Peru update: Earthquake - Safe N Sound.

From Lynda on 18/8/7!

Hey guys!

Dont know if you heard about the earthquake here..? It hit on Wed. night, and was a level 8 on the richter scale, Peru´s largest earthquake. Just wanted to let you know I've got out and I'm ok. The town we (my cuz and I) were in was hit, its only a few k´s from the epicentre. It gave me the scare of my life. There was no warning, the ground just started shaking and shaking, and then the power line snapped, and all the lights went out. There were a couple of girls wailing and screaming, so I just tried to calm THEM down, not having a clue what to do myself! Walls were falling down,and there were powerlines above us. All that training about going under a doorway just didnt seem so sure when the buildings are made of mud brick..! We were in a small town in a desert, surrounded by sand dunes, and we figured the safest place to go was up one of those, away from buildings and powerlines. We ended up spending the night out there, no way you´d get me to go back inside a building with all the aftershocks. I was so thankful, a group of Colombians and Ecuadorians took us under their wing, and brought out blankets, food, water and even a tent for us to cram into for the night.

I just want to praise God for His protection... We had been sitting outside at a table when it hit... and jumped up and ran out to the street. A few moments later the wall above where we were fell down and crushed the table and chairs we´d been on. arrrgghhh!!! Thankyou God for Your protection!!!!

Anyways, just so you know we finally got out of there now that the roads are passable, and are now safely in Lima. There´s so much destruction of houses here, and lots of people have lost their lives. Please pray for the Peruvians in this time.

My love to you all, I´ll be home in one week from Sunday.

Lynda xoxo

Update from Peru: 2 Weeks to go!

Hey guys! Wow, I can hardly believe I only have just over 2 weeks left here in this city. I leave Abancay on August 9, to do touristy stuff like Macchu Picchu with my cuz Michelle who´s gona meet me in Cusco. (That is, if we can get into Maccu Picchu. Dont know if it made it to the news over there, but the same week it made it to 7 Wonders of the World, massive strikes and protests prevented anyone from getting into Macchu Picchu, and stranded thousands of people in Cusco for a week. And today schools have finally opened again after 3weeks of strikes. Welcome to life in Peru!!)

I wanna encourage you with a couple of testimonies. I´ve had such awesome God stuff happen these past few weeks. Ive been getting to know more of the young women in my barrio (neighbourhood), and God has blown me away with the doors He´s opened into their lives. The 16yr old girl next door has been coming to youth group every friday for 3 weeks now, and is (hopefully) gona start going to cell group this week... the woman down the road that I regularly pop in to see asked me to stop just ´calling past´ and instead come back to talk and explain the book of John to her... and a couple of young women down the road want to learn English from me - by singing worship songs! Its just so encouraging to see that the harvest really is ready.

I would love your prayers for the next 2 weeks, that these women would be challenged to make decisions, and that they would be followed up after I leave. And that I would finish well, and do my best for these girls, and not get distracted :)Pray also for me as my wee heart is just not getting used to saying goodbye - no matter how many times Ive had to do it!! Help me to leave well, and to settle back in when I get home.

Looking forward to seeing y´all, and hearing what´s been happening in your life these past 6 months. Im hanging out to get to a good cafe... so coffee catch ups will be a definite!!!!

Love, Lynda

Peru Update: Guinea Pigs and Tambourines...

Hey there!!

I pray that you´re well, and walking in God´s awesome blessings. Ive heard about the crud weather y´all have been having - sorry to hear it!!

Well, after being exiled to Bolivia for 24 hours because of an expired visa, I am now safe and happily back in Peru. Just to give you an idea of what life´s like, here´s some highlights...
... eating guinea pig, which included bringing them home LIVE from the market, then watching my family kill, skin and cook them!
... at the most modern shop we have here, the supermarket (the only place I know that has eftpos), they didn´t have the right change to give me, so gave me a 10cent lolly instead
... I regularly play the tambourine in church hehe, at a church where they play the same 3 chords on the guitar, no matter what the tune is!

Funny huh

Yesterday I spent most of the day in the hospital, cos my neighbour was having an operation. It really struck me how much of a privilege it is to be here as a missionary. I got to know a lot of the nurses and doctors during the day, and every one of them now knows Im a Christian - it just comes up with the ´why are you here?´ question. And that can often lead into more conversations. I got to read the Bible to my friend who was panicking about her operation, and 2 of the nurses told me they want to come check out a church on sunday. It´s just so awesome, and I pray that I can make the most of these opportunities.

I´m still going to the community church down the road. Every week the pastor tells the church how thankful he is that I´m here in their church. They´re a very small, forgotten church in the outskirts of the city, with people who come originally from out in the villages. The other night they talked about tithes and offerings, and it was fascinating - If you have 10 rows of corn, one belongs to the Lord, and the practicalities of bringing your offering of a pig to the church! When I first started going, there were about 7 or 8 people in each service, but it´s been growing. Now we get around 15 or 16, and has been over 20 people a couple of times. Its really encouraging. And this one girl I´ve been praying for for weeks repented in front of the church and gave her life back over to God last week. It was so touching - no moving sermon, no music, not even an altar call. She just came up to the front of the church and repented.

My main ministry is English teaching. This means that I get to go to people´s homes and teach there, which is an awesome opportunity to get to know them. One woman has recently decided to become ´evangelical´ , which is very hard in such a Catholic society, and it´s great to be able to talk to her.

Thankyou for the encouragements I get, it means a lot to hear from home. Its hard sometimes being the sole kiwi, surrounded by people who know nothing of rugby, think I come from Europe, and stare at me for being white! :)

Prayer and Praise:
- Praise for good health
- Praise for the cool house I´m living in (house sitting for an American missionary family)
- Pray for wisdom to know how to reach people in the community
- Pray that my Spanish will keep getting better, so I can actually make sense when I´m talking to people about important stuff!!

Bless you all,

love, Lynda
PS Have booked my flight, and I´m back in NZ on Sunday Aug 26

Hola from Peru!

Hey guys, how’s life?? Did you have a good Easter? Didn’t see a single chocolate egg here (and no mention of giant bunny rabbits either). Actually, the Easter traditions here are... very different... Each village takes its “dead Jesus” idol (which is usually displayed in the Catholic church) and they parade it around the town on the Friday, remembering his death. But there’s no fiestas on the Sunday to celebrate his resurrection…. Like, THE most important part of Easter!

Hey go to http://www.sim.org/ to see that the Cotahuasi canyon does actually exist! It’s the mission website, and there’s a feature article about the work here in my very own village. Click on the “Deep Need in Cotahuasi” image, top left corner. The girl in the photo is my roommate (a few years back, when they first met her in one of the villages). It’s a good read J

I have finally made friends - and I can actually understand enough to have real conversations YAY! I went to visit this one friend I've made, Carmen. I've started helping teach her mum how to read (she had a pretty rough childhood, and being the girl child was never given the opportunity to learn to read). She took me on this big long walk to her family's farm. She took me around the whole thing, all the fields, stopping so I could taste like every fruit you could imagine. One of the yummiest fruits I've eaten here is called "tuna", which is the fruit that grows on a cactus. and it is SOOO yummy. Except I bit into one she gave me... and it had a cactus needle in it ..! The needle was about an inch long, and it pierced into my tongue and got stuck! Arrrggh! I'd only ever heard of that happening to one other woman, and she went to the hospital here in Cotahuasi, and they said "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do" and sent her away! Fortunately I managed to pull it out, no damage done Whew! So I can now say I got my tongue pierced in Peru haha

I'm finally finding my place in ministry, and loving doing kids work. We go out to these tiny rural villages each week, round up all the kids and then do a programme with them for a couple hours - songs, teach them from the Bible, crafts, games, and just generally hangin with the crazy cats. I'm now in charge of running the kids ministry... which has been a huge challenge trying to run it in Spanish. It's made me really have to rely on God - and, as always, He comes through every time The hard thing now is that I'm leaving this town in less than 2 weeks, just when I'm really starting to get settled. Will be hard to say goodbye (I don't think goodbye's ever get easier, and I've done my fair share of them!)... but at the same time I'm looking forward to moving on to Abancay, where I'll be until August.

To my prayer supporters, I'd really appreciate your prayers as I prepare to leave here and move on to a new place (April 22). It'll be unsettling leaving here and trying to find my feet again in a new place... and it involves a 13 hour drive at high altitude to get there!

Keep in touch, and may you (yes, YOU) be blessed mightily by our awesome God!!

love, Lynda xoxoxo

Canyon Life - Lynda in Peru

Hi guys! How's it going? Thankyou for your emails, I really appreciate them, and for your prayers. Culture shock is setting in now, with frustration at the way things happen here. You just never know what's gona happen, or when, and if it IS planned, it'll happen an hour late anyway!

Thanks to Cattie and her technological genius, I can now show you pictures of my life here. YAY! Check out: http://www.ringo.com/i.html?i=161657762x922181

Latest episodes in canyon life..!

* I've started learning Quechuan, which is the language of the indigenous people here. It's a craaazy language with z's and q's and a clicking sound, but people are keen to teach me, and I spent Thursday afternoon learning by singing Quechuan worship songs with a couple of my new Quechuan friends. This is useful bcos in some of the villages we visit the people only speak Quechuan.

*One of these new friends was telling me about Easter in Peru. Here, they have parades in the street, and re-enact the crucifixion scene, and show films of Jesus' last days. Then it was my turn to explain NZ traditions. Do you know how silly I felt trying to explain to her about this giant rabbit that we celebrate?? "Yeah, well it's a bit different here... we have this rabbit... uhh a giant rabbit... well, he's not a real rabbit, people just imagine him... and to commemorate Christ's death and resurrection people eat a lot of chocolate..." She just couldn't understand at all. Something to think about with Easter coming up... What the heck are we really celebrating?!
*On Saturday I went with 4 others on a hike to this remote village not accessible by road. We hiked a couple of hours up a mountain to get there. Let's just say it wasn't exactly an "OSH approved" track ! with some parts so steep we had to pull ourselves up by the hands to climb over rocks. People in this village don't have their own pastor, so Peruvians from my town (who I went with) do this hike every week to go to them to teach and encourage them. That's commitment- I was knackered for days after just going once!

Good ol rainy season got us pretty wet on the way up to the village. We arrived to this mud brick building with a dirt floor and one lightbulb hanging in the middle. A local woman cooked us some food to warm us up - a bowl of potatoes, lima beans and corn kernals to share between the 5 of us. I'm learning things like to peel the skin off the beans (because of the lack of hygiene) and to tip a little hot tea over the side of the cup to clean it before putting your mouth on it. The place soon filled up with sweet, gently-spoken people. Women in brightly coloured traditional dress, with babies strapped to their backs. They had nothing, and yet God's love was so evident in their lives. These are truly beautiful people :)


That's enough for now. Give praise to God for His constant protection and joy when times get hard, and I pray His blessings upon you too. Take care, you're all in my thoughts,

love, Lynda xoxo

Village Life...

Hey guys!

Hope all is well in your part of the world! Just a wee update on my first week in the canyon..!

* Cotahuasi Canyon life is going well. Apart from my usual daily embarrassments in trying to speak Spanish (like yesterday when someone asked me about people's skin colour in NZ and, misunderstanding the question completely, I said 'yes, it does rain a lot in winter, but summers can be pretty warm..!' IDIOT!) I've even been shopping a few times, to try and blend in a bit more to village style (long skirts over pants is very in here)

* I had 120 peruvians sing me 'feliz cumpleanos' on my birthday (at a wedding reception) - what a treat!

* This week has been a real eye opener. I got to travel with a couple of the peruvian guys on their visits to local villages. Gosh... I thought my village was rural - these people really have nothing. I made the mistake of asking where the bathroom was... and was met with puzzled looks. Eventually, I was led to a hole in the ground (surrounded by faeces) in a small tin shed.

We went to the villages to play with the kids and sing songs. I just don't' know how to describe these kids. As soon as we pulled up in the car, we were swarmed by them, squealing, laughing and jumping on and in the car to get to us. Grubby faces and dirty clothes. It started raining... I pulled my hood on and bundled up warm... they didn't even notice, and just got wet. And I can't imagine any of their mothers was at home worrying they'd catch a cold. Not from the number of intoxicated men and women we saw roaming the street. It was such an honour to bless their lives for those few hours. If you're someone who prays, pray for these kiddies. They don't really have much hope in life... without God's love!

Until next time, take care and huge blessings to y'all

Love, Lynda xoxo