to greet you with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Ok thats all for now. Sorry for the long post. In the future, I’ll try and pick out one or two highlights but I thought the introduction was neccesary.

Hasta Luego!

Todo mi amor!