Playin

Well, it looks like I'm going to be involved in La Casa Josefina(the orphanage associated with MTW) on a regular basis. Who knew that part of my new job description would include playing with kids a couple of days a week?

Right now, I'm just hanging out with the kids and helping out as needed. For now,I'm trying to get to know the kids a bit, understand the routine, and kind of figure out where I can specifically help as a nurse. Some of the kids have special needs, so it's always good to keep an extra eye on these kiddos.

La Casa Josefina is a good bit outside of town for me(and I already live a good half hour outside of the center of town). So......as you can imagine, there are plenty of wide open spaces surrounding La Casa Josefina. It's about a 45 min walk for me to get there. The mountains and countryside are beautiful, so I've really enjoyed walking there, but I haven't been caught in the rain yet, so we'll see what I have to say in the next couple of months.

It seems like just about every time I go, I end up with a pile of kids on my lap or just a bunch of kids huggin on me. They just eat up all the attention and playing they can get. The staff at the home do an awesome job, but there are 13 kids and it's just impossible to give them all the attention they would have if they had a mom and a dad. One of the things that just breaks my heart is when they call me “mama”. It just makes me sad. So, I'm glad to be able to spend some time with these precious children. It's been great for my Spanish too. Lots of the time, I can't really understand them. They talk so fast, funny, and mumbled, so its good practice. I'm pretty sure they don't really care about my grammar, so there's no pressure.....

If you're interested in reading a bit about these adorable kids(there's some cute pictures as well...), here's the link to the website for La Casa Josephina. All of the kids are lots of fun, but Jose definitely has a special place in my heart. He and I are becoming good friends.

http://www.josephinehouse.org/

Chocolatada

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in an outreach to one of the communities affected by the flooding last year. Due to a river overflowing in the community flooding many people lost everything. One man lost five family members during the flood. Many destroyed houses are still standing as they were almost a year ago now. This was the first time I've been to towns deeply affected by last year's floods. It was an incredible sight.

Christmas came a bit early in Taray. A group of missionaries who have been ministering to this town since last year's flood came to give a big party, a Chocolatada(a big Christmas tradition here). About 150 people came, which was about double what we expected would come... Hot chocolate and a special bread were served, there were clowns for the kids, a craft for the kids, gifts for the children, special packages of food for the elderly and much more. It was a great event for all. There was a time of singing (Christmas songs of course) and the gospel was presented. The craft we did with the kids was a paper candle with “Jesus, Light of the world” on it. As it was linked to the message given, our hope is that the kids might remember this very important message as they bring these little candles into their homes.

Although this town has been through so much in the past year, it was great to see them enjoy this time of fun and celebration. Here are a couple of pictures from the event.

Sam

I finally did it!! I got a cute little kitten. I bought him in the market about a week ago A Peruvian friend was kind enough to come with me on the little adventure. There were lots and lots of dirty little kittens in cages, along with chickens, cuy, and all kinds of other live animals.

I ended up with Sam, the runt of the litter. He's very cute and affectionate. And what I mean by affectionate is that he has to be with me ALL the time. I'm not quite sure how I feel about a cat climbing up my pant leg so he can be held at all times.

Otherwise, he's a lot of fun, likes to play, and sleeps plenty.
Here are some pictures....

Pics...

Fun!!

Well, it's been a great week!! Probably one of the best in my past 7 months months in Peru. Monday and Tuesday we had a huge medical campaign at our clinic. A big group from the States and Canada came for the week. They had 9 M.D's of all kinds of specialties and other medical personel as well. We were able to see a little over 400 patients for those two days. It was great!!

I had the opportunity to be a nurse and translator for those days. It was quite interesting. Was really fun to think like a nurse as I was involved in triage both days. I also worked with one of the nurses on the visiting team as I attempted to translate for her. It was quite a challenge, but at the end I was excited that I could translate at some level. Yay, I did learn something at school. The fun cases were when the patient only spoke Quechua. Then there were two translators involved and even more possibilities of incorrect information being relayed. At times, it felt a bit like the game of telephone. It was a good experience though.

The second fun part of my week was that my sister, Megan is here. She got here Thursday and will be here for the next four days. It's good to see her, show her around a bit, and to have some time to just enjoy each others company and to be able speak English for long periods of time.

I'm excited for the next couple of days and then Thanksgiving's here, yay!! I'm hoping my bosses family will kill one of their turkeys for the occasion. Would be nice and fresh....

following up

Well, this is a bit late, but here's the followup from my previous blog. The home visit with the young pregnant woman and her mother was difficult visit for me. Not only is the future of this young mother and baby uncertain and most likely to be difficult, but this girl's mother has cancer as well.

The longer we were in their one room apartment more and more issues, present difficulties and future difficulties came up. For many of the of the issues discussed all we could do was encourage them, make suggestions about healthy choices, and point out available resources that could help them. In this time of crisis for this family we continued to remind them of God's promises, read the Bible with them, and pray with them. The mom is a Christian, but when we asked her daughter, her response was that all her friends in school are Catholic, so she's decided to be Catholic as well. They do have some support from some of the family, but other parts of the family has disowned them. Needless to say, it's a difficult situation for all.

We will continue to visit them and support them in all the ways we can. My prayer is that we are able to share the love of Christ with them and that we would walk with them through this difficult time in their lives.