Chao a mi Peru... (para ahora)

I am currently in Lima, finishing up my summer in Peru. Although my time in Trujillo flew by, I know that what God taught me while I was there has changed me in ways I probably have not even realized yet. My last week in Trujillo was restful and gave me a chance to say goodbye to the people that had become important in my life over the summer. I am thankful for my time in Trujillo and I trust that God used me for his purposes, despite my weaknesses and failures. I will be in Lima until Wednesday morning spending some time with my very good friend Sydney and catching up on some much needed r&r. I am excited about getting a chance to process all that God has taught me this summer. I will continue my updates until I return back to the States.

One afternoon I went to the oldest cemetary in Trujillo and took pictures of the flowers and architecture there. These are some pictures from that afternoon.
I love daisies and so does my mom. They are such friendly flowers.

This is a picture of me, Sydney, Michelle, and the new interns: (L to R) Katie Gaylor (who is crazy and hilarious), Amanda (sweet girl), and Heather ( a very good friend from back home whom I already miss).
This is a picture of the gang at Roky's my last night in Trujillo. :( It was fun.

Last weeks in trujillo

During my last week in Trujillo, I was finished teaching my classes so I had a chance to relax and get some good fellowship time before I left for Lima last night. This is a picture of some of the flowers I saw at the market during one of my days off.
These are the flowers I selected for my room. They smelled soo goooood. I put them beside my bed and could smell them as soon as I woke up every morning.
This is my friend Heather Campbell. She just graduated from Covenant and will be in Trujillo teaching at SALI for the next year. We went out with Sydney and some of our favorite Peruvians for one last despedida. Heather ordered a piece of lemon pie and this is what she got---una montana de limon! This was by far the tallest piece of pie I have ever seen in my life.
This is Ludwig and Oscar. Ludwig is super sweet and sooooo much fun. They are both fun friends and I am thankful I got to spend time with them during my time in Trujillo. I will miss them.

This is right before we were supposed to sing. Michelle was a little surprised.
Here is a picture of one of the bands performing. They were really good and made the night a little more lively.
More pictures of the band performing.

This past Thursday night we had a Coffee House Night at SALI. The idea was to present to Peruvians a picture of what an American coffee house looks like/feels like/sounds like. So we had a planning committee (me and about 6 other interns) who were put in charge of publicity, food and drinks, and set-up. To make SALI feel like a coffee house, the decorators (Becca and Michelle) put up Christmas lights and set up lamps around SALI so we could turn off the lights. Joshua got some different musicians to perform (including all of the SALI teachers--we sang Holy, Holy, Holy and Be Thou My Vision). Matt played his guitar and some Peruvians performed some Peruvian music. For food, me and Sydney made several different "coffee-houseish" desserts. We made blonde-brownies, banana cake w/ cream cheese frosting, sugar cookies with icing and strawberries on top, chocolate chip peanut butter cookies, and Rosita made some popcorn for the Peruvians who were suspicious of our desserts. We had free coffee/tea/hot chocolate for everyone. We made back about half of the costs of the event so we were glad that the bake sale could help with the cost. The night was a lot of fun and we had a ton of people (150) come. Everyone seemed to enjoy the atmosphere and the food and drinks. These kind of events are always good because it gives all of the teachers a chance to have some conversations with their students outside of the classroom, which helps build our friendships with them. Seeing our students outside of the class and being excited to see them really shows our students that we care about them as people, not just as students. I enjoyed the Coffee House Night and SALI is going to make it a regular event on the SALI schedule.

This is Rosita making the hot chocolate for the Coffee House Night. It was really good. She used chocolate bars and sweetened-condensed milk.
This is the icing we made. It seemed like almost everything we made didn't turn out the first time. The brownies we made burnt the first time. This icing was basically like chocolate water. We spent a total of 2 full days baking for Coffee Night because we were expecting 120 people. Baking in Peru is definitely a lot more difficult than baking in the States b/c the ovens dont have temperatures but just a 1, a 2, and a 3. Also, the ovens here are all gas ovens and halfway through the day on Thursday, we ran out of gas so we had to call the gas man to come give us a refill. So... as you can see... baking in Peru is a little different than baking in the States. :)
This is a picture of the brownies that we burnt.
This is a picture of our bake sale. We earned almost $35! We covered a good bit of the cost for the coffee house night through our bake sales.
We had a very, very good turn out. There were over 120 people that showed up for the festitivities at SALI that night.

Preparation for the Coffee House Night at SALI

(1)This is Becca and Sydney stuffing bags with popcorn.
(2) Me, hiding behind a massive stack of cookies.



(3) These are some of my students that came to the Coffee House night. I practiced some conversational English with them and it was fun to interact with them outside of the classroom. (left to right: Iris, Joselyn, Me, Cesar)