Hello again from lima. The forefront of my news to you this week is of a more somber nature as one of our own has been broken. Kyle Westbrook has broken his collar bone in 2 places, so will be recovering for the next month or so. Please keep him in your prayers while we continue working. However on to better news. We have completed three weeks of school and all of our spanish is improving. This adds a level of confidence to what ever we do with the people here. Another huge boost to our team has been the return of all the missionaries from the states. Here is a short rundown of what last week looked like for us, as it was rather exciting.
Tues. Jan. 25
We went to the bluffs near the ocean of barranco and had a jam night with some of the peruanos. I can't imagine a better place to play some instruments and enjoy each others company than the beach at barranco. It's very beautiful. Ill be sure to add some pictures that Matt( our canadian friend from language school) took that turned out great. In the mean time here is a video.
Wednesday Jan. 26
Wednesday was a particularly exciting day, we all went to a futbol game. If there was one thing I took away from it, it's that futbol fans go all out for their team. Even it that means shining a laser in the other goalies eyes.
Thursday The Thompsons arrived back in lima, and we made sure they felt welcome. John Mark had the great idea to rent a mariachi band to welcome them in the airport, and it certainly made a splash. Hopefully i can have some pics of that up soon.
I was planning to write more but I need to Sleep, So another post will be soon to follow.
Blessings,
Kyle Glaeser
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Aprender - to learn
We've been in Lima a little over two weeks and I feel like we've learned a TON already. Obviously, the culture and language are a big part of that. And a huge part of Lima's culture is food... delicious food. I probably eat chicken, rice, and potatoes everyday, but never in the same way twice. Limeños love chicken and serve it so many different ways that I can't remember all of them. Same goes for potatoes... I've had your typical french fries, big chunks in "estofado de pollo", slices with "aji de gallina", baked in butter sauce, or covered in "papas a la huancaina." All of it is so good and we eat so much that I better start exercising before I look like a potato.
Another part of the culture is the greeting/goodbye. If you're a boy greeting a boy it's not very much different from the U.S. - a simple handshake will do. But if a girl is a part of the greeting you give a kiss on the cheek... even to people you haven't even met yet. This is one of the small differences I've learned to accept rather quickly since it happens so much. When you enter a room yo say hello to everyone and when you leave you say goodbye with a kiss too. At first it seemed super awkward, but it's slowly becoming less awkward, and I'm sure it'll get better with time.
Spanish. Even though I have studied it for over 6 years, I still don't feel totally comfortable speaking it. Being totally immersed in it has helped so much. All four of us are at the point now where we can have a whole conversation and it's so exciting! Our language school is also a huge help with castellano (did you know there was another name for Spanish?). We go from 9 to 1 every week day and learn in small classes. But I don't just learn Spanish in class. I've learned all about England, Brazil, Canada, and Iceland thanks to my new friends Cally, Mariana, Adriana, Matt, and Kristine. I love being around people from different countries. The things we have in common are sometimes unexpected. And the small words and ideas that are different are so funny to me. For example, Canadian people really do say "eh?" all the time!
Some more fun things we've learned are surfing and salsa dancing! Kyle G. and I took surfing lessons this week at the beach in Miraflores. It was pretty fun, but man do you have to paddle a lot! Way more effort goes into surfing than I thought... I think I should be in better shape next time I try. The next day Kyle W., Taylor, and I took salsa dancing lessons after school with some of our other classmates. I don't know if it's our CoC background or what, but none of us were very good at it! We had fun trying, and I know I laughed the whole time.
We'll keep on learning more as we go along and fit into our roles here in Lima. We hope you can learn along with us, so your questions are always welcome!
And see more pictures on my album on facebook.
Chau y cuidate
-JLD
 |
| One of the most delicious lunches I've had so far, including butter-soaked potatoes :) |
Spanish. Even though I have studied it for over 6 years, I still don't feel totally comfortable speaking it. Being totally immersed in it has helped so much. All four of us are at the point now where we can have a whole conversation and it's so exciting! Our language school is also a huge help with castellano (did you know there was another name for Spanish?). We go from 9 to 1 every week day and learn in small classes. But I don't just learn Spanish in class. I've learned all about England, Brazil, Canada, and Iceland thanks to my new friends Cally, Mariana, Adriana, Matt, and Kristine. I love being around people from different countries. The things we have in common are sometimes unexpected. And the small words and ideas that are different are so funny to me. For example, Canadian people really do say "eh?" all the time!
 |
| On our first day of Spanish class |
 |
| Kyle, pre-surfing |
And see more pictures on my album on facebook.
Chau y cuidate
-JLD
Thursday, January 13, 2011
los días buenísimos
hola y buenas noches from peru!
i'm sorry that it has taken me so long to get up and going. the days here in peru have been incredibly packed, and have been awesomely blessed. having never travelled outside of the states (which is how pretty much all peruvians refer to the usa), i had never had the chance to God's faithfulness in action in hugely different cultures. i mean, having spent beautiful summers at camp of the hills, i've gotten to see God working in environments different than the one in which i grew up, but this has been totally different already. and we've only been here a week! i know that God has tremendous opportunities waiting at every street corner and panaderia (a bakery full of goodies), in the language school and in paraíso, the poorest neighborhood i have ever been in. since this is just the first of many blog posts to come, and because it is late at night and i have homework (tarea) and school in the morning, i'm going to keep this relatively short, with a few teaser pictures of everything we have experienced so far, and to tease you just a little.
for starters, one of my favorite aspects of the past week has been the people of lima. more specifically among many other things, i absolutely love how expressive they are. even in the most mundane of conversations, such as asking if a certain restaurant is close by, peruvians (peruanos) will experience drastic changes in pitch and level of voice, as well as acute use of hands to describe what they are saying. haha i tried to sound like a doctor, and failed miserably. anyways, the point is that you will never have a dull conversation with a peruvian, because they are ridiculously expressive. i imagine that even the teenagers get excited when they talk about school around the dinner table. i know that my mom would have appreciated that years ago. some would say that i like to break out the falsetto/mickey mouse voice in everyday conversation, and in the states that might stand out as a little strange, but here, i fit in just fine. in fact, i could probably stand to crank it up a few notches, just so i don't sound like a mumbling monotone american. not that i would stand out as an american anyways, with the hair and height and all.
also, the food here is just as good as described (gracias carolina!), if not better. for some reason, and this shows you just how clueless i am, i thought that i would come down here, and be able to eat super healthily or something dumb like that. horrible, and impossible idea. i reckon you could eat healthy here, with all of the amazingly fresh (and cheap!) fruit, particularly strawberries (fresas), but why would you want to? the local food (comida) is AWESOME. ¡que rico! (basically, super delicious!) already, we have gotten to sample many of the tastes of peru, from ceviche (lime-y and awesome), ensalada criolla (lime-y and awesome), and tacu tacu (not lime-y and still awesome), to lomo saltado (a specialty of sorts), and my personal favorite so far, seco de pollo con frijoles. it's basically bone-in chicken covered in a cilantro-dominated seasoning rub, baked and served with beans, white rice (which comes with pretty much every meal), and the ensalada criolla, which is essentially red onions cut really thin and marinated in a lime juice concoction and sprinkled with cilantro (super bright and fresh tasting). i had it at a menú yesterday, and it was incredible. a menú is a lunch menu that most local restaurant put out, where you get an appetizer (entrada), the entree, one glass of a refresco (which is usually a fruity juice sort of thing), and if you're lucky, a dessert (postre), all for around five to eight soles, which translates to about $2-2.50. it's a ton of incredible food for really cheap. and most places have these little fried corns called canchitas with a sauce to dip them in. peruvians are super good at making awesome sauces, covering a lot of dishes and coming as dips for lots of things. also, as in the lomo saltado, which i recommend you look up on google, but only if you want your mouth to water, a lot of things here come with papas, which are thick french fries, in addition to rice. peruvians love their starches, which goes back to my original point of eating healthily. just straight up dumb. but i couldn't be happier :) they also love avocados (paltas), in which i heartily approve. but at the same time that the food is super cheap and super good, contact solution is definitely expensive. random, but it's interesting that since there are so many things, such as contact solutions and cars, that peru has to import, there is a huge difference in the cost of items, in comparison to the states. using examples i already made, the same plate of food in the states might cost 10 bucks as compared to two here, but a bottle of solution that would cost maybe three dollars is about twelve dollars here. so that's interesting, and nice overall, because i definitely eat a lot more than i take out my contacts.
to finish up this entry, i'll tell you about the next entry, which hopefully should happen tomorrow or the next day. i will address, in a far less business-like manner than this list appears, the weather, the transportation, our education, the work of the lima team here (which, despite my love of food, is the most excellent aspect of life here in peru), the city of lima and it's general feel and architecture and coastline and such, what it is like to be blessed by God at every turn, and what it is like to feel like a foreigner, which i had never felt before. it's a little crazy to be walking around a packed city of more than nine million people, and to hear nothing but a language that you vaguely recognize. i have a new empathy for people who come to live in the states without any english speaking abilities. i'm fortunate to be at a place in my spanish speaking where i can make a conversation, albeit one filled with bad grammar and a lack of vocab, but i can't even imagine what it's like to know nothing that anyone trying to talk to you is saying. frightening. so please be patient with people in america who are genuinely trying to learn english. maybe a little of your love will pass down to peru, where four gringos from texas are trying to learn a little (slash lot) more spanish, and trying to be Jesus in this beautiful country which desperately needs his grace and love. we so appreciate and need your prayers and thoughts, but like jenny said, prayers of safety are needed, but please pray that God will show us people to whom we can be light towers, reflecting the beacon of Christ which has been given to us, and which we are called to shine onto others. we want to guide others to the shore of the Lord's grace, and together endeavor to bring us all more into the image of He who loves us. we need each other, we need you, and we need the whole body of christians to cast aside petty differences, and to embrace each other and Christ, and to live out the kingdom of heaven on the earth. from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted much, much more will be asked. we've gotten to see a slice of that kind of life here, and brothers and sisters, it is beautiful.
we love y'all so much, and we are looking forward to continuing to let you know how God is working and using us in peru. and i am looking forward to tell you more about this wonderful city! and it's insane taxi and combi drivers. there are many more pictures coming :)
chao!
- kyle w
ps: just kinda a little fyi, my thoughts are usually super scattered, so i'm planning on my entries being a little spazzy and random, all over the place. it's hard for them not to be at this point, when so much is new and exciting :) i hope you don't mind too much!
i'm sorry that it has taken me so long to get up and going. the days here in peru have been incredibly packed, and have been awesomely blessed. having never travelled outside of the states (which is how pretty much all peruvians refer to the usa), i had never had the chance to God's faithfulness in action in hugely different cultures. i mean, having spent beautiful summers at camp of the hills, i've gotten to see God working in environments different than the one in which i grew up, but this has been totally different already. and we've only been here a week! i know that God has tremendous opportunities waiting at every street corner and panaderia (a bakery full of goodies), in the language school and in paraíso, the poorest neighborhood i have ever been in. since this is just the first of many blog posts to come, and because it is late at night and i have homework (tarea) and school in the morning, i'm going to keep this relatively short, with a few teaser pictures of everything we have experienced so far, and to tease you just a little.
a kinda blurry picture of the church in the plaza principal in barranco, the austin of lima. pretty.
another cool church in barranco.
for starters, one of my favorite aspects of the past week has been the people of lima. more specifically among many other things, i absolutely love how expressive they are. even in the most mundane of conversations, such as asking if a certain restaurant is close by, peruvians (peruanos) will experience drastic changes in pitch and level of voice, as well as acute use of hands to describe what they are saying. haha i tried to sound like a doctor, and failed miserably. anyways, the point is that you will never have a dull conversation with a peruvian, because they are ridiculously expressive. i imagine that even the teenagers get excited when they talk about school around the dinner table. i know that my mom would have appreciated that years ago. some would say that i like to break out the falsetto/mickey mouse voice in everyday conversation, and in the states that might stand out as a little strange, but here, i fit in just fine. in fact, i could probably stand to crank it up a few notches, just so i don't sound like a mumbling monotone american. not that i would stand out as an american anyways, with the hair and height and all.
us four before tuesday music night overlooking the beach in barranco. how cool is singing worship songs in spanish, with peruvians, overlooking the pacific ocean, as the sun sets? very cool. we are blessed.
note the awkwardness of the skinny gringo on the cajon, which is the official percussive instrument of peru it seems. it's basically a wooden box with a hole in the back, and it sounds pretty sweet, and serves as a semi-comfortable seat. but, it is clearly not made for someone excessively long of limbs and body. despite this, tuesday night worship was a tremendous blessing!
also, the food here is just as good as described (gracias carolina!), if not better. for some reason, and this shows you just how clueless i am, i thought that i would come down here, and be able to eat super healthily or something dumb like that. horrible, and impossible idea. i reckon you could eat healthy here, with all of the amazingly fresh (and cheap!) fruit, particularly strawberries (fresas), but why would you want to? the local food (comida) is AWESOME. ¡que rico! (basically, super delicious!) already, we have gotten to sample many of the tastes of peru, from ceviche (lime-y and awesome), ensalada criolla (lime-y and awesome), and tacu tacu (not lime-y and still awesome), to lomo saltado (a specialty of sorts), and my personal favorite so far, seco de pollo con frijoles. it's basically bone-in chicken covered in a cilantro-dominated seasoning rub, baked and served with beans, white rice (which comes with pretty much every meal), and the ensalada criolla, which is essentially red onions cut really thin and marinated in a lime juice concoction and sprinkled with cilantro (super bright and fresh tasting). i had it at a menú yesterday, and it was incredible. a menú is a lunch menu that most local restaurant put out, where you get an appetizer (entrada), the entree, one glass of a refresco (which is usually a fruity juice sort of thing), and if you're lucky, a dessert (postre), all for around five to eight soles, which translates to about $2-2.50. it's a ton of incredible food for really cheap. and most places have these little fried corns called canchitas with a sauce to dip them in. peruvians are super good at making awesome sauces, covering a lot of dishes and coming as dips for lots of things. also, as in the lomo saltado, which i recommend you look up on google, but only if you want your mouth to water, a lot of things here come with papas, which are thick french fries, in addition to rice. peruvians love their starches, which goes back to my original point of eating healthily. just straight up dumb. but i couldn't be happier :) they also love avocados (paltas), in which i heartily approve. but at the same time that the food is super cheap and super good, contact solution is definitely expensive. random, but it's interesting that since there are so many things, such as contact solutions and cars, that peru has to import, there is a huge difference in the cost of items, in comparison to the states. using examples i already made, the same plate of food in the states might cost 10 bucks as compared to two here, but a bottle of solution that would cost maybe three dollars is about twelve dollars here. so that's interesting, and nice overall, because i definitely eat a lot more than i take out my contacts.
my semi-eaten seco de pollo con frijoles. in this picture, you can see the chicken, rice, and beans, in addition to the ensalada criollo, the refresco in the glasses, and taylor's tacu tacu con un filete de pescado in the top right. at 1 am, this is making me hungry as i look at it. so good.
to finish up this entry, i'll tell you about the next entry, which hopefully should happen tomorrow or the next day. i will address, in a far less business-like manner than this list appears, the weather, the transportation, our education, the work of the lima team here (which, despite my love of food, is the most excellent aspect of life here in peru), the city of lima and it's general feel and architecture and coastline and such, what it is like to be blessed by God at every turn, and what it is like to feel like a foreigner, which i had never felt before. it's a little crazy to be walking around a packed city of more than nine million people, and to hear nothing but a language that you vaguely recognize. i have a new empathy for people who come to live in the states without any english speaking abilities. i'm fortunate to be at a place in my spanish speaking where i can make a conversation, albeit one filled with bad grammar and a lack of vocab, but i can't even imagine what it's like to know nothing that anyone trying to talk to you is saying. frightening. so please be patient with people in america who are genuinely trying to learn english. maybe a little of your love will pass down to peru, where four gringos from texas are trying to learn a little (slash lot) more spanish, and trying to be Jesus in this beautiful country which desperately needs his grace and love. we so appreciate and need your prayers and thoughts, but like jenny said, prayers of safety are needed, but please pray that God will show us people to whom we can be light towers, reflecting the beacon of Christ which has been given to us, and which we are called to shine onto others. we want to guide others to the shore of the Lord's grace, and together endeavor to bring us all more into the image of He who loves us. we need each other, we need you, and we need the whole body of christians to cast aside petty differences, and to embrace each other and Christ, and to live out the kingdom of heaven on the earth. from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted much, much more will be asked. we've gotten to see a slice of that kind of life here, and brothers and sisters, it is beautiful.
a breathtaking peruvian pacific sunset.
we love y'all so much, and we are looking forward to continuing to let you know how God is working and using us in peru. and i am looking forward to tell you more about this wonderful city! and it's insane taxi and combi drivers. there are many more pictures coming :)
chao!
- kyle w
ps: just kinda a little fyi, my thoughts are usually super scattered, so i'm planning on my entries being a little spazzy and random, all over the place. it's hard for them not to be at this point, when so much is new and exciting :) i hope you don't mind too much!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Hello again from Lima.
This is my first post since we arrived six days ago, and there is already an impossible amount of information to tell. We were able to watch the cotton bowl at the Davidson's on friday, however the result was not favorable, so i will not go into it much. On saturday we had youth night, which went very well. I felt a good connection with some of the youth despite a massive language barrier. Once again i felt the frustration of a language barrier on sunday when we went to Villa Maria to talk to the lowest class of lima. It was an amazing community built on a steep hill in the very sandy desert. Lima is situated in the Atacama desert, which just so happens to be the driest desert in the world. As soon as you get out of the heavily irrigated city, there is evidence of this lack of water in that there are no trees, plants, grass, animals, or even bugs. For these people to build their shacks out on a mountain side in this desert is an extremely desperate act. I wanted to talk to the people very badly, but as I was the first gringo some of these people had ever met, they did not know any english.
Monday morning was refreshing as I began to knock some dents into learning spanish. I was able to put it to the test tonight when we went to a jam session with some of the youth, to learn new songs and enjoy good company. After that we went to barranco to eat, and stumbled upon a pizzaria that turned into a huge blessing. The man who owned it was a christian and we were able to have a long talk with him, as he gave us lots of free food. Over all this has already been an amazing experience.
Till next time, Chau,
Kyle Glaeser
This is my first post since we arrived six days ago, and there is already an impossible amount of information to tell. We were able to watch the cotton bowl at the Davidson's on friday, however the result was not favorable, so i will not go into it much. On saturday we had youth night, which went very well. I felt a good connection with some of the youth despite a massive language barrier. Once again i felt the frustration of a language barrier on sunday when we went to Villa Maria to talk to the lowest class of lima. It was an amazing community built on a steep hill in the very sandy desert. Lima is situated in the Atacama desert, which just so happens to be the driest desert in the world. As soon as you get out of the heavily irrigated city, there is evidence of this lack of water in that there are no trees, plants, grass, animals, or even bugs. For these people to build their shacks out on a mountain side in this desert is an extremely desperate act. I wanted to talk to the people very badly, but as I was the first gringo some of these people had ever met, they did not know any english.
Monday morning was refreshing as I began to knock some dents into learning spanish. I was able to put it to the test tonight when we went to a jam session with some of the youth, to learn new songs and enjoy good company. After that we went to barranco to eat, and stumbled upon a pizzaria that turned into a huge blessing. The man who owned it was a christian and we were able to have a long talk with him, as he gave us lots of free food. Over all this has already been an amazing experience.
Till next time, Chau,
Kyle Glaeser
Sunday, January 9, 2011
We're Here!
Sorry everyone for the late update, but we made it to Lima! With no problems whatsoever. It was amazingly smooth and we are so thankful for that. John Mark Davidson and Mark Clancy met us at the airport and brought us Inca Kola, which is an extremely popular drink here. See picture below :)
We've been very busy getting settled in here. We are all moved into to our houses and we have local cell phones and copies of our passports to carry around with us for our ID. We've also ridden in several taxis and one bus but always accompanied by someone who knows what they are doing. The four of us are figuring out how to get around pretty quickly though. As long as we have a map, we can pretty much walk wherever we want!
Last night was Youth Night at the Davidson's. "Youth" is basically college age, all about 20 or older. This happens once a month and we just got together and played games, watched a Nooma video, and sang some songs in Spanish! It was so fun to hear familiar songs but in a different language as well as some new ones.
We start language school on Monday morning at 9:00 and it will be Mon-Fri from 9-1 for about a month. We are all really excited about this because the language barrier has been very frustrating at times. So we have lots of motivation to learn as much as possible!
We have some pictures of our adventures around town as well as from Youth Night that are on their way :)
Chao from Lima! y mucho amor!
Taylor
Monday, January 3, 2011
"...but we travel for fulfillment."
-Quote by Hilaire Belloc.
Since our last post two of us have graduated and we've had lots of family and friend time! I'll show you a little bit of my fun...
We're leaving in two days! I nearly can't believe that it's actually here. You'd think that since the four of us are so excited to go that we would have started packing... but the procrastinator in all of us won out, I think. I know my room still looks like it did when I moved in all of my stuff from College Station (or worse)! Tomorrow will be a busy day for me.
We leave from Dallas on Wednesday and we would love prayers. I know that so many people have told me they pray for us every day and that is so awesome, but some extra attention on Wednesday would be greatly appreciated. Saying a prayer for safety is generally the most common reaction to a day of travel like this, but I am asking for a different kind of prayer. I've heard a couple times recently that safety may not be the thing that God wants for his people and it's probably not the main goal of the four of us (especially since we're leaving our "safe zone"). Instead, please focus on our work in Lima. Our influence on the people there. Our impact for the kingdom of God. Our peace in sharing the love of the Lord.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
-JLD
Since our last post two of us have graduated and we've had lots of family and friend time! I'll show you a little bit of my fun...
 |
| Graduation |
 |
| W11OOP! |
We're leaving in two days! I nearly can't believe that it's actually here. You'd think that since the four of us are so excited to go that we would have started packing... but the procrastinator in all of us won out, I think. I know my room still looks like it did when I moved in all of my stuff from College Station (or worse)! Tomorrow will be a busy day for me.
We leave from Dallas on Wednesday and we would love prayers. I know that so many people have told me they pray for us every day and that is so awesome, but some extra attention on Wednesday would be greatly appreciated. Saying a prayer for safety is generally the most common reaction to a day of travel like this, but I am asking for a different kind of prayer. I've heard a couple times recently that safety may not be the thing that God wants for his people and it's probably not the main goal of the four of us (especially since we're leaving our "safe zone"). Instead, please focus on our work in Lima. Our influence on the people there. Our impact for the kingdom of God. Our peace in sharing the love of the Lord.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
-JLD
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