Joanna's Journal: First Sunday and Trip to Puno!

We had an awesome week in Puno! God did amazing things that only He could do! I'm going to try to write just a bit on each subject and give you about 25 pictures... we left for the trip Saturday the 12th, and got back Monday the 21st in the afternoon. We went 12 hours south into the "state" of Puno, but the town of Cacorco. There is a town of Puno, and we drove through there but didn't stay there. Cacorco doesn't exist as far as the maps are concerned. It is a tiny rural farming community right on the Lake Titicaca. We made about 200 gift packs because the pastor said that there were about 200 families in the community.

It was cold in the morning as we started out. Urubamba where I have been living is about 9,000 feet altitude, Cusco is about 10,000 feet, Cacorco was about 12,000 feet, and we drove over 14,000 feet. Yeah, we were high. The oxygen is going to be great when I go back to basically nothing above sea level. :-) (the heat is going to be bad though!) The look of the mountains changed and they started to look smaller. We were above the tree line, so it was basically brown grass that covered everything. As we drove along, you could see sheep, cows, llamas, and other animals grazing. Young kids a lot of times are in charge of herding the family's sheep. Sometimes as young as 6-8. You could see the Bible times sheep folds like when Jesus says, I am the door. Pretty neat!

We sang some of our specials for church in the van, and that was fun! It helped the time pass, even if we couldn't hit some of the high notes or last as long. (thanks to the altitiude) I enjoyed, because normally I am playing the piano, and not singing. It is more dificult to play and sing if you are consentrating on the notes and they are singing in another language. One song I had to transpose down, and so I have to think about what I see and what I play. That was good though. We stopped in the town of Juliaca for lunch... Here they have a pretty sweet dollar menu! S/. 3 you can get meat, rice, and soup if you want it. Since we were taking it "to go" I went without the soup. Some of the guys had it though, and they just put it in a plastic bag, bite off the end, and chow down. Meanwhile, I was using my pocket knife and fingers to eat my rice and meat. The pocket knife didn't do much with the rice, so... thank God for hand sanitizer! After Ariel finished with the spoon, she passed it over. (I hate sharing stuff in the states, but here everything takes on a new relative term of "clean")

We got in pretty late, and picked up the pastor from the Cacorco (José) from the road. He isn't very good at directions, but we eventually got to the place where we were going to sleep. (the Desaguadero church) He told us about the church in Cacorco and we told him some about ourselves. The church has recently gone through a split. Some church members thought one thing about doctrine and others though differently so they had to split. (like important stuff... losing salvation, women pastors etc) He seemed pretty discouraged, but hopefully our week there was an encouragement to him! We had tuna (out of the can... I drained it first) peanut butter, an apple, and the people at the church made us some of the best tea I've ever had! It was cinnamon and sweet and hot, and that is really all that mattered. We were in the bottom basement/big open room, and we all laid mattresses on the floor to sleep. Clothes and all stuffed into a sleeping bag stuffed between Ariel and Elena, but it was all good! I wasn't cold, and slept for the few hours I had. :-)

The next morning we hurried to clean up the room in the Desaguadero church so we could go to Cacorco 30 minutes away. (Desaguadero is one border town between Bolivia and Peru.) The bathrooms at the church were... interesting... 3 sides and a hole... uh, we finally found they had some plastic stuff, but with the wind, I don't think that it counted as a side. :-p We ate breakfast that some people from the church had prepared... drinkable oatmeal and bread. I got the whole cup down, and was glad it was over...:-) We went over to the next church, and guess what they had for us for breakfast? Drinkable oatmeal too! That one was a bit harder to get down. I drank about 1/2, and then passed it off to Rachel when no one was looking. (you would offend people if you didn't finish the whole meal! So when you have soup, you finish everything, including the last drop of the broth.) I think she had 3 1/2 oatmeals that morning. She is a trooper!

The piano was nice there! Only went down 2 Cs below middle C and no pedal, but it sounded right! Anyway, I have kinda gotten used to playing without a pedal. The piano at the seminary doesn't have one either. 2 girls about my age were there, and so I ended up talking to them a bit. There names were Ana and Cynthia, and so I saw them around for the next week every day. There moms helped with the food. The ladies cooked for the whole group all week plus some of the guys that came in from out of town for the Revelation class. Lots of food!

In the Sunday school the first morning we had 9 kids. Roxana and later Juan taught on the life of Jonah. I held the pictures for Roxana. We taught a few songs (one about Jonah that I have only heard since I have been here, and OBEDIENCE) We did the puppet script about obedience that Marco, Milka and I put together for our class. Ariel, Juan and I did it, but I had Milka's part because Ariel needed the easy on the spanish part. It was NOT a stunning performance, but we only dropped the bear once. Oh, well. we tried.

The kids said their verse in church that morning, and our group sang our specials for that day. The specials really didn't have a problem the whole week. (Praise the Lord) I didn't play congregationally that first Sunday. Raúl played the guitar, and yeah... Amarí is the language there besides Spanish, and most of the older people ONLY speak Amarí. Their song books contained words of the songs in Spanish and Amarí, and usually they would sing all of the verses in both. We introduced ourselves and then headed back outside to help with the kids. After part 2 of Jonah, we did a little color sheet. I helped Elba, who had some special needs. She didn't talk, and looked like she was 6 and she was 9. She could hold a crayon, and color a few stripes but not much. That afternoon we ate lunch. Dinner on the grounds was a sheet type on the ground with piles of potatoes. All of the different kinds. They also passed out a hunk of cheese and had Pepsi (random) to go with it. There was only a few cups, so we....shared.... My American mind was having conniptions. It was great though, because you could eat as much or as little as you wanted. :-)

We got our room ready, which was pretty sweet. One room for 5 and a few days 6 girls. One bed, one couch, and a floor. :-) it was nice! That afternoon we invited kids to club which also started that afternoon. They don't have church at night, so that is the ride and Sunday morning in a nut shell. :-) I'm heading out to Machu Picchu today. It's a long story, but we are trying to go the cheapest way possible. Only have a few days left in Peru, so got to get that in! More is to come, but it will take a bit of time. :-)