House Hunting Part 1

Considering the recent events leading us to feel unsafe and not secure in our present home, Jenni and I made the unanimous decision to move out. However, finding a new home has quickly presented us a challenge. Where do you find a room/apartment that is decently priced, close to the center of town, is safe, comfortable, and maybe, just maybe have a wireless internet signal? For over three months, our little hostel room has served us quite splendidly. Being within two blocks of the taxi stop to Campo Verde aka Home, only one block from the post office, vegetarian restaurant, french fry place, market, being right on the plaza (which is an easy orientation point when lost), not to mention the quite dependable free wireless internet that the Pronegocious warehouse has unknowingly provided us. God has blessed tremedously. However, we feel it is time to move out.

So, Saturday night and Sunday we spent apartment shopping. Well, it has been fruitful in many ways, finding some nice places and some not-so-nice places. From a dungeon/prison cell at about S/.120 (a little under $40 a month) to a fully furnished two bedroom, kitchen, and living room with outside garden, with air conditioning, water, and light included for a mere $350 per month (that’s about S/.1000 aka out-of-my-price-range-but-lovely-to-look-at), we searched Pucallpa. Sunday afternoon we went around town in a motokar with a “real-estate agent.” Actually, he was a guy that is developing some new homes/apartments and wanted to show us. Well, quite fun, mostly cause we got a free ride around town, but also because we got to become a part of Carnival.

Carnival is a Peruvian holiday that lasts the entire month of February. Hearing stories about past experiences during the month of February, made me dread the coming of February, but now it’s here and it isn’t even half as bad as I had heard. Let me explain. I don’t know too much about it, except that for the whole month it is a huge water fight between guys and girls. Guys throw water on girls and vice-versa. Fun right? Well, the problem and grossness comes in when people decide to throw water that isn’t really water, more like sewage and other nasty stuff. That’s not fun. However, this year a law was passed that states no dirty water can be used and if caught, the device used to throw will be confiscated (however, if it’s an arm used to throw the dirty stuff, I’m not sure how that works) and if it becomes a public annoyance, then the person is arrested. Amazing. So walking and driving around town on Sunday was quite fun and refreshing. I was hot and tired, and some Peruvian guys must have seen this and decided I would be a perfect target for their water balloons. I was actually quite grateful and felt refreshed after. Driving around town with our “real estate agent,” we were able to see quite a number of young people in little groups, waiting for the perfect person to chuck a water balloon at. A few times, I just smiled real nicely at some of the little kids and I think they must have gotten scared cause they didn’t throw any at me or Jenni. Haha:-) We also witnessed someone getting arrested for throwing apparently dirty water at passer-bys. So the law is enforced around here, which is good to know.

Since school is out for almost all the kids, they are definitely taking advantage of Carnival month. Little groups of kids gather on street corners waiting for people to pass by before throwing water balloons at them. And of course, white girls walking by always has a special draw to the Peruvian guys for some reason and so they seem especially eager to get us wet. I think it’s hilarious, not to mention it feels great to cool off. I think our team should pick a street corner next Sunday and join in on the fun!

Praise God, despite the hard times

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow..." When trials and discouraging times fall upon us, it's only natural and easy to look at the situation and feel broken down, betrayed, or depressed. But recently I have been trying to look beyond the negatives in a particular situation and see how God has blessed in the situation, despite the obvious discouraging aspects. Last Friday afternoon, my camera and Brent's laptop were stolen from Jenni's and my hostel room in Pucallpa. When Jenni and I discovered this fact, I felt betrayed and pretty much was in denial. I couldn't believe that someone would take these things. It just doesn't happen to me. I hear/read about it, but not actually to me personally. But, after searching our entire room, which didn't take too long, we realized someone had come into our room and taken these two items.

As the realization set in that I would most likely 99.9% never seen my camera or Brent's laptop (which had all of Jenni's administration documents) again (unless God worked a huge miracle), I searched for the blessings that I could find in this situation. Well, first off, I didn't have any pictures really on my camera (except a few of the baby, which weren't that great anyway), I happened to not have my 4G memory card in the camera case at the time, and I even found one of my extra camera batteries in one of my other bags that I had been meaning to put in my camera bag but kept on forgetting (for which I am now thankful for forgetting). As I searched through the room to see if anything else had been stolen, I realized how many other valuable things were in the room, yet weren't taken. My passport, which was really close to the camera bag and laptop, multiple hard drives, printer, PC desktop, clothes, my laptop, and other things. The room wasn’t trashed or messed up at all. The door wasn’t broken down or anything, a very clean steal. This experience wasn’t violent, nobody got hurt or anything. Just someone decided they wanted some of our stuff and took it.

Through this whole experience, I have realized so much to be thankful for. A camera and laptop. Yes, very important and quite useful, but in the whole scheme of life, they are only things. Replaceable. It’s so easy to place a lot of value on things of this world, thinking that if we didn’t have this or that, we wouldn’t survive. This year I have learned a lot about the essentials I absolutely need to survive. And really, it’s not a lot. With this modern world the way it is, we are constantly bombarded with new gadgets, nicer clothes, better this, faster that, things we “need,” at least according to the advertising world, to survive. But I challenge each of us, myself included to not place our hearts and desires on things of this world, things that we “need.” Instead, let’s focus our eyes to the treasure God has laid in store for us in heaven. In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus promises, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Little Baby Hector

We have been blessed to be able to help this little baby boy Hector Daniel. He was born to a mother who, because of some health conditions, was unable to nurse and take proper care of him. So Hector’s aunt tried to take care of him, feeding him rice water and other stuff that doesn’t carry really any nutrients a baby so desperately needs. So after 3 1/2 months, this baby was barely alive, skin was turning gray and he pretty much not an ounce of fat on him. His stomach was sunken in and you could see his ribs quite well. After hearing about the condition of this baby, Jenni offered to take the baby to the hospital for care. Sunday, the family brought him over and Jenni and I took him to the hospital late Sunday evening. All the nurses and doctors were shocked and in horror at the little baby in Jenni’s arms. 3 months?? Are you serious?
The doctor who helped us in emergency was Dr. Mendoza, a friend of Jenni’s from years ago. He had been the doctor in charge of Pancho, a baby helped last year. Ever so kind and helpful, he saw to it that baby Hector and both Jenni and I were taken care of. The health-care system in Peru is quite different than that in the States. First, I am learning a new definition of sterile. I’m pretty sure they have never heard of gloves here in Peru, or at least in the hospitals. Everything is done with the bare hands, including drawing blood, sticking needles, and other such “clean” activities. Secondly, all medications, syringes, and other such items must be purchased by the patient (or family) before any sort of treatment can be done. After the doctor’s rounds each morning, involved a trip to the pharmacy on the hospital premises to purchase the day’s supply of medicines and syringes. There is insurance and so if bought at the hospital pharmacy, there is a discount, but if bought outside, no such luck. So, if you happen to have an emergency, I hope you brought a family member to go buy your IV set up and medications, otherwise, you’ll have to wait until someone can purchase the stuff. And hopefully during that time, you won’t bleed to death.


Back to the baby. Hector has improved 100% over the last few days. Each day, he has a marked improvement in energy and movement. Sunday night, I was running around town buying medications for the baby. Finally after everything, we were admitted to the hospital. The baby laid on the bed and Jenni and I looked at him and looked at each other and were like, NOW WHAT?? Since, it was after 11pm, we both decided to spend the night in the hospital bed with the baby. Quite cozy. Well, since neither of us have experience being moms to a 3 month old, the first night was quite the experience. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep the first night. The baby kept us both awake the entire night. He really liked the whole idea of sleeping maybe 15 minutes, followed up with a cry of hunger until we fed him some PediaSure milk through a syringe because he didn’t know how to suck on a nipple. This was his first time getting some nutritious food and he was hungry. By the next morning, we realized this taking-care-of-baby-thing was gonna be a handful. And to add to that, all the moms in the pediatric ward thought the sight of two white gringas taking care of a 3 month-old Peruvian baby as the craziest sight ever. Needless to say, over the next few days, we had quite the steady stream of visitors, all wondering how in the world we ended up with this baby and why we weren’t nursing the poor little guy. Well, those explanations were always fun!! So, over the next few days, I truly felt like a mom, spending day and night with the baby. My whole life seemed to revolve around the baby, nothing else. My days and nights were spent rocking the baby, feeding him, and sometimes being able to watch him sleep. Sleep. For the first few days, Hector didn’t know what that word mean’t, therefore, he didn’t practice it. Up until Thursday night, he didn’t sleep more than 30minutes straight. Day or night. Meaning, Jenni or I didn’t sleep more than 20 minutes straight. So after a while, we got into a system of watching him. Switching off nights taking care of him. Finally on Thursday night, realizing the baby wasn’t going to be released anytime soon, we called up our backup moms from km.38 to help out, especially for nights. So now, little baby Hector has many mommies.

Hector has improved soo incredibly much over the last days. When I first saw him, he just laid motionless, with no energy or color in his skin. Now, his eyes are wide open, very curious to the world around him. He especially is fixated with a painting of Pinocchio on the wall. He has color in his skin again. His tummy is full and looks like it’s about to pop each time he is fed. He loves scratching his head behind his ears and just tries to kick and move, though he is still unable to move his head. He is able to sleep for hours now, which is amazing and makes nights so much easier to deal with. Pretty much, he’s doing amazing! Praise God!! Little Hector has been released from the hospital today and so is being taken back to km. 38 for a little more strengthening before heading back to his family. I have had such a great time with this little bundle of joy, now realizing how much of a responsibility and sacrifice it is to have a baby. Please continue to pray for little Hector as he is soon to return to his family, where it will be harder to receive the nutritious milk he needs.