Hi all!
We're making roast beef with horseradish sauce this week. Here's what I have from you.
Bains - potatoes
McRary - bread
Rifenburgs - dessert
Smiths - non-potato veggie
Congrats to Tanner for his two victories in Settlers over the weekend, and thanks to everyone for sharing in Miss America. I know everyone is a little let down now that the pageant is over, but don't fear...Miss Auburn University is Friday night, and Miss Univeristy of Mobile is Saturday night!!!!
Look forward to seeing you Tuesday!
-kj
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ReplyDeleteAh, it worked. I wanted to post a letter I wrote to family who financially contributed to my trip to Peru. Read if interested. Unfortunately, my awesome footnotes and map did not transfer well into this format : (
ReplyDeleteFamily and Friends,
First off, I want to say thank-you for the generous support you sent my way to make this mission trip to Peru possible. Amy and I are blessed to have friends and family who, not only love us, but know and love the Lord.
The trip to Peru was a quick but productive one. I was a part of a nine person team of Lakeview Baptist Church members. We left Auburn around 11am on Friday and arrived at the airport in Atlanta around 2pm for a 5pm flight.
The flight to Peru was close to 7 hours long; we arrived around midnight. Funny thing is that Peru is in the Eastern Time Zone, so God bless the lack of jet lag!
Of course one of our bags was lost in transit (it arrived the next day), but we arrived safely at out hotel around 2:30 am.
The next day we left for a resort (El Pueblo) about an hour outside of Lima. There we meet a team of missionaries (including, Keith Hocutt and family, former Lakeview member who is now working full-time in Peru) for the scheduled prayer retreat.
Every year Keith coordinates a prayer retreat with a handful of the Peru missionaries. These missionaries are scattered all over the country; some are living high in the mountains; some are located in the jungle; some nestled against Lake Titicaca in south Peru. There were, in total, 6 total missionary groups: Don and Linda, an older couple who have been living in Peru for close to 30 years and are nearing retirement; the Grady’s, including little Samuel and very little Jacob, who are constantly very cold because they live next to Lake Titicaca; the McAnally’s, including 16 year old Jacob and 12 year old Berta (more about them in a bit), who live about 12 hours from Lima in the jungle town of Pucallpa; the Smith’s, including their 3 boys ranging in age from 4 to 1, who are in the process of being relocated and are temporarily staying in Lima; and, finally, Lindsey and Courtney, both are recent college graduates who are taking advantage of the, what the Baptist missionary board calls, Journeyman program, where a person can live and work in a country for a year and then decide if they want to continue with full-time mission work.
Our team’s job was to “baby-sit” the mission kids while the adults spent time meeting, praying, sharing, learning, and just relaxing. But more than that, we were there to encourage the missionaries, to pray for and with them, and to help them in any way we could.
From 9am-12pm and from 7pm-9pm, we were responsible for the kids. This resort we were staying at was pretty nice. We had air conditioned rooms, a swimming pool, soccer goals, and a huge mountain to climb.
From 9-12, Matt (a 26 year old single dude from Lakeview) and I hung out with Jacob. He has had a tough run recently. He is an adopted African-American kid; his dad is a white American, and his mom is from Laos. He was adopted at the age of 4 and moved to Peru when he was 6. He has been living in the jungle for 10 years now and is getting a little restless. He lives for angering and shocking his parents, usually by racing his motorcycle in the town, playing tag in the towering jungle trees, or by blasting his American music. I enjoyed spending time with him and giving him someone to talk to. He loves playing computer games and messing around with computer programs. He looks forward to attending college in the states and pursuing a degree involving computers. He is full of energy, a kid that goes non-stop all day, who simply wants attention from his parents and just goes about trying to get it in the wrong way (such as suggesting that everyone go streaking while the whole group, adults included, are sitting down to eat dinner—not a thing to suggest to people of God!)
But the funny thing with these teenagers is that there is always something good underneath them. His sister Berta does not speak any English. Her parents have adopted her from a local tribe, and Jacob is her translator. Berta glows when Jacob is around; I will always remember hearing Berta ask “Where Jacob?” in her broken English when her brother has ran off on another adventure. Jacob watches out for her and cares for her.
What I will remember most about this trip is the last night that Matt, myself and Jacob congregated together. We had been trying to get Jacob to open up about more serious stuff than Halo 3 (a video game), and on the last night Matt suggested we read through and chat about Mark 9. This chapter talks about the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain top and the exorcism of a demon-possessed boy. We read through the section, talked about what on earth a transfiguration is, laughed at Peter’s reaction (“It is good that we are here”—not the thing I would immediately say if Jesus turned bleach white in front of my eyes), and spent time reflecting on our own “mountain top” experiences—you know, the kind where you feel as if Jesus is sitting right next to you and the troubles of the world are a distant concern.
Jacob was full of questions, but also full of questions. He could talk about who Elijah was and why Elijah would have appeared on the mountain top alongside Moses and Jesus; he knew about other powerful mountain top scenes in the Bible (the 10 commandments, Isaac and Abraham); he wondered about the phrase “I believe, help my unbelief”—uttered by the demon possessed boy who Jesus and the disciples immediately encountered when they came down from the mountain; and he got on a tangent about the sin of homosexuality.
We spent some good guy time—just Jacob, an adopted African American child with a white dad an Asian mom and a Spanish speaking adopted sister who lives in a jungle, Matt, a 26 year old with a MA in divinity, and myself, a teacher of sorts—chatting about faith. Three dudes that have only know each other about a week and who will, probably, never meet on earth again, but who had a great time climbing the mountain on the resort, racing down the water slide, playing soccer in our bare feet, and puzzling over the Word.
Matt, that night, closed our time with prayer. We were sitting next to the pool on these plastic recliners, dead silence in the Peru night. He thanked God for—and I will always remember this—“going down the slide at Mach 3, climbing a huge mountain, and the mountain-top experiences of knowing you.” Isn’t that what it is all about? Living life full-speed, playing hard, and praying hard?
Thanks for giving me the chance to have a mountain-top experience with Jacob, with Matt, and with a water-slide.
Love,
Michael
27 January 2009