Herkie singing with the kids

He´s actually calling out for his woman (who sadly doesn´t exist). His normal sounds are little chirps like a cricket. This call is a very surprising sound from his little body. This is also unusual for him to do it with humans. He normally does it in the early morning from the top of a tree. He really likes Mama T´s singing.

A couple more photos

All of us POPPYS House volunteers at a Christmas party with a bunch of missionaries in Iquitos.

We got American food!

On the bus heading in to the plaza on Christmas Eve, all us Americans sang our hearts out. We sang everything from "I´ll Be Home For Christmas" to "The 12 Days of Christmas". In the middle of most songs, we realized we didn´t actually know the songs, but kept yelling them out anyways. Zuleica´s reaction to our singing represents how all the other girls felt as passengers stuck listening to us. A couple times she stuck her head out the window. We sang for about an hour straight. In the end, we changed to the little kids songs the tots like to sing.

Christmas at the hospital

A wonderful missionary family here in Iquitos, Adam and Jen, invited us to help bring cheer to the children´s ward of the Regional Hospital. A group of us joined them to pass out little candies and toys on Christmas day. To our surprise, they provided us with costumes. We were butterflies, Aaron was the giant clown and Adam was Captain Power Verse. We were very happy to see that there were few children in the hospital on Christmas. Better that they are at home and relatively healthy, right?

One of the weakest babies, hospitalized for malnutrition (and clearly had been a pre-me). Her arms were like toothpicks.
Aaroncito, "el payaso guapito" according to some of the women in the hospital. I kindly informed them he was mi payaso!

Pictures of Christmas

Christmas was really fun at POPPYS House. All the girls and kids got new clothes to wear in the plaza downtown. That is the tradition down here. They were all looking good in their brand new clothes, including the little dudes, and after a turkey meal we went to downtown Iquitos. Here are some of the pictures.

Aaron (with his Spartan beard) and Kevin. E!

This girls ready to eat.

Ermelinda and Marcos

Milagros and Rosany

Saraí, Zuleica and Valesca

Some cute pictures

Herkie grooming Aaron´s arm.
He really is a beautiful monkey. Seriously.

Leo is our cute, stinky, alien monkey (squirrel monkey...he is squirrelly).

Saraí, Valesca and Zuleica in the wheelbarrow.
Saraí: Miss Santo Tomás

Thanksgiving!

Distance is tough. Being apart from family, friends, and customs is difficult. Thanksgiving and Christmas are two enormous holidays for our culture, and being somewhat disconnected from them is challenging. Thanks to some other missionaries in town, we got together a group of about 15, and celebrated Thanksgiving dinner. We had pumpkin, cherry and pecan pie, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, enchiladas, corn, green beans, and some other scrumptious dishes. Thanks to some old DVDs, we were even able to watch a little football as well.

It felt really good to sit with other missionaries who were feeling similar; a long way from home, but thankful none-the-less for everything God has supplied. We all went around, before the first bite was taken, and talked about why we were thankful. Despite being thousands of miles away, we all were feeling a little closer to home. The food was a huge emotional boost (with it being American and all), but more importantly, the connection to customs and friends was just what we needed. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, and were able to take some time to openly discuss the blessings that God has provided.

Micro Finance Update

Thanks to some amazing help from the WWU School of Business, the loan program has been continually growing. We now have two groups (group one have 6 and group two having 4), and both are demonstrating why God has chosen them to be apart of this program.

Group one started their third loan with this group yesterday (each member has completed two other loan cycles within this program). Each of the six ladies received S/.500 each (equivalent to $140 or one month wage) and will repay this back over a six month period (we meet every Monday). Group two is one month into a five month cycle and is doing very well. This is their first time with this program, but each has shown, and is currently showing why they want to be apart of this program. The have each received S/.300 (equivalent to roughly $100).

Thanks to WWU School of Business and Andrew Corson, we have effectively loaned out more than $3,000 to local business women here in the Santo Tomas community. Each one of the 10 women have committed to being apart of this educational process that will hopefully plant a seed of better living (through encouragement and learning) while giving them funds to help achieve this goal. As of current, we have a repayment rate of 96% -a strong percentage considering no collateral is required to receive a loan. We pray that God continues to bless this program as he has been doing.

Thank you for you prayers and support.

Some Random Pictures

Marcos helping Kelly wash.

Leo, the stinky squirrel monkey, sleeping.

Herkie relaxing on one of his favorite palm branches--our view from below.

Bobby, our ferrocious guard dog. He is a lot like Bruce Willis--tough, proud, getting old, but can still kick some serious booty.

Aaron and Marcos doin' their thing.

School for the Tots

With the 3 new volunteers has come an increased investment in the little kids programs. Two ladies, Priscila and Bianca, have created and implemented a daily program for the kids (Monday – Friday). Currently, they are working their way through the alphabet –both oral and written. They do practices, sing songs, go on walks, play group games, and invest a lot of quality time. We have seen amazing improvements in all of the children and are excited to see them learning in a fun way. They are developing a base of knowledge that will help with schooling later on in life. We are very grateful for these ladies sacrifice in being down here. They are doing a wonderful service.

Here are some photos of the kids.

New Twin Girls!

Meet our newest edition to the girls of POPPYS House: Valesca and Zuleica. They are twin 4-year-old girls. It has been a new adventure for us here, especially since we administrators have taken on the role of parents for these two girls—bathing, washing clothes, combing hair, playing, putting to bed, feeding, taking to the bathroom, etc.

They arrived at the beginning of November and since then we have been learning many new aspects about parenting. Many of you parents—especially our own parents!—may feel a sense of “I told you so” or “How do you like it from this end?” and get a good laugh at seeing us dive in to a much more direct parenting role for a couple of very dependent children. Although we get no tax breaks from it, it has been a new challenge that has been making us grow into better people (better parents!).

They came with ragged clothes, lice, worms and the lack of consistency in their lives. We have been able to clean them up—some new clothes, hair cuts, de-worming (won’t go into the gory details of that, but wow), and a consistent schedule and discipline. We have seen great improvements in the past several weeks.

The following is a heart-felt letter we would like to share:

Dear Moms and Dads (especially our own, but not exclusively):
We apologize for all the pains, stresses and grey hairs we have caused you in our lifetime, but we are forever grateful for your example. You showed love, patience, wisdom and perseverance in the face of many ridiculous moments with ungrateful children (at times). You kept telling yourself “They’ll thank me someday” and perhaps never believed it. Well, it was true. We thank you. We thank you for disciplining us and training us. We now understand the blood, sweat and tears you shed because of us and we deeply respect your courage and strength as parents. We constantly seek to follow your example as we are now finding ourselves in a very similar role. Parenting is challenging and rewarding. We hope our girls will thank us someday. J
Much Love,

Aaron and Kelly

Evicted by Paul Opp!

Since our arrival, we have seen and experienced the completion of building number 2. When we first arrived, only the bottom floor was completed (kitchen and dining hall), but over the course of this last year, the second floor has taken shape. The roof was put up, walls constructed, lights put in and now one room has been finished. Paul politely told us to move up into the new room, and we eagerly went. With three new volunteers coming, we needed to get out and moved in.

The new room has been very nice. The floor is tiled, there are now windows on both sides –allowing for a draft at night –and we thoroughly enjoy the new and improved bathroom. There were some amazing groups that came down and donated both time and money to be where we are today (we are all thankful), but there is still more needing to be done. We lack money to complete the other administrator room and the computer room/library for the girls. With these two extra rooms, we would be able to move up the other administrator couple, freeing up another room for more girls/sick bay , and with the library, have a more productive place to study –it would also allow for group projects, computer related homework, and programs for the kids.

If you would like to help, email Paul Opp (President of People of Peru Project): U4peru@aol.com.



Here is the course that building 2 has taken since our arrival:


You can see the building in the background. When we first arrived, they had just recently finished the bottom part of this building (kitchen and dining room).
After a few months, money came in to start work on the two administrators rooms.

In Christmas of 2008, we were able to put on a much needed roof. The roof is now complete as is the first room (far left) on this building. The second administrator room (middle with no door) has yet to be finished as well as the computer/library/study hall room.

A Monster Eel

Recently, Casey and Nathaniel have been doing a lot of fishing in the nasty water in our back "field/lake" (depending on the time of year). There had been a ton of overgrowth, but over the course of a month, and with some help, they chopped down the growth with their machetes, like real charapas. One night, they were fishing and found this ugly beast--a distant relative to the Lock Ness Monster. They measured it to be 1.75 meters (5' 7"). Fortunately, the nightwatchman was with them at the time of the catch, because they were going to grab it with their hands, thinking it was a big fish. He yelled for them to not get in the water, since he recognized it to be an electric eel. They hooked its mouth with a stick and drug it up to the house. We had some fun taking pictures, but it was still creepy. We stuck it in a wheelbarrow and gave it to a neighbor. Apparently, some people like to eat eel. Tasty.

Worship with Papa Paul

We were privileged to have Paul out at POPPYS House for worship one Friday night. The girls loving seeing “Papa Paul” and were thrilled when he showed up with his two daughters. Paul gave a great talk on being thankful for what you have. He had just returned from visiting a friend in Haiti and talked about his first hand experience with the poverty there. Haiti is an island with no trees, little to no rain, tons of rocks (making it impossible to plant or grow much) and a surplus of poverty.

There were many pictures which allowed the girls to see exactly what Paul was talking about. We have so much to be thankful for and sometimes it is easy to forget. It does not matter where you are, USA, Peru or Haiti, we need to be thankful for what we have. We hope Paul is able to make it out again sometime to share some of his cool stories.

Marcos Washes Clothes

Our little dude, Marcos, has been helping the girls with washing their clothes lately. I had the opportunity for him to teach me a few things about washing my sheets. Lots of detergent, soap (which he calls jamon, meaning ham, rather than jabon), and bleach. He is adorable and he knows it.

A Typical Hospital Trip

Last week, a neighbor boy was very sick and we feared malaria or h1n1. Our local medical clinic in Santo Tomas was closed most of the week--either entirely closed or just no lab tech. Apparently there was a "lab worker strike". We couldn't even get a reference sheet to go to a hospital. So, I took him to the second best hospital in town--Hospital Regional--to the ER. I will take you all step by step through the process of getting seen at a hospital here. Keep in mind, this was to the ER, so it was faster than a regular appointment.

Arrive at hosptial. Search everywhere for Emergency. Signs take you through maze, but never any emergency area found. Go outside. Find an ambulance, thus find ER entrance. Enter ER and ask personnel where to go. Sent to caja (to pay). Wait in line. Caja lady tells me we're in wrong line, since he had insurance papers (SIS). Sent to SIS caja. Wait in line at a window. Wrong line, sent to other window. Finally get to window, sent to get make copies of the SIS paper. Search everywhere for copy window, find in other corner of hospital. Return and give copies. Sent to next window. Stamped, signed, fingerprinted. Get to wait in line for ER doctor. Talk with doctor. Sent to lab to get fluids tested. Wait at lab area. Find out I'm waiting in wrong spot. Wait in lab line. Get to front, but told to return to SIS caja because I didn't have proper stamps yet. Wait in SIS caja line and get stamped. Return to lab line to wait again. Get to front and told that I'm not in the right lab line. Need to go to ER lab. ER lab in a back hallway. Wait there. Lab worker takes my papers then tells me he needs the needles. Have to go to pharmacy. Go to pharmacy and ask for needles. Cannot get in pharmacy. Must go to SIS pharmacy. Don't know what that means. Pointed in a different direction. Looking everywhere for a SIS pharmacy. Return to ER doctor to ask where to buy needle. He writes me a rx to buy the needle and sends me outside. Go outside and look all around for pharmacy. Find a stand selling snacks. Ask security guard where to go. Sent outside of hospital premises to a pharmacy on the street. Order needle. Sent to another caja to pay. Pick up needle. Return to ER lab and turn in needle and get testing done. Wait outside of lab for a LONG time. During the wait, many random people stare at us (at me, the gringa) and some come ask me where I'm from and if I was very hurt by the death of Michael Jackson. Over time, everyone leaves. Most areas of hospital closing for siesta time. Go back to lab to ask how much longer. Find out it was already done, but no one informed us. Take results back to ER doctor. Talk with doctor. Done.

In the end, the kid was going to be okay. Everything came out negative. Still, the process was so ridiculous that it made me boil with anger. I was muttering my frustrations to myself under my breath--in english. Who knows how people actually get help. So many people need it. I asked a few personnel what it is like for someone who dying. Do they help them faster? Or haul their body around so they can get fingerprinted and stamped and sent everywhere but to a doctor?! The Adventist exponentially better, only the common people cannot afford its care.

Just a little FYI on health care in Iquitos.

Three New Volunteers - a.k.a. "The Texas Trio"

A week ago, we received three new volunteers (Priscilla, Princess, and Bianca--left to right in photo) who have pledged to be here until next May. We are very excited, because they are living with us out at POPPYS House. They are a wonderful help with our girls. Their primary focus is on educating our younger girls and toddlers of the house. These three señoritas are from Harlingen, Texas, the hometown of Lisa Hann, and all three are bilingual. Below are some words about each one, compliments of Lisa:

Bianca Zambrano who is 19 years old is taking a break from college to come and volunteer with People of Peru Project. She is a sophomore in college and has yet to decide what she wants to major in. Bianca is a sweet, vibrant, energetic young lady. She along with Priscilla Maldonado will be starting a childcare educational program. We have four little ones at POPPYS house that will greatly benefit from their program. Bianca’s had extensive experience in childcare from Vacation Bible School to Mission trips, including babysitting my adorable nephew Kai. She has a heart of gold and the patience of a saint. It has not taken long for our four munchkins to warm up to her. Bianca is bilingual and will also be helping teach the children English.

Priscilla Maldonado with be working with Bianca in the childcare educational program. Priscilla is 24 years old and a junior in college studying elementary education. Priscilla has also had a great number of experiences with childcare. She is active in her church Pathfinder club and has been in charge of Vacation Bible School. This being her first mission opportunity she is very excited to be here with us. Priscilla is bilingual and has a passion for children. She is affectionate, sympathetic, and very patient. We know these two young ladies will do an amazing job with our kids at POPPYS house.

Princess Zambrano (Bianca’s sister) is the third of the young ladies here with us. Princess is 21 years old and is majoring in special education, a very hard and needed profession in our world today. Princess’s smile and energy is very contagious, she is wonderful asset to our home. Princess’s role at POPPYS house is to be the teacher/tutor for our primary girls. She will be attending school with them every morning from 7am-12:30pm. Our young ones have adapted to her presence at school and are excited to have someone there with them. Princess was also blessed with an immeasurable amount of patience. She has been involved in summer camp ministries, mission trips, and also babysitting. Princess has a natural touch with kids and her energy is magnetic.

We look forward to forming a relationship with them, and likewise, them with us and the girls.

Marcos gets a check up

Today little Marcos went to get his monthly checkup with his mother. This included things like height, weight, overall health, etc… Marcos was also asked a series of questions and we would like to share with you his responses.

Nurse: “Marcos, How old are you?”

Marcos: “Dos (two).”

Nurse: “Marcos, What is your mothers name?”

Marcos: “Mamita (little mommy)!”

Nurse: “Ok. But what is her name?”

Marcos: “Da! (this is short for Ermelinda)

Ermelinda: “Ha ha ha.”

Now the nurse is holding up some flash cards with pictures of animals on them.

Nurse: “What is this picture of?” (Holds up a photo of cow)

Marcos: “Vaca!” (In Spanish, vaca is cow.)

Nurse: “What is this picture of?” (A photo of a dog is shown)

Marcos: “Vaco!”

Ermelinda: “Vaco is the name of our dog, so every dog is called Vaco.”

Mother: “Ha ha ha.”

Nurse: “Ok Marcos, what is this picture of?” (Holds up a photo of a monkey)

Marcos: “Herkie!!” (Herkie is our monkey)

Ermelinda: “We have a lot of animals at our house…”

And so the test went. Marcos actually received very high compliments over his checkup. He is a particularly intelligent boy that is learning faster than most, growing tall quickly, and gaining a lot of strength. His mother is doing a wonderful job!

October Birthdays

This last Friday, all the workers and staff got together out here at POPPYS House to celebrate each birthday for this month (we happen to have quite a few). Mr. Casey had a birthday (29), as did Milagros (14), Olga (23) and Nitsy (She does all the purchasing and is in charge of the education of all our girls as well as the other sponsored students through the Organization. Also really close to our girls.).

The party involved a parillada (Deliciously, grill –cooked, seasoned, chicken), a home baked cake, rice, maiz morada (purple corn drink), and yucca. It was a joyous festival that also included a friendly soccer game once everyone was stuffed full of food. I wish that I had photos to share, but our camera is being fixed. It was a great opportunity to have staff from the organization come over and socialize with our girls as well as have one big birthday party for everyone (cuts on costs). Sadly, no-one was egged (culturally acceptable and customary to do on birthdays), but I suppose it turned out beautifully for the birthday people.

The Worlds Longest Raft Race

Knowing little to nothing about what to expect, we embarked on a 4 day rafting trip down the mighty Amazon River. We (check out the photo above), Nathanie (far left), Casey (second from left), Felix (third from left), and myself, had been planning for this race since the first of this year. When I say planning, the idea was to go out paddling, do pushups, sit-ups, exercise, etc… It is safe to say that we barely fit in our supply run the night before.

Day number one was spent bussing to a town about two hours away to get our supplies i.e. paddles, life jackets, 8 logs (each one 15 feet long), rope, nails, and a tent to sleep in. When we arrived at our destination, it was a fight for dear life to get logs. The process of selecting your logs was supposed to be monitored, but, it was not done well and sadly we were one of the last to arrive. After finally getting everything in order, we were allowed to begin constructing the raft with 2 hours of daylight left… Thanks to a friendly local, we were able to complete it just before dinner (she was awesome).

That night was unique. We were given an army tent (which was made for 6, short, Peruvians) and we crammed in 9 Americans. It rained all night long, we slept on nasty mats, we snuggled with 5 Americans we had just met a few hours earlier, there were a plethora of mosquitoes, and needless to say we slept horribly.

Day two, we quickly shot ahead of 5 teams and then quickly were passed by what felt like all 35 teams. It took us the better have of the morning (we started at 8 am) to figure out who should sit where –we kept veering to the right. It also took some time figuring out the currents, when to rest, rowing is tiring, and that the saying, “oh yeah, the finish line is just around that corner up there,” translates to, “2 hours up there, past 5 corners, you will be able to see the finish line.” Oh well. It was fun. We saw some magnificent pink dolphins and finished the day in 6 hours and in 17^th place out of 35 teams –we even passed a hard core female team –which was not too shabby.

Day three started at 7 am after another beautiful night crammed into a tiny tent with 9 people, rain, mosquitoes, and drunken people partying in front of our tent and bright lights on until 5:30 am. Needless to say, we were all rested up. This proved to be the toughest, longest day. It felt like the day went on for ever. We were extremely sore, trying not to complain, but still enjoying the scenery. Today we learned that when you ask, “how much farther is it?” and the answer is, “just 20 minutes up there around that corner on the left,” this really means, “it is 2 hours or more up around many corners on the right side of the river.” We placed 18^th with a time of 9 hours for the day.

Day four had us all pumped. We knew it was the last day, and we had managed to square away a little hotel room the night before that the four of us crammed into (it had two beds, but still better than sleeping with 9) for only $8.00. It was beautiful. It had a personal shower, bathroom, fan and mosquito proof netting –we slept like kings.

We looked at the map this time, and had a fairly good idea of where to go. We found some slow currents at first (the course of the race had us veer off into a tributary) which provided some great swimming and playing, and then later on we found some extremely fast currents. Today was dubbed the “no complaining day” so it was comical to voice our problems and pain into a “positive” form of communication.

In order to displace boredom and sore muscles, we rowed to the count of 300-500 and then took a 2 minute break. We followed this pattern for about 1.5 hours, and quickly found ourselves passing a few teams and pulling ahead of the back of the pack. Sadly, the finish line was up a river (against the current) about a quarter mile. This would not be too bad, except when you are built like a barge, and are plowing water, it makes rowing upstream difficult. If, and when, any one of us stopped rowing, we started going backwards –it was depressing. We were able to finally reach the finish line that felt so close, but was so far in 6 hours (we came in 17^th place out of 35). We even finished ahead of a team of Peruvian women that kept screaming in our ears, “Beat those white boys!”

All in all it was an awesome experience. The food was good, sleeping arrangements interesting, the race quite disorganized, tons of really nice people, sub-par communication, but an adventure down a beautiful river filled with incredible and breathe taking wildlife (we saw tons of birds, pink dolphins, fish, mosquitoes, beautiful and uninhabited jungle, and friendly, local, people). It was an unbelievable raft race which we eagerly await for to compete in September of next year –but not one month sooner.

Here we are trying desperately to construct our raft. We had some curvey logs!

Here is a photo of our raft after day one of rowing. It actually floated!

We had a beautiful rainbow finish line after day one. It was amazing.

We had some locals greeting us as we came across the finish line with their beating drums. You can see some of the other rafts in the water.

The Dating Talk

Recently, Casey and I got the opportunity to sit down with two of our older girls and do the “dating talk.” Personally, I do not remember how mine went, or rather, I purposely forget it... I do not know Casey’s background either, but whatever the case, we ran with it. Both of these girls are in high school and have interest in boys –specific ones –so now it is time to talk about conduct, boundaries, God, relationships, etc…

We talked to each girl about how special they are, how boys think, public appearance, God’s role in relationships, the difference between boundaries and healthy boundaries, how if either boy ever did anything bad he would have to face two, rather large, fathers, and few other points of interest. Society, especially in this culture, tends to put females very low on the totem pole. Women are there more or less as objects. We constantly try to reinforce to our girls their value and what they should expect in life with relationships, however, when the opportunity to date arises, they make their own, distinguishable, paths.

They both were feeling fairly awkward, but were able to manage a good hearty chuckle when we told them that any boy who tried to do something inappropriate with them would need to realize there are two fathers at home (enough said, I know). We wanted to remind them how special they were, and how special they should always be treated. Overall, I think that the conversation went rather well.

There are so many conversations that we have embarked on down here, many in which I would not consider myself “well educated”. Many have been ones that I would never really want to engage in, however, when you are the parent, and no-one else is around to give advice, you just pray about it, and ask the Lord to give you the right words to say. We will just wait, pray, and see what comes next.

Loma Linda School of Dentistry

A few weeks ago, we were fortunate to have the Loma Linda School of Dentistry helping out the People of Peru Project. They were able to do some much needed work up and down the Amazon River, here in Iquitos, and also out here at POPPYS House. We were blessed to have them for two whole days. Not only were our girls able to receive superb treatment, anyone that came to our gate was also able to receive some much needed work. The group was able to work on all ranges; from little kids with rotten teach to grandmas and grandpas that have never and probably never will brush their teeth. We are very grateful for the work that they performed. They worked late in each night, never complained, and always wanted to help out more. It was great having them here and Santo Tomas (our town) looks better because of it. 8)

Here are some kids waiting for their turn in line, as well as the free toothbrush, toothpaste, and stuffed animal they each received when done.

Here are some docs from LLU yanking out some teeth...