The Last of the Last Week!

Well, we´ve come to the end of our last week in Conima. Here is all the news you have been waiting to hear, and some you didn´t know to expect.


Friday afternoon we got out all of our leftover coloring sheets, crayons, foam bookmark materials, frisbees and goody-bags and played with the kids in the plaza for 2-3 hours. We had a lot of fun, attracted a lot of kids and even got to talk to a few parents. Also, while we were playing with the kids, Jeremy L. got to story with Sophia and her husband behind their store. This caught them up to the story we were doing with the community that night, so we invited them to come. They indicated that they would probably close their store and come. That was good and it freed up more of our time that night.

At 5pm Jeremy L., Kelsey and I went to story with the police officers. Two of them were there. We sat in front of the police station and Kelsey told them the story of Elijah and Baal. They talked a lot with Jeremy about it. They thought about it and compared it to their culture and how people worship other things. After that Jeremy told them the story of Jesus´ life. They talked some more about this. At this point it was 6pm, time for the English lesson. Jeremy invited the cops to the community storying that night, but they said they couldn´t come. Then we found out there was not another time they could meet before we left. Since Armondo just tolerates the storying and is not interested in it spiritually, I suggested Jeremy stay with the police officers and finish with them. So, Jeremy stayed to story with the police and Kelsey and I went to our last English lesson with Armondo. We taught him some last things he wanted to learn and gave him the gift bag we put together for him. Then we invited him to the community storying, but when we left and asked if he wanted to come with us, he said he needed to sleep. So, that was unfortunate, but hopefully we planted some seeds with him.

After the lesson, Kelsey and I went back to the house to grab a quick dinner before heading over to the government building. John and Pastor Ruben came in since it was a presentation of the gospel. We went over to the government building and met John, Ruben, Pablo and the Jeremys. Pablo had memorized the story of Peter´s sermon and was prepared to tell it. It turns out it was only Pablo and 2 kids, besides us, so Pablo told the story once and we discussed it. Then John used the story to share the gospel and asked Pablo if he had or wanted to repent and be baptized. He said he did and they talked for a while about what that means and what it specifically means in this culture. Pablo agreed with all of it, but when it came to baptism, he said he wanted to become a better Christian first. To address this, John set up for Jeremy L. and Pablo to meet the next day (Saturday) so Jeremy could tell him about the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch and about Cornelius to show the urgency of baptism in the New Testament. John also told Pablo that he and Ruben would be coming through Conima fairly often and would love to meet with him and talk to him more. They also invited him to a training seminar in Huancane in August. It was so good to finally see fruit from our labor and how God has started his church in Conima with one young man. Last night Jeremy L. met with Pablo and told him the stories, but Pablo still wants to learn more before being baptized. So, we will just wait and pray about that. Hopefully John or Ruben will get to come out soon and baptize him.

Yesterday morning Kelsey and I decided to climb the mountain henceforth named ¨mud-butt mountain.¨ We left aroud 11:30am. On the way to really start climbing the mountain there is this area of ground that is really wet because water runs down the mountain along that path, but it is all grass so you can´t tell that it is wet until you step on it. So, before we even got to the real base of the mountain, Kelsey found the wet section. Just as she was telling me to be careful, she slipped and landed square on her behind in the muddy grass. But, being as determined as she is, she said we had to do the hike, mud-butt and all. So, I took a path around the water and we kept hiking. Before long, I heard another yell from behind me and Kelsey had stepped on a rock that rolled and landed on her knee and shin. After come recovery, we continued on. Once we passed the more shallow part, the hiking got intense. It was a really steep slope and it was almost all rocks, of all sizes. So, you had to be careful what rocks you stepped on, because it was obvious they got where they were by falling. The altitude also gets to you and it´s hard to breathe. We had to take lots of breaks. The bottom kept getting further away, but so did the top. As we kept going toward what we thought was the top, we would see a new top, higher up, so we had to keep climbing. We kept picking places to eat lunch, but then felt we had to keep going. Finally, we couldn´t go any further and found some huge rocks we could sit on and eat lunch. We could see all of Conima (which was really small by this time), Suasi Island, lots of Lake Titicaca and mountains all around. We enjoyed our lunch of chicken salad sandwiches, chips, granola bars and peach halves. Then Kelsey read and I journaled. It was so nice and peaceful just sitting there, leaning on a rock, journaling and being warmed by the sun. While we were eating we saw a man in the distance. He was herding sheep and a few llamas. He herded them with a dog and by throwing rocks to head them off. As we were sitting there we could hear him whistling and sometimes singing to the sheep. It was a nice peaceful sound. After a while, we headed back down the mountain. So did the shepherd. It seemed crazy, but he herded the sheep down the steep mountain face we had just climbed up. The climbing down was more scary than climbing up. It was really steep and we had to watch every step so we didn´t go sliding down. We made a video telling our families good-bye in case something happened. Maybe a little melodrmatic, but funny. So, we slowly picked our way down, occasionally yelping as our foot would slip. Finally we reached the trees and were able to walk on more stable rocks and hold onto trees on the way down. Stepping onto level ground never felt so good. We made it back to the house around 3:30pm. Kelsey showered and I collapsed on the couch (after hiking up to the 4th floor).

That night (last night) is when Jeremy L. storied with Pablo. After the storying, we had CHRISTMAS! We´ve been planning our Christmas celebration since one of the first few weeks here and last night it finally arrived. We had chicken and beef fajitas/burritos for dinner (it was a Texas Christmas). We also made apple cider and chocolate oatmeal cookies. Us girls decorated the living room using our missionary ingenuity. We started collecting green 2-liter Sprite bottles a while back. We tied them all along a string and stretched it across the living room. We also used our extra yarn to loop down in front of the windows. Alison was wearing red fuzzy socks so sher took them off and we hung them above the fireplace as our stockings. Once everyone was ready we gathered together with our fire, cider and cookies and played games. We played the game people play at showers where you have clothes pins and if you catch someone saying a certain word you get to take one of their clothes pins. Our words were ¨Christmas¨ and ¨home.¨ Jeremy Stanley won in the end. We also took fun pictures spelling out Merry Christmas and other random words.After that was the white elephant gift exchange. The gifts included a huge yellow flower hair clip and a pack of clothes pins, a water bottle and pack of chocolate wafer cookies, a dvd entitled The Condemned of Lake Titicaca (except in Spanish), and a baby rattle. I´ll leave it up to you to guess who brought and received what. After that we ate our cookies, drank our cider and played telephone pictionary (a group favorite) and charades. Kelsey and I ended up dominating charades, but Jeremy L. took home the ¨most entertaining¨ award. As everything was winding down Jeremy L. played a few Christmas songs on the guitar (all without using the word Christmas, of course). After our fun-filled night we went to bed after agreeing to postpone worship until 9am the next morning.

This morning we had worship at 9am, finishing the last chapter of Romans on our last day here. Then Jeremy L. left for Moho, where all of his things are so he could pack up to head back to Huancane tomorrow. After getting some things packed, Kelsey, Alison, Jeremy S. and I headed out hiking. The three of them had been out to this peninsula on the lake and wanted to visit again and I wanted to go. So, we packed lunch and headed out of Conima. We hiking a good ways along the lake and then stopped on a rock wall that jutted into the water for lunch. Then we kept going out to where a cliff face stuck out into the water. We climbed up the steep rocky slope and sat at the top, looking out over the lake. It was really pretty. We hung out for a while and then came back to clean up the house.

We leave Conima tomorrow morning to go back to Huancane. It´s crazy how long we´ve been here and crazy that it´s finally time to leave. I think we are all ready though. It´s been a good summer, but most of us are ready to see our families and friends and start new parts of life.

Pray for the work we´ve started here - for Pablo and his continued growth. Praise God for his salvation. Pray for safe travel to Huancane tomorrow and that our debriefing and vacation time would be good, restful and helpful times. Thanks for your prayers for our ministry here!