A life lesson

After 100 days in Peru, I think it is time to share a little of what I have been learning.

We were riding back to my Peruvian house a few Fridays ago talking about our church in Manchay, when my roommate said, "What kind of a future do the people there have?" Now, in order to really understand this, you would have to visit Manchay and see the houses with no running water and dirty dogs in the street. But as I thought about this observation, I thought about how ethnocentric I am and how I view success. From my western mindset, I see success in college degrees, jobs, or simply choosing the future you want to make for yourself. But I don't think that this is how God views success. A tender heart, willing to do what he wants and when he wants is what God sees as success. These families, full of their Savior's love, can serve God in Manchay and be successful taking care of those around them and living out Christian love. Contentment is a quality with which I struggle, and, for this reason, I think it is a grand privilege to be able to serve with those in a little town called Manchay outside of Lima, Peru and see a little more of contentment in action. I pray that God will give me a tender, usable heart that would humbly be willing to do whatever he called me to do.

A bit of catching up...

So I know I left you all hanging about the jungle. It was fabulous, really. I would have to be honest and say that I learned about different climates and regions, but this didn't seem like biology. In fact, the class seemed out of place. Why would you sit and study evolution (even its fallacies) when you are surrounded by such beauty. That being said, the class did enhance my appreciation of the wonders around me, and I will never look at lichens or semeiotic relationships in the same way. The many hours together also helped us to build team unity and prepare us for our next class: Media Enhance Communications.

Media Comm was an exciting class. Although some of us struggled with a certain level of computer illiteracy, we all learn so very much. I am excited about putting what I learned in the class into use in future pictures, ministry presentations, and, of course, in the classroom (if I ever make it there). I would highly recommend this course to anyone. Our fantastic teacher from BJU was very patient with us and helped us to create the ARRIBA 2009 video.

We are now in a taking a Latin American History module which I like to call "story time with Pastor Jim." Each night we read carefully from our textbook to prepare for a quiz the following morning. We then have fascinating hours of lecture about how Latin America came to be, the influences of European history our this hemisphere, and why the nationals view life the way they do. It is so much more interesting when you actually have been to a few of the places where it took place and you can see how it has affected the culture. I only wish the class included more literature (but I wouldn't have time to read it anyhow).