Our first days were spent looking for a place to live. That was easier said than done, being as we arrived (unbeknownst to us) in the middle of a time of local holidays and business closures. When things close down here for a holiday, that means EVERYTHING closes down… banks, grocery stores, restaurants, EVERYTHING! On the day before everything was to close, we tried to meet with people who could show us some places for rent. We called one realtor who gave us directions to her office so we could meet… except that she used only landmarks and not streets for directions. We don’t know the landmarks yet, so in no time we were thoroughly lost. She said something about being by Veronica Park. No signs at any of the parks. She said they were in front of the police station. We found the police station, but didn’t find the office we were looking for. So we went into the police station to ask. They sent us down the hill and around the bend to “the yellow and green building”. So, off we went. Guess what we found — about 10 huge yellow and green office and apartment buildings! We called her back and she gave us more directions. This time we found yet another police station (would have been good to have known that there were two police stations). We finally found the office and walked in, only to find that the realtor was not there and wasn’t working today. She had given us directions, but neglected to tell us that she was on vacation and wouldn’t be back to work for five days!
We met a different realtor who showed us two ‘interesting’ places. We politely declined. Note that we once bought a fixer-upper house that had no plumbing and no back wall. We most currently lived in an adobe mud ’house’ that was literally a donkey barn when we moved in and it had an outhouse and a composting toilet. So for us to “politely decline” two places is saying a lot. We had a lead for another house and we called. We left a couple of messages during the day. When he called back, Francisco set up an appointment with us to see two places the next day at 5:30. Awesome! In the mean time, some friends had previewed a house for us and had given us a contact for a man named Paco. I left a few messages for Paco and explained that he had shown a house to some friends of ours and we would like to see it. When he called back, he said, “Yes, I will show that house to you tomorrow at 5:30. It is one of the houses I have already set up for you.” I’m sure that I sounded a little confused when I tried to figure out how to reply to what seemed like a supernatural ability to have already set up appointments with a man I had never talked to. Then he let me in on the big clue… Francisco and Paco are the same person. I had been setting up phone calls and appointments with the same person all day. Yes, I felt pretty embarrassed. But Rule #1 in living and working in another culture is “You must be willing to laugh at yourself and at your mistakes.” Billy and I have done a LOT of laughing over the last two week, for sure!!! To make matters worse, or funnier, we were told that someone from the church would meet us at a certain parking lot and lead us to the church. On the way to the meeting place, our cell phone rings and it is (you guessed it) Francisco / Paco calling to say that he has been sent to meet us and he is waiting at the designated place. He is very jovial on the phone and I laughed and said “Hello again, Francisco / Paco! We look forward to seeing you again.” He laughed and said “Okay!”. The surprise of the day was when we pulled up and Francisco / Paco was NOT the same Francisco / Paco from the other day. He just thought I was a little crazy on the phone! (All is well now - we are going to his house for coffee next week.) By the way, in the course of two weeks, I think we have met no less than 5 or 6 men named Francisco / Paco / Fran and a couple of other nicknames for Francisco that I haven’t committed to memory yet. Obviously, this is Spain’s version of the name “John”. You can’t shake a stick without finding someone named Francisco / Paco here. Long story short, we ended up renting the house that our friends had previewed for us. The landlords are very nice and have been very helpful. It is something like what we would call a small townhome in Texas. The bottom floor is a one-car garage, a 9x9ft tile patio, and a front door (no living space on the first floor). The second floor is a living room, kitchen and a half bathroom. The third floor is three bedrooms and a full bath. The entire place is about 1200sq.ft. No grass, no yard, no plants. That part is going to be really hard for us since we are very much outdoor people. A friend is going to show us where to get some plants for some pots later in the week. We have also had adventures in grocery shopping -trying to figure out how things are organized in the store, new vocabulary for foods, etc. You must bring your own bags or you are charged per sack, so we quickly learned to carry our reusable grocery sacks with us. For more on the adventures of grocery shopping, you can read our blog entry from Day 1. Getting used to a very different time schedule is another challenge. The day gets started a little later here. Lunch isn’t until 2:30 or 3:00pm. Everything closes at mid-day (1 p.m.) for the lunch break and opens up again at 4 or 5. Dinner is MUCH later… 9:00 pm is an early dinner! The neighborhood starts to buzz at about 10pm in the evening - that is when we start to see people walking as families, kids go out to ride bikes or play outside, people put their chairs outside their gates and sit on the sidewalks and congregate to chat. On Saturday night, we actually saw an entire family (little children included) getting into their car to go out to dinner at midnight! We aren’t acclimated to this new “life clock” and pace quite yet. Climate has been a little bit of a challenge. Imagine Texas temperatures with little to no air conditioning. Our house has a small unit in the living room and in one bedroom. The air units are like the small versions of the units you see in hotel rooms in The States. They are very costly to run, so we work to manage the sun and the windows and the cross-breezes until late in the day. Then we run the air for as short a period as possible to cool it down a little before we have to get in bed. The good news is that the locals tell us that this is the end of the hot part. We do not yet have internet and are not sure when that will happen. We were told that we cannot get internet service without a bank account. We were also told that we cannot get a bank account without our official residency visa and number (which is still in process). But our landlord was able to circumvent that rule and help us get a bank account! So internet is coming soon. Right now, we visit a local restaurant/café to use their wifi every couple of days until we can figure out another way. Getting to understand the population makeup here is a new challenge for us. There is a large gypsy population here - one neighborhood directly next to us and one neighborhood directly above us on the hill, just to name a few. There are people here from North Africa, as well as from Pakistan and other Middle East nations. There is a large group of people from the UK living in the area, but they mainly congregate in a town a few miles away and have their own segregated community. We are frequently met with surprise when people realize that we speak Spanish. The default is to assume that we are Brits. We have been told on several occasions that our Spanish is really quite good… maybe they are just flattering us or maybe they are making fun of us, but it seems sincere. We always apologize for not speaking “Spain Spanish” and explain that we have been living in Peru. They are very accepting and always say that we are doing great and that the different vocabulary and verb tense will come soon enough, not to worry. Happily, we can be understood when we speak and we are doing well at understanding others, so all is well in the language department for now… Whew! Blessings to all of you! Thank you for your continued prayers and support. Day 2 began the house hunting process. We had a couple of leads, but we were having some trouble getting in touch with them. So we headed out to find a couple of realtors and have meetings with them and try to see some properties.
Lesson #1 - Driving in a foreign country is not so easy. The car is smaller. The roads are WAY smaller. The street signs are also foreign and don't make immediate sense to us (what is the difference in a blue circle with a red line and an arrow and the exact same sign in black?). Street directions and addresses are a mystery to us. Lots of one way streets. Lesson #1.5 - Maybe driving around in a stressful situation is not the best idea when you are also going through the effects of jet lag. You're just not working on full power, you know? After a few hours of driving around trying to find addresses, going the wrong way on one way streets, parallel parking, etc. we were a little ragged. Time for a snack break so we could regroup. We talked to a realtor on the phone and she gave us verbal directions to her office. Lesson #2 - Clarify! When the person on the other end says, "we are in front of the police station" you might need to know if there is more than one police station. When they say "we are located at Veronica Park", you might need to know that there are a variety of locations with the name Veronica. Lesson #3 - this is a re-learn of an old lesson... talking on the phone in your second language is tough! When the phone rings, you have no context. You have no idea who is on the other end, no voice recognition, no facial cues, and no clue what the topic is. Add to that the different vocabulary and different accent and you have a rough conversation punctuated by "Could you repeat that please?" and "I didn't understand. Could you speak more slowly please?" I especially love when they get frustrated with you and they give you the audible sigh of disgust and irritation. We finally made it to the realtor's office only to find that she was not there. She was just talking to us on the phone and leading us to it, how could she not be there? Her secretary took down our info and promised that they would call. That was two days ago. Lesson #4 - Spain is akin to Peru in their idea of holidays and festivals and such. Evidently, Wednesday was a big holiday - but no one could tell us what kind of holiday or why. In the afternoon, things began to shut down. The sign at the grocery store announced that they would be closed on Thursday. On Thursday, we asked someone about the holiday and the closures and he said, "It is the holiday of the virgins." On further questioning, he said it was for any and all virgins. He wasn't sure what day it started or when it would end. The woman in the tourist office in town said that it was a holiday, but she didn't know why. She didn't know the days or the times of closures. She said it might also have something to do with the fair, which runs all next week. The lady in the restaurant told us that it was only for today and everything would be open tomorrow, but that proved to be incorrect. So, who knows??? Nevertheless, the realty office said they can't see us until at least Monday. Lesson #5 - there are lots of people who take their yearly vacation during these couple of weeks. Lots of stores are closed and have a sign that says they won't open again until the 26th. One realtor told us that the person in charge of his internet and postings and appointments is on holiday until the end of the month and we were just lucky that he happened to catch our email. We did finally get to see five places for rent. Two were definitely out... really tiny and really dark. One had an outhouse, no lie. Billy also had to bend over in half to walk up the stairs in that one. I'm afraid if anyone had the urge to do a jumping jack, the place would have imploded. For us to say no to any house is saying a lot, since we once bought a hundred-year old house that had no plumbing and no back wall, and our latest home was a donkey barn when we decided to move in and 'renovate'. Extreme Home Makeover has NOTHING on The Drum Family! Anyway, back to the story - One house that we saw was GREAT - just so happens that it is the same house that our friends had already viewed for us prior to our coming. Two houses were STUPENDOUS and I wish I hadn't ever seen them. But they were out in the country and would be too difficult to deal with Sarah's school and with ministry. Poo poo! They were awesome! But just not what we need. Lesson #6 - Who knew that Paco and Francisco were the same person?! I had been calling "two" realtors to see a couple of different things and finally the poor guy clues me in to the fact that I'm talking to the same guy each time! Poor Paco... he had a great sense of humor about it, thank goodness! So, now we wait on Monday and the other realtor (we hope). They have a few things to show us. Might be that the one that our friends already picked out is the right one. There is a lot to be said for wise counsel and trusting the local folks to steer you right. I'm assuming that Paco/Francisco doesn't also have the third nickname of Jose! Maybe we have already met this guy and we have already seen the right house! :) Day One is Spain included a trip to the grocery store for a few quick items.
Lesson #1 - all of the vocabulary that I have for fruits and vegetables is in desperate need of a makeover. How is it that Spanish does NOT equal Spanish? Somehow, it is true. So one of the first things on my list to do today is to get a small spiral notebook and start language learning all over again. Back to kindergarten... At least I'm not starting all over again with everything! Just need to revamp some vocabulary. Lesson #2 - the grocery shopping experience is BYOB (Bring Your Own Bags). If you don't, they charge you. Lesson #3 - Wow - waaayyy too many choices for olive oil! We will have to make this a learning point for future conversations with others. Lesson #4 - LOADS of fish and seafood things in the meat dept, all of which have names we are unfamiliar with. Another vocabulary experience. Several things with tentacles and sucker-things. Several things that appeared to be shrimp-like. All the fish have huge teeth (I think I'm staying out of the ocean here). Finally found a familiar sight - trout - and went with the familiar for dinner. Day One is not the day to gamble on dinner... too sleep deprived, too brain dead, too overwhelmed to chance a bad dinner. Lesson #5 - even cooking dinner is a new experience! Sarah looked at the stovetop and said "What is that!?" Turning it on and figuring out the settings was a whole other story. We finally ate dinner at 9:30 p.m. Sarah almost fell asleep in her plate. We have groceries to last another couple of days. We are now aware of a few learning points we need to work on. This is going to be a new adventure, for sure! The sway of life, back and forth, two steps this way and one step that way, a spin or two, countless dips, crescendos and rests. It is the dance between the familiar and the unfamiliar. No matter where you are or what is going on, it is always in play. The dance.
Several years ago, we moved from familiar to unfamiliar as we moved into another culture and another country. That move way a crazy tangle, as the unfamiliar steps outweighed the familiar ones and nothing seemed right. It was a tough time for us. We were fighting to quickly learn and change the unfamiliar things into familiar ones. Little by little, we adapted and learned the dance. We weren't experts, by any means, but we survived and learned to move in and out of situations and life. Another change in scenery was much easier. The dance seemed a little more familiar than unfamiliar. There were slight adaptations to be made, but it came easier this time. We learned to laugh when we made mistakes, and to give ourselves grace when we weren't perfect. Last week, we found ourselves in another country and culture yet again. The dance seemed equal parts familiar and unfamiliar there. In some ways, it seemed easy, like the gentle sway of life 'back home' and we adapted quickly. In other ways, it was very foreign and we found ourselves making many mistakes. The street signs and driving customs were quite different and caused us to have many exciting moments - luckily we can laugh about them today! We were blind to the ever-so-slight mannerism differences that distinguish 'alien' from 'native' and count ourselves blessed to have had people around us who pointed them out to us and helped us navigate the dance a little better. We learned a lot. We laughed a lot. We enjoyed the dance. Whether you leave the country or you never leave your county, you will inevitable experience the dance. When you try out a new church, you enter into the dance of new verses old. When you begin a new class, the dance begins. When you drive in a different region that you are unfamiliar with, that balance between familiar and unfamiliar begins to rock. How you navigate the dance is the key. Welcome to The Dance that is life! May you enter with passion and laughter and an eagerness to learn! My days have revolved around questions for the past several weeks.
That is not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all! In fact, I love questions! Maybe because in my pre-missionary life I was a teacher - and for several of those years, I was an inquiry-based science teacher. The word "inquiry" in that statement shows how much I lived a life of questions. Questions, for me, are an avenue to answers. I need questions. If I don't ever ask the the question, I won't ever find the answer. I use questions to find direction. I use questions to guide me. I use questions to dig deeper. Jesus was a question-man. He used questions to guide, to give direction, and to make people dig deeper within themselves to find the answer. He made them think. Many times, when someone asked a question of Jesus, he simply turned it around and asked them for the answer. To the man who asked, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?", he answered with the question, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" (Luke 10:25-26) The man answered correctly (showing that he had the answer in his mind all along). Just after that, the same man asked, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied by telling a story (the Parable of the Good Samaritan). At the end of the story, Jesus asked the question, "Which of these three proved to be a neighbor?" Again, he answered the question with a question and made the man think deeper. There are many more instances in Scripture that illustrate this same point - Jesus valued the use of questions. So many questions roll around in my head each day: What can you see from the other person's perspective? Put yourself in their shoes... how does it look and feel from their side? What can I do to turn this into a positive experience? Since I can't change other people, what can I do and change about me that would make things better? What is the most important step I could take right now to move me forward? How is God speaking to me? Is God trying to get my attention? What is God trying to do with my character? What questions are rolling around in your head? What are you asking yourself? Use those questions and listen to the answers that you hear. Let them guide you and give you direction and help you go deeper. I’ve been rereading The Journey by Adam Hamilton as part of my preparation for Christmas this year, and I am once again struck by the similarities of the town I have grown to know and love and the town of Nazareth.
I currently minister in Patarcocha, a small village in Peru. It is not modern, by any means. In fact I only know two people who have real toilets, and our house is not one of those two. Patarcocha is still a village that lives life the way it has for the past several hundred years. People still cook with wood on adobe stoves. Women still wash clothes in the stream. Fields are still plowed by hand with oxen pulling a wooden plow, and the planting is still done completely with the labor of family and neighbors. Sheep are led out to the fields each morning and brought home each night. It is generally a quiet place with a slow lifestyle. In the research that I am reading about Nazareth, the tiny town of Mary and Joseph was incredibly similar. Nazareth was a town of 100-400 people. My village of Patarcocha has a population of 200. Nazareth had very little in the way of‘modern conveniences’. The people of Nazareth were manual laborers - carpenters, bakers, farmers, potters, shepherds, etc. They made their goods and took them to the nearest big town to sell them in the markets or to the more wealthy‘city people’. If a family from Nazareth was able to provide for a better education for their child, they sent them to Sepphoris. Men or women who wanted a better paying job would travel to Sepphoris to work for people who had need for paid laborers or housekeepers. People from Nazareth could actually stand at the edge of town and see the bigger, better Sepphoris in the distance. Life in Patarcocha is much the same as in Nazareth. We can see the bigger town of Chupaca just at the base of the mountain, and across the valley lays the large city of Huancayo. People who can manage the funds quickly find a way for their child to attend school in Chupaca. Goods are traded in Chupaca or Huancayo. And the population is changing rapidly in Patarcocha due to the flight of the youth and men, both headed to Lima or Huancayo for the promise of better jobs and a better lifestyle. Patarcocha today is, therefore, a village that is predominantly populated by single or abandoned mothers, children, and abandoned elderly. I’m particularly struck by the verse in John 1:45-46 in which Nathanael says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” in response to the news that Jesus had been born. It is a sentiment spoken many times today regarding Patarcocha. When people learn that we live there, they can’t catch themselves before the words spill out, “Why?! Why would anyone live in Patarcocha? There’s nothing good in Patarcocha. They are country people. Backwards. Quechua Wanca.” Of course, there is a scowl on the face that goes with the sentiments. This has always made me sad, that people look at the people of my village with such a low esteem. Maybe I cannot completely change the view of others toward my village or my people, but I can take every opportunity to say what a great place Patarcocha is. I share with others about the wonderful things I have learned while living here. I work constantly to build up the esteem of the people here and point out to them all the beautiful things about life here and about the people whom I have come to call family. And I know in my heart that God is doing a great work in hearts and lives here. You know what? Something good DID come from Nazareth and something good lives in the people of Patarcocha. These are beautiful people with so much to give to God’s kingdom and they are doing it, one step at a time. I think I would have loved Nazareth too, had I lived there more than 2000 years ago. Is there a ‘Nazareth’ in your area? Is there a place or a neighborhood or a town that others look down upon? I urge you, during this time of preparation for Christmas, to consider that place and to look for the good in your local ‘Nazareth’. You never know what you might find unless you look for it. ![]() I am married to an odd man. Now, some of you who know my husband are busting out laughing right now, and others who know my husband are highly offended by that statement because you hold Billy in high regard. Everyone just hold your horses and listen for a second… Last week, we went over to visit our best Peruvian friends, Elva and Alfonso. We went to bake bread, a Peruvian tradition on November 1st. I arrived first as Billy was trying to finish up something at the house and would follow shortly. Upon my arrival, I was greeted with hugs and kisses and the usual jokes and fun. Then Alfonso asks me, “Where is the happiest man in Patarcocha?” I’ll give him that - my husband IS the happiest man in Patarcocha (our village in Peru). I have continued to think about that question/statement from Alfonso for several days. I can’t think of a better way to be known. It is such a testimony to who my husband is. He is always laughing, always smiling, always joking. This weekend, I listened to a lecture by Gary Moon and he talked about how followers of Jesus are “odd -- oddly loving, oddly joyful, oddly peaceful”. My husband is definitely all of those things, and it is evidenced by the fact that people in our village actually describe him in that way! I always knew that he was odd. I’ve spent 27 years with him! Now I’m wishing that I could be as odd as he is. I’m now praying for an odd life…oddly loving, oddly joyful, and oddly peaceful. And I’m praying that one day, others will call me odd, too! ![]() We recently had an interesting experience that took me by surprise. We had been noticing the absence of an acquaintance of ours, a woman in her early 40s. She was our only real connection to the owner of our house (her mother is the owner). We usually saw her a couple of times a month, as her family still owns farm land around our house and she came to check on crops. She always came to the back door and we talked. But lately, we hadn’t seen her and it became noticeably odd since it is now time to replant the fields and she was not around. So we mentioned it to our neighbor. “Oh. You didn’t know? She is in prison.” Wow! That was a shocker! Well, not really… we knew that she was in some sort of trouble because we had received warrants and court summons for her on several occasions since our house belongs to the family and is evidently listed as her legal address. We passed these papers on to her when we would see her and she took them and laughed them off, so we weren’t too surprised that she was in trouble, but prison was an extreme we hadn’t considered! We continued to talk to the neighbor (who is a cousin) and found out that she is in prison for HUMAN TRAFFICKING! That was a shock, for sure! But, small town gossip being what it is, we weren’t too ready to believe the first story down the pipeline. However, a couple of weeks later, another family member showed up at our door to sell us tickets to a fundraising dinner to help the family pay for legal fees. The family member was truthful and told us that she was in prison for the same crime that we had heard about before. This really took me back a bit. How do I feel about knowing that I have been sitting around chatting about life with a human trafficker? I really wasn’t sure how to feel about it. I had some astonishment and some anger. I was surprised that we had been so naïve and hadn’t seen it, although that isn’t something that just pops out in casual conversation. I felt a little violated. I was a little scared that I had been that involved with someone who had so little value for human life and I had allowed her to be close to me or to my daughter. Frankly, the whole thing gave me the heebie-jeebies. But why, exactly, does this bother me at all? I know for a fact that we have treated, ministered to, and prayed for terrorists and narco-traffickers in our medical campaigns. I have personally translated for battered and abused women and children as they met with the doctor, only to have the husband/father/perpetrator show up later in the day for treatment. We minister to alcoholics and drug addicts. We know, for a fact, that practicing witches have been in our ministry and bible studies and their children have attended our schools. None of that gave me much alarm or caused me to think twice. So why does this human trafficker get under my skin? I really don’t have an answer. I’m still trying to work this out in my own mind and my own heart. I’m seeking God’s guidance on this one. And I’m struggling with it. I know that Jesus summed up the whole law in two statements - love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself. And then we have the teachings about ‘who is your neighbor’, which basically gets summed up into every human on this earth is your neighbor, and that all have sinned and fallen short. So why is this so hard? My good friend and missionary colleague, Louise Reimer, is working in the women’s prison here in Peru. She enters the prison each week and holds Bible study and discipleship groups with women there. Interestingly enough, the human trafficker I’m writing about appeared in her class one day. Just one day. She hasn’t been back since that one encounter. I have so much esteem for my colleague. I’m so glad that God called her to that ministry! In many ways, I feel that she is so much stronger than I am. I’m not sure that I could go into that situation each week. I think God calls each of us according to the gifts he has given us and I guess he knew that I wasn’t the one for a prison ministry, but Louise was. She sees past their crimes and their issues and sees real people who need Christ and need a fresh start. She doesn’t see murderers and drug dealers and human traffickers. She sees people with names and families. She sees a series of poor choices and bad decisions. And more than anything, she sees possibilities and hope for change and growth and a different future. I’m really proud of my friend and her ministry. ![]() My 8 year old daughter wants to make a surfboard. She has been talking about it for a couple of months now. It isn’t so surprising, really. Her older brothers have gone through surfing stages. She spent a significant portion of her youngest years watching them carry their boards out into the waves, first in South Padre Island, Texas, and later in Costa Rica. When she could only crawl, she was placed on her hands and knees on her brother’s board and gently floated around in the shallows. Surfing is a part of her good memories of her brothers. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that she wants to build her own surfboard, right? The irony here is that we are missionaries in the Andes Mountains of Peru. We live at 11,400 ft. I laugh when we are in planes sometimes and they announce that we are flying at 11,000 or 12,000 ft. “We LIVE at that altitude!” I always silently comment. We are FAR above sea level, and this kid wants to build a surfboard! There is no water in sight up here. In fact, we frequently have no water in our pipes, much less water enough to surf or even float somewhere. We don't even have a bathtub!So why does this kid think she needs to build a surfboard? I still can’t give you the answer to that question. I’m trying to be a supportive mom and be encouraging of creative endeavors, so I haven’t squelched the idea. We’re just not ready to move forward on this project yet, so to speak. But it continues to be in her plans, so it continues to be on my mind. What is she thinking? What is she going to do with a surfboard? I was contemplating this when it came to me that Noah’s family probably had some of the same concerns. What is he talking about? Why does he think we need a boat? There isn’t any water in sight! We obviously aren’t going to need to float anywhere. Has Noah lost his mind?! What are we going to do once we finish building this monstrosity of a boat? Maybe she knows something we don’t know. Maybe the next big flood is coming (although highly unlikely and unbiblical – God promised not to do that again). The people here believe in the flood story. There is no denying it, in their minds. Daily we find reminders that this mountain was once covered by the sea. Fossilized shells and sea creatures abound in the rocks that we walk on. Fossilized coral shelves form layers on the mountain, giant white and grey stripes on the rocky landscape. Yes, the Quechua Wanca people whole-heartedly believe in the flood story. They live amidst solid proof that it occurred. I have always loved that a piece of the Bible story is right here and so real for the Quechua people, and that those connections have always been there for me to use as springboards to sharing more about God and his Word. Maybe my daughter and Noah have a special spiritual connection, something that makes them both look out at giant mountains and no water and seepossibilities. Maybe in today’s world, Noah would have had a surfboard. I don’t think I’ll suggest that to Sarah – she will try to balance two goats on her board, then two chickens, then two guinea pigs… Come to think of it, had she been a boy, we were going to name her Noah James… hmmmm… As we move through this difficult time of adjustment and transition, we seem to be on a roller coaster of emotions. Sometimes excited about new places and new opportunities and new challenges, sometimes so devastated at the thought of leaving the people we love and work with every day, sometimes paralyzed by the idea of picking up and moving again and starting over.
Building new relationships, saying goodbye to old ones. New ministry plans and vision and focus, yet thinking about the ministry here in Peru and praying that the seeds that we planted and fostered will continue to grow and spread. It is just a strange time of ‘in-between’worlds. This time also causes me to do a lot of reminiscing and thinking back to what my original ideas were when we were transitioning to Peru. I never dreamed that I would be living in a primitive adobe house with no toilet! I never dreamed that my big challenges each day would be whether or not we have water, or whether or not the road would be open, or whether or not there would be grass to feed our goats. There are good things that I never dreamed about, too. I never dreamed that we would start two school programs, that we would have a community greenhouse or that we would have 30 abandoned elderly that we would feed and take care of. I never dreamed that we would teach Bible classes in the public school or that we would build 4 playgrounds in rural Peru. Another ‘I never dreamed’ moment… One day, when I was well into a full-blown case of pneumonia (for the third time in four years), I was trying to take a shower. It was a miracle that we even had water that day! Our shower is located in an outhouse away from the main adobe structure, so I was pretty isolated and alone. During my shower, I began coughing. My coughing spells had gotten progressively worse over the past few days and left me gasping for air and panicked as to whether or not I would be able to take that next breath. This time, my coughing left me doubled over on the floor of the shower, naked and wet and wondering if this was the end. The thought crossed my mind, “When they find me dead on the floor, I hope Billy comes up with a good cover-up story! This is NOT the way I expected to die on the mission field. I always knew that I could die on the field, but I thought it would be doing something heroic or noble… carrying Bibles into the jungle, or trekking the highest Andes Mountains with locals, or at the hands of an angry anti-Christian mob. I never thought that I would cough to death on the shower floor! This just won’t do!!! Oh, Billy - Please come up with a better story before my funeral!” I was totally serious. So serious that I laid there and cried. I laugh about that story now, but it really wasn’t funny then. I spent the next 5 days in the hospital. There are so many good memories here. Days when we have spent all day sitting in someone’s field talking while they harvested a crop or sifted wheat or watched their sheep graze. Memories of sitting and embroidering for hours with community ladies, fingers literally bloody because I am so inept at this art form that even 4 year old Peruvians can do. Remembering how my name sounds when twenty preschoolers squeal it at the top of their lungs and run to hug my knees. Remembering watching a tiny‘disabled’ student, Kenyi, as he ran the 50 yard dash for a hundred amazed on-lookers... a miracle in action. Memories…how will we ever live through the next couple of months? This transition gets harder by the day. |
Laurie DrumIn my USA life, I was a teacher in Texas for 15 years. I was also a professional photographer, a soccer mom, a horsewoman, and the neighborhood hospitality queen. I did "Joanna Gaines farmhouse style" before Chip and JoJo were even a thing - we restored an 1884 Victorian farmhouse in small town Texas and did shiplap walls until I thought I'd go crazy. I taught at NASA, scuba dived with astronauts in training, and studied animals at Sea World for educational purposes. I've tried just about everything, because I have an insatiable need to know if I can do it! Never underestimate a Texas girl in cowboy boots! In 2006, my husband Billy and I became cross-cultural workers (CCWs) with TMS Global. For five years, we served in three rural Quechua Wanca villages in the Andes of Peru. And when I say rural, I mean RURAL - like no potty! I spent my days in Peru learning to live a Quechua lifestyle in a rustic adobe house - cooking Peruvian foods, sewing with Quechua women, raising my chickens and goats and pigs, and planting my gardens. Now I live my life in small town Spain, serving other cross-cultural workers via teaching and training and care, and helping displaced people to navigate their new reality in Europe.
I'm passionate about fostering personal growth, growth in community, and growth in The Kingdom. Walking alongside others and helping them to use their unique design, their gifts and strengths and maximize their abilities to fulfill their God-given purpose - that's what makes my heart sing! Archives
March 2024
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