i'm baaaaaaaaaaack!

well howdy!

as of yesterday at 9:30 pm, i am a peruvian again!  it is such a blessing to be back here in lima, and i am definitely not going to take the rest of our time here for granted.  i feel like i have a lot of catching up to do with so many people, and i'm really glad to be getting back here during Semana Santa (Holy Week), so that i can be involved with all of the activities and gatherings.  but first, i'll catch y'all up on my adventures in physical therapy (aka pain) land and my time in texas.

i just completed three weeks of therapy in rockwall, and i have recovered full range of motion!  this is really exciting, because it's now just a matter of time until my bone is fully healed, and i can have complete confidence that i will recover full use of my shoulder and arm again.  it will be september or october before my bone is completely healed, and i'll be able to do whatever i want in terms of physical activity, but it's just nice to be able to use my arm.  God gave us two for a reason, i figure.  i had my last appointment with my doctor on wednesday, and while i have gotten fantastic reports from my therapists, my latest x-rays showed that my bone is about 60-70% healed, which is slower healing than expected.  so, i got fitted for this cool ultrasound bone stimulator thing that i wear once a day, which will hopefully help my bone heal a little quicker.  long story short, my arm feels pretty good, i can use it again, i just can't lift too much weight. not a bad deal, all things considered.

my last several weeks in rowlett were great!  over my time at home, we got to go some great concerts (sister hazel and yonder mountain string band), some great games (a couple of mavs games, including the first playoff game), and eat some great food.  i definitely got my fill of all of my favorite foods, everything from chile rellenos at pancho and lefty's, to fish tacos at flying fish, and loads of bbq and burgers from all over the place.  it was so much fun getting to spend so much time with my family at home, both mom, dad, and matthew, and my church family at heritage church of christ in rowlett.  it's been since high school that i've spent so much time at home, and it's always good to be back.  i got to make several trips to college station also, to see folks and go to aggie baseballs games.  i love it down there!  also, last monday, my grandmother audrey westbrook (my mawmaw) passed away at the age of 80, and we had a graveside service for her last wednesday in foulke, arkansas.  it was really difficult, but i was so glad to be home for all of that.  she was an amazing woman, and i am looking forward to spending time with her again someday.

my flights yesterday went very smoothly, which is always nice.  actually, there was one interesting thing that happened.  i was really excited about the flight from miami to lima, because i figured that i would be able to hear lots of spanish conversations and stuff like that.  but, it turned out that there were about 40 middle schoolers from a catholic school in quebec on a weeklong mission trip to lima all around me on the flight, and those kids could rapid fire speak that french.  so instead of spanish, i was surrounded by crazy french-speaking kiddos.  it was very strange.

anyways, thanks so much for all of your prayers over the past few months.  it was challenging to be away, but God took care of everything, and i'm just happy to be here now!  if you could keep us in your thoughts and prayers over the next two months, we would appreciate it.  thanks so much for everything that you do!

hasta luego!

-kyle w.

La Selva - The Jungle

I finally got to go on my first trip outside of Lima last week! Jenny and Kyle have both been out of the city to go to Cusco/Maccu Picchu, but this was my first time to see a different part of the country. From Monday to Friday of last week, the 3 of us together with Wes, Gaby (Peruvian friend), Mark Burgess (another missionary friend in Lima), his interns Allison and Peck, Allison's mom Robin, and a friend of Mark's wife, Catherine headed out to Pucallpa, about a 2 hour flight from Lima. Mark has been to Pucallpa and worked with the village we went to several times before this trip. Our goals for the trip were to help them start building a newer, sturdier building for the church there and, because Allison's mom is a doctor, have a small scale medical mission as well. 

The hotel where we stayed was in the more urban part of Pucallpa and was very nice. It had a pool and AC and everything! haha  The village we worked in was about a 30 minute mototaxi ride from our hotel. We drove out there every morning around 9 after having a devotional and breakfast, worked until lunch when the ladies in the village would cook us food (it was always great!!), then started work again until around 5, showers, dinner, swim.... That was the basic schedule for every day.

Peck, Kyle and Wes squeezed into their mototaxi 

Gaby with our monkey friend! We loved him :)

The sky there was beautiful! Very different from the pollution in Lima.

On Thursday we took the morning to do a little sightseeing and shopping. We went to a market (mainly for fish) and walked around, looking very out of place as a huge group of gringos. It was really fun and interesting though to see all the fish and fresh vegetables and fruit for sale. Some of us bought machetes, hammocks, and Wes bought a few crocodile skulls haha. After the first market we went down to the river, where there are more markets and more fish and a great view from the clock tower there. The river is called the Ucayali and it is one of the largest tributaries to the Amason. Then we drove over to the Laguna part of the river for a boat ride! We saw a couple of perezosos (sloths) in their natural habitat and the boys decided to climb up in the tree to take pictures of them. Also, there were houses that were half way underwater because it is the wet season right now, and a few of us went for a swim off the side of the boat! (video)

Day at the market. Here we have some crocodile, medium sized fish, and really large fish...

Panoramic of the Ucayali River

Gaby, Jenny and I on our boat ride :)

Other fun adventures from the trip:

There was a parade for one of the presidential candidates, Ollanta, while we were there and we saw him drive by in his truck. Very cool except we don't want him to be the president.

That cute monkey that Gaby is holding pooped on me :( He was so cute though. I want a pet monkey.

The last day that we worked, Friday, it rained all afternoon, so we just played in the rain and mud with the kids from the village!! I hadn't seen real rain since we got to Lima. It was awesome.

I accidentally ordered chicken feet for dinner one night... I do have some boundaries when it comes to food haha

Gaby learned how to swim! She didn't know how before the trip but we practiced in the pool and then she swam in the river :)

Kyle, Gaby and I got temporary tattoos! But by "temporary" they meant "the next time your skin touches water, this will come off." Not exactly the 15 days I was promised haha

Random update from Lima: We have officially started renting an apartment for interns and Jenny and I are working on getting it furnished and set up for the 4 new intern girls that will be coming to Lima in August! 

AND Kyle gets back this Thursday!!! WHOOPP!!!!! So excited about that :)

Love and miss you all!!

Taylor

¡Sube al Bus! - Get on the Bus!

Forget the plans that I told you I had yesterday.  This is what happens in Peru... plans change.  This time for the better, in fact, the new plans turned into awesomeness.

When John Mark picked us up for jam session we realized that there was only going to be one Peruvian with us.  So Kyle and John Mark, being the adventure seekers that they are, decided to check off something on their list of crazy things to do: be on Peruvian TV.  The lucky show that was graced by the presence of JM, Kyle, Taylor, Gaby, and me - El Último Pasajero (The Last Passenger), a game show where high schools compete to win a free end-of-the-year-trip. 

We basically just walked into the studio and the workers with their fancy headsets asked if we were there to be part of the show.  We decided that we were so they gave us shirts to wear and a free Sprite, that we were supposed to hide until they told us.  The theme song of the show is Sube al Bus (Get on the Bus) since the schools are competing for a trip.  At the end each team gets to pick a key to try to start their bus and win.

Gaby with her shirt.  Go azul!

So we joined with a school from Miraflores to cheer for their team of students.  The audience was completely students from three different schools and they were all going crazy.  Right away three members of each team had to play a game of slip-n-slide mixed with darts, where they slid from one end of a giant soap-covered target to see how far they could get.  Blue won that challenge yay!



So that's what the studio of a TV show looks like!

Then there was a commercial time where we all took out our hidden Sprite and drank it.  The slogan for Sprite right now in Peru is La Verdad Refresca (The True Soft Drink).  So the team leaders competed in a true/false game of high school knowledge trivia and the red team won.  Later there was a challenge where two girls got haircuts to see who would cut the most grams of hair off.  It was intense and one girl even cried! 

After the last commercial break there was another trivia game.  Each team member who got a question right got to get on the bus.  In the end, the green team's bus started and they won the trip.  It was an exciting hour and a half for all of us gringos... a definitely Peruvian experience!

Chau!
-JLD

A Medio Camino - Halfway

As of today we've been in Lima three months.  That's half of our internship!  So we've really setteled into our schedules here.  A big schedule change, though, was when our parents visited over spring break.  My parents and sister got to be a part of some of the normal activities like kids' time in Villa Maria on Sunday morning and women's Bible study on Saturday.  We also went to Machu Picchu for a big change in scenery and schedule. 

Durham family at Machu Picchu

Speaking of schedules, let me tell you what today looks like for me.  At nine I walked to Starbucks to meet Kyle, Wes, and our British missionary friends to plan our mission trip to Pucallpa, a city in the jungle.  The trip will be next Monday through Friday and we'll be laying a concrete floor for a church there (hello memories of high school mission trips to Mexico!) as well as doing a small medical campaign.  You would think that a meeting about building materials would be really boring, but with the language jokes (mixing US and UK English and Spanish all together) and the general laid back personalities of everyone involved, it was a rather entertaining time.  Now I'm taking my designated "communication/administrative/fit-whatever-needs-to-be-done" time to write this blog.  Around 2 I'll take a bus to Ele Latina for Spanish class with my teacher Mary.  We have a one-on-one class and it's great because we can just have conversations and I learn so much.  After that I'll meet up with Taylor, Kyle, our friend Gaby, and John Mark (with whoever can fit into his car) to go to jam session to practice songs for church, learn new ones, and have a bit of musical fun with everyone there.  I'll go home for dinner after that, do a bit of homework, read some of When Helping Hurts (the book our team is currently reading and discussing together), then get to be early for the girls' 6am work out tomorrow morning.
Each day has something different, but that's just a small look into my life right now.
Chau!
-JLD

I saw real llamas in Cusco and at Machu Picchu!