Estoy en Perú

I arrived in Perú late last night and am totally exhausted after day 1. I have some pictures and I am far too lazy right now to post them, but I'll try to get them up before I leave my first trip to a worksite.

Humbling experience número uno - inability to communicate with people once I entered my transfer point in Bógota. I now realize just how much I've taken for granted my communication and people skills, because they're pretty much useless at this point... Hopefully that will take a turn for the better as my Spanish improves. I think I might be so tired right now because I spent all day trying incredibly hard to understand what everyone was telling me.

It was still a great day. Billy took me to the Scripture Union office, showed me around Lima a bit, gave me some orientation reading material, and I got to meet with Manuél, who I will probably be helping with the financials in the SU office. I also got a look at my tentative schedule, which has me leaving for the work sites in a couple days! So I apologize if I go abruptly silent for two weeks. Hopefully I'll get an opportunity to get to an internet cafe while I'm out there.

Ok. I lied about being too lazy to put up pics. You faithful readers deserve something exotic and something cute.

The presidential palace in Lima.

Most adorable little girl in history, Faith.

Hope you like the accents and such from this crazy Peruvian keyboard. ¿ñ°

Memorial Day Vball

Since I'm not going to be around for my parents' yearly July 4 bash, we had an impromptu get together yesterday for Memorial Day. Played some good basketball and volleyball. Highlight of the day: my game winning spike directly to Mr. Alcaro's testicles.

Here are the guys, including bearded Jared.

I also sent out an email this weekend describing what I'll be doing in Peru and how you can contribute. If you'd like to contribute but did not get the email, let me know and I'll forward you the information. Once I get down to Peru, I'm also going to post a wish list for basic necessities that the boys need down there. First I need to get an address and instructions for sending those things.

Lazy in PA

Sorry I've been MIA with blog postings for a while. Not too much is going on in PA. It's kinda slow... There's been a number of soap operas I've been forced to watch because I'm home with mom during the day...

On a positive note, I finally finished Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was quite a struggle. Nothing really gripped me in the novel except when Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov opened up to the other characters. Rodya opened up so infrequently that there was little motivation for me to keep reading. It was a decent novel with an interesting theme, but the main character is so mentally unstable most of the time that the read is not so enjoyable.

Next up is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts, which I received courtesy of Mr. Peter Murphy. From what I've read so far, I think it'll be highly entertaining and quite applicable to my impending journey to Peru. I'm hoping to tear through this one, seeing as it took me WAY too long to finish C&P, and I have a monster stack of books in the to-read pile.

In other news, I'm spending my time here in PA gearing up for my exodus. I'll be spending lots of time calling folks this week before I send out a big email telling everyone where I'm going, what I'll be doing, and how you can contribute. So if I have your number, be ready for me to call. If I don't have your number and you're interested in supporting me while I help the kids in Peru, send me and email at jmb496@gmail.com. I'll give you a call and make sure you're on my email.

Deliciousness

To respond to Brandon's comment about delicious food...

Hard TimesDrool...

And of course the company was just as good as the delicious food.

Reflections on Mississippi

I arrived in DC last night after 15.5 straight hours of driving. Luckily I have access to my own personal trainer, KC, who did something amazing to relieve the pain in my back.

Right now I'm actually sitting in my car, tapping into Arlington WiFi, eagerly awaiting Hard Times at 6:30. Mouth watering pics to follow...

Everyone's been asking me how I enjoyed my trip. I have to say it was fantastic. I really wish I had planned ahead and organized a group of people to go because that's the only way it could have been more fun. I loved being away from TV and bars and all the other things I use to waste time.

The best time of each day was just after dinner, as the day was winding down. We'd sit on the porch and chat or read. There didn't need to be activities every night - we just enjoyed the weather, the outdoors, and each other. They also had a bball and vball court, which came in handy every few days. And of course, I met some great people, and I'm going to do my best to keep them part of my life.

I'm thinking about getting a group together and going back in late summer or fall when I come back from Peru. If anyone is interested in taking a trip on their own, the website is www.mennonitedisasterservice.com. My site was Pass Christian, MS. I encourage everyone to take a trip.


Frog ==>

Goodbye MDS Pass Christian

Well, my time here at MDS is coming to an end. It's sad. Just like last week, as soon as I start to get to know my fellow volunteers, it's time to leave. I had a great time here, and love my new buddies, Lori, Brett, and Maureen.

Here's this week's group. I have a beard...
Wish me luck on my long journey home. I'll be stopping in Pensacola for today, then making the long haul to DC tomorrow.

More Prayer Requests

It was a tough day for some of the folks from Regina. Brendan's 2 year old daughter, Keily, who's still at home in Canada, was just hospitalized for spinal meningitis today and is on life support. Brendan is flying back and will be with his family tonight. Please say a prayer for Brendan, his daughter, and the rest of his family.

Before we learned about Brendan's daughter we had a nice picnic at the park. My buddies Lori and Brett and I acted like degenerates.
We also had a race up the slide and climbed around this crazy modern jungle gym. The kids these days have some awesome playground stuff, including a mini rock climbing wall. However, one huge omission from the playground - the monkey bars.

Sidenote: Brett, the Nebraska farm boy did NOT fit in the kiddie playhouse.

On the job I did lots more drywalling. My hand hurts. Hopefully we'll finish up tomorrow.

My Puppy

My parents told me today that my puppy Quinn has a tumor on his spine and that he's partially paralyzed. He doesn't have much time left. If you're a praying person, please say a prayer for my puppy Quinn and also for my parents who love him very dearly.

In less important news, I got to go to the beach yesterday.
I saw a turtle in the MDS parking lot.
And I did lots of drywalling with Canadians. The Canadian invasion of MDS has us Americans outnumbered 19 to 3. They seem like pretty nice folks though, so it should be a good week.

Day 5: Rain, Mud, and Spiderman

Yesterday was the last day for most of the short-termers who were only at Pass Christian for a week. Fortunately for me, the Univest group decided to leave mid-day so they could get back home at a decent hour. That means only a half day of work for Jared!

Unfortunately most of the half workday was spent out in the rain and mud... Here's a shot of me hiding from the torrential downpour under the DeDeaux house.
Here are the short-termers for the week. Take note of the nasty beard on the guy on the left.
And a shout out to the long-term volunteers. These guys are awesome and wonderfully patient with us unskilled folk.The three youngins in the middle of that picture went with me to see Spiderman 3 last night. I enjoyed it. It had good thematics and good action, even if it seemed a bit slow in the middle. I think the story was just as good, if not better than the other movies, but just not executed well. The dialogue was a bit weak at times too.

Of course the whole sequence with the evil Peter Parker - only God knows what they were thinkin when they made that. During the jazz club scen, I commented to my neighbor that Spiderman had jumped the shark...

Fortunately, the ending made up for that evil Peter Parker garbage, in my opinion.

The one thing that kinda bugged me about the movie was that Venom went to God to ask for help, and even though his motives were wrong, he died without understanding why his lust for power and revenge was wrong. I felt like killing Venom was a Hollywoodification to satisfy the bloodlust of the audience. This is ironic because it's completely contradictory to the theme of the rest of the movie.

So go see Spiderman. I'm excited for 28 Weeks Later which comes out next week.

Day 4: Chugging Milk and God-talk

This is Borg.

Borg has an inhuman capacity for eating food and enjoys pushing his talents to the limit. Yes, I know he only appears to weigh about 140 lbs, but I'm guessing that about 40 of those pounds are attributed to the parasites living in his digestive system, seeing as how he ate 8 hotdogs plus sides and smores on Wednesday night.

What you see in the picture is Borg attempting to chug an entire gallon of milk at once. He's standing outside because he's aware of the negative consequences which are inevitable, even if he succeeds in his task. Borg drank about 85% of the gallon within 2 minutes, and let's just say that the other pictures of Borg are not as pretty. Despite Borg's own disappointment that he couldn't finish the gallon-o-milk challenge, we're all very proud of him. As a sidenote, he did all this a half hour after eating a massive meal of food.

On a more serious note, I'd have to say that up through Thursday I was a little disappointed that besides the allotted times for prayer and worship, there was not a whole lot of God-talk. We had tons of fun all week, but I didn't get to do much of my favorite thing in this world: talk about life and God. Fortunately, this changed late-night on Thursday.

I was very fortunate to be able to share my testimony and to hear the scary and amazing testimony of one of the other volunteers. About 5 of us stayed up late and just shared our thoughts on God. We asked some tough questions about the trials of life and why they occur, and it was wonderful to hear everyone's perspective.

The most important thing that I pulled out of the evening, personally, was to be able to refocus on why I'm doing what I'm doing. It's so easy to get caught up in trying to learn this new job, and trying to perform well, and being social to make new friends and love my fellow man. I also worry about posting interesting things to the blog to try to impact people's lives who aren't able to be here with me. All these things are great, but I need to remember that I'm here for God, and no matter the quality of my work, or how witty or interesting I am, or how creative I am with the blog, all that really matters is that I'm serving the Lord. If I serve God, He will lead me where he wants me to be, even if the world does not see my work as a material success. Much thanks, especially to my fellow worker who shared his testimony, because it's helped to lead me forward on a Godly path.

Day 4: More Roofing

I apologize to those who hoped for a daily update yesterday. I decided to keep the laptop away for the night and be social with my new friends. It was a great decision. We had a bonfire with hotdogs and smores and some Bible study/bonding time. I got to chat with the long-term volunteers and the other short-termer that will be here with me next week. Hopefully we'll get to do something fun over the weekend. The 15 folks from Univest leave tomorrow, so I'm sad to see them go. They're extremely entertaining - a very fun group.

So today we almost finished the roofing. We needed, like, 2 more shingles... Here's another shot of David DeDeaux's house that I've been roofing.
Mr. DeDeaux has 14 children and 96 total grandchildren, including great grandchildren. We confirmed this number with his son, and it's totally ridiculous. I have to say that working at the DeDeaux house is fantastic because they always bring out tasty treats. Today it was delicious iced tea and strawberry ice cream. Here's a few of the DeDeaux kids with one of my fellow volunteers, John.
Rumor has it that tomorrow I get to move massive pieces of drywall. I'm told it's going to be an extremely painful experience. On the plus side, I'm wearing a superman t-shirt.

On our way to the job site yesterday, we saw someone assembling their pre-built house. It's delivered on a trailer in two pieces. They're putting the two pieces together with a crane. You can't quite tell in the picture, but it's not on the ground - it's hanging in the air.And for the shot of the day, here's the mightiest portable basketball hoop on earth. Home destroyed, hoop still standing.

Day 2: Roofing

I told everyone on my post yesterday that I'd be doing some drywall. This was true, and drywalling was interesting for about an hour, but they quickly pulled me to do some roofing. So most of my day was spent on the roof of this house:
We shingled half the roof. We'll probably finish it tomorrow. I have to say that after two days I still love manual labor. It was hot, but I love the heat. I hope I'll get to do this kind of stuff when I go down to Peru.

Here's a shot from the roof of the remains of the house across the street. Just a concrete porch.
There's a huge group of people from a bank called Univest in Souderton, PA here. They're company was originally founded by Mennonites and they send they're employees down here on trips every year. They even pay them while they're down here. I had no idea such awesome companies existed... So instead of posting lots of stuff like last night, I'm going to try to be social with the Univest and MDS people.

And by the way, thanks for all the comments! I feel so loved!