Thanks to an incredible group of people from
The famed Norman Anderson, WWU Business Professor, putting a ceiling in our (Kelly and me) new room.
He was even seen sporting the trendy orange service day t-shirt from WWU.
When Michelle arrived, she brought with her a plethora of unseen, and forgotten, American items; one of which were giant bags of chocolate chips. We have all the makings for chocolate chip cookies except chocolate. Kelly quickly went to work in the kitchen baking some fresh, awesome, gooey cookies for the girls. We were sad to realize that baking cookies in a gas, one temperature oven, without baking soda, doesn’t quite give you the same result as it would in the States, however, they were still amazing.
The girls took these shots. They interrupted me from a good soccer game to say, “Aaron. Quick. Stop playing. We need the camera. Kelly is cooking!” Needless to say, the girls liked this new found treat –especially the hot, chocolaty goodness. 
This last week we finished up our last meeting with our Santo Tomas ladies. It was more of a party. Five women were present. Five accounts completely paid for. Not one of the accounts is in arrears. This has been an incredible group. They have been very good on attendance, payments and participation.
For those that were able to pay every week on-time, they received a S/.15 ($5 USD) bonus and they will automatically be apart of the next group which will be starting the end of August. For those that were not able to pay every week on-time, they will be considered for the next group, but equally alongside all of the other applicants waiting to be apart of this process. I wish that we could carry them over, but we only have enough funds for one group.
So much has been learned throughout these last four months. There is so much yet to learn and do in order to have this program continue and strengthen. The women, we have found, are very willing to better their business, pay back the loans, and eagerly participate in a group setting. By having the group members from the same location, it has tremendously helped out attendance. I have been reading books on the “How Too” of microfinance, and morphing the knowledge into a program specific for this area. Talk about challenges. There has been a significant amount of help. Thank you. I hope to see this program continue to grow.
Rumor has it we might be even receiving someone from WWU to help out and work with this program throughout this next academic school year. That would be incredible. There is so much to do, so much more we can grow. Keep this program in your prayers. Pray that God, again, chooses the best and most deserving people to be apart of this next group. Thanks for the interest and support.
We were heading out to go play at a lake -two buses stuffed to the brim with white people (our girls were scattered amongst both buses). In the middle of the road was a Rainbow Boa. Both buses stopped, everyone filed out, and traffic was stopped so that everyone could take a photo (yes, us included). It was hilarious to see 50+ tourists blocking traffic and the traffic yelling at them in Spanish (like they were going to understand…). Anyway, it was a great spectacle –both the boa and traffic being blocked.
True story.
5 am: Leave Santo Tomas for the city to purchase our weekly supply of food.
6:30 am: Arrive in Belen to start shopping.
6:35 am: Check pockets to make sure no-one has stolen anything.
7 am: Meander through the meat market –glad that I missed breakfast.
7:05 am: Check pockets to make sure no-one has stolen anything.
8 am: Picking up our fruits and vegetables –angry that I missed breakfast.
8:30 am: Sitting in motofurgon guarding food and arguing with two boys about how I really am not married to Susana.
9 am: Waiting for Susana to purchase a button for some pants and parked in a no parking zone.
9:01 am: Angry Policeman walks up tells me I cannot park here and then asks me for my Peruvian Drivers License.
9:01:10 am: Awesome, I can understand what he is saying! Crap, I don’t have one.
9:01 am: Angry Policeman again asks for my documents this time using hand signals.
9:01:30 am: Crap, what do I do? Like a deer in headlights, I start talking in English; “English. I speak English,” I say.
9:05 am: After a few minutes, Policeman gets frustrated that I don’t understand him, steps out of my way, and tells me to go.
9:05:25 am: “Gracias, me voy (thank you, I am going)!” I say, and quickly drive away.
9:06 am: Confused Policeman watches me leave.
Being able to pull the, “I don’t speak Spanish” can be awesome!
After hours of flying, sleeping, and waiting, Michelle arrived in the humid jungle of
We have been talking her up for the last few weeks, so the girls were equally as excited to see her –Kelly was excited because it is another person from
Thanks to the recent group from
Our girls have been out of school for the last week, and this vacation will continue until the 10th of August. Reason: they are taking the precautionary measure of cancelling school to stop the possible spread of possibly getting the flu. Result: 3 week vacation. We do not want to downplay the dangerousness of the swine flu, but we are questioning the purpose. The teachers, and the director for that matter, knew nothing of it until a week before the release date. This was a problem in
We were down at the Plaza de Armas with the girls, eating ice cream, socializing, and out of nowhere came this big dude. He could not get over how tall I was, and I could not get over how tall he was. It was comical, and picture worthy. 
You can see Marcos gawking at how tall this dude is. I think he was more shocked to see someone towering above me.
This is a time for celebration. We are still a little confused as to what we actually celebrate, but basically, it is a celebration to have a celebration (it was also mentioned that the celebration is for the patron saint of
There was obviously no school, so we took the girls down to the plaza in the evening. Some of our girls had the opportunity to go home, and spend time with family. The rest went with us. The plaza was mayhem, but it was fun to hang out with our girls.
The organization’s office is located a couple blocks from the plaza and traffic was blocked in front of the driveway. Taking advantage of the many pedestrians, Paul set up a movie projector, screen, and benches to show Bible movies. People filled all the benches and chairs to sit and watch the little Bible cartoons for hours and hours. It was awesome to see so many people, including traffic police, enthralled in something with such a good message, rather than getting wasted at all the bars nearby. Praise the Lord!
…was awesome. Thank you all who send us packages. Everything we receive is greatly appreciated and brings us exponential amounts of joy. A recent package from my brother, Trevor, was no exception…well, except that the customs guy seemed to be entirely immune to joy, much less exponential amounts of it.
Normally, Aaron and I are on a first-name basis with the post office people who work with the international packages. However, this was no normal day. Some new guy on a power trip felt it his duty to make known that he was in control and he decided what was acceptable and what wasn’t. I’ll try not to get into too much detail, but get to the irony of the situation.
He was frustrated at me for not having my Peruvian address memorized (almost looking for a reason to deport me); he was angry that the slip said “stickers” and he didn’t know what they were (and they were right on top of everything); he abhorred the fact that there was packets of instant mashed potatoes and the slip said nothing about food. But I really crossed the line when I started looking through some photos of my nephew that were in the package while he was trying to inspect it. He demanded I put the pictures back in the box and to not remove anything from the package until I had left the post office. The irony: when I got home, I discovered that underneath all the mashed potatoes were boxes and boxes of DayQuil and NyQuil. He focused so much on the dumb little details that he never noticed the things he could actually confiscate from me—medicine. And now, our girls are receiving wonderful relief for the cold symptoms.
Just a little ironic…
This celebration started out on Friday with a presentation at the school. Our girls were apart of songs, dances, plays and skits. It was beautiful. The attendance was down a little from the Mothers Day performance -there were no fathers in attendance, they were all out working. I was even able to be apart of it with Rosany –we sang, “He knows my name.” The girls put a lot of time into this, and it turned out wonderful.
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---- Here are Jessica (blue) and Veronica (white) performing a little musical skit.
---- Rosany and me singing a duet.
Saturday night, the girls surprised me by taking me out to dinner –I actually knew, but don’t tell the girls… The girls also celebrated this occasion with Paul and his wife. We went out to our personal favorite, Kiki Riki –one of many chicken and rice joints, but this one has the best sauces. Afterwards, we went for ice cream, and then hit the plaza for some entertainment and socializing (the girls love walking around the Plaza all dressed up). The ice cream is incredible. You can get mango, passion fruit, and a vast array of other delicious flavors only found in
---- Kelly is here with Rosany (left), Marcos, and Ermelinda (right) at the plaza.
---- Here we are eating ice cream. The original idea was to start a savings program within our group of 5 ladies. At one of the meetings, we talked about the importance of saving. We asked that they try to save 3 soles a week (roughly $1). Through our conversations, we found out that 3 of our ladies are apart of another group of ladies (there are 7 in this group) whom are saving 5 soles a day, per person. They group members are free to take out loan, interest free, one at a time, and then have a few months to pay it back. The idea is amazing, and it got us thinking…
We went into town to see if we could assist the ladies, of our group, in opening up their own accounts at some of the banks (this is something they have never dreamed of). Each bank we went to seemed to give worse information. For savings, each had a maintenance fee for amounts under $1,000 USD, and some charged as much as 10% a month (however they happily informed us they offer .10% of interest, monthly…). Opening a checking was equally as bad. We quickly decided this was not going to work.
Word got around quickly that we were allowing people in the community to save their money with us. As of today, we have 12 members (some of our girls at POPPYS House are also starting to save with us), and most are saving fairly regularly. We offer no interest as of yet, but a save haven to store money. From our experience, the people want to save, but if they see the money, there is ALWAYS something to spend it on. With that in mind, we started collecting money at their doorstep, Sunday –Thursday, in order to assist in this dilemma; this has been beautiful, but also challenging meshing it with our schedule at POPPYS House (now that the other missionary from WWU has gone home, I am doing this by myself). This is an incredible idea, and one that could really help this community. Keep this program in your prayers as it continues to grow!
Jessica turned 15 on June 6 and we celebrated by smashing eggs on her head. However, the big party celebrating this huge milestone in the Hispanic culture was celebrated on the evening of June 14. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth behind the details of the wedding-like birthday party, a beautiful ceremony took place.
We don’t have pictures of everything, so words will suffice. If I write 1,000 I believe that is worth one picture (as long as the saying is biconditional). Aaron, Juanito and a group that was visiting from
I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story. In the end, it was a beautiful night with tasty food, good friends and family, and a girl who became a princess—dress and all.
Here is Jessica entering with her date.
A final shot of Kelly, Aaron and all the beautiful young ladies.
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