Our highly unusual eventful day

God has blessed us with uneventful days while here the past 4 weeks until today. Today we experienced some things we have never faced before.
We woke up to a trembling shake… a 5.3 earthquake on the scale. When you grow up used to the blasts of a close by combine… a earthquake is a total different story. Its quite the alarm in the morning. You wake up to your bed shaking, parrots squawking, dishes moving around in the cabinets, and people screaming. Not the thing I would like to experience everyday. But everyone here just seen it as a normal event. They told us that we are expected one next week… so be aware!! Great!! Another possible morning of waking up to shaking.
Today we got invited to Italo’s house for lunch and that was amazing. We rode a bus for about an hour and then a taxi for about another 20 minutes. On the bus… we were all crowded in the back. Some 4 in a seat. When we got off to wait for a taxi, Otto told us a story of what he saw while watching out the bus window. A guy on the bus jumped out at a stop and ran up to a car stopped at a red light. He put his hand in the open window and grabbed the guys phone and took off running. Right in the middle of the street. Things like this happen regularly. Rule #1 while riding a taxi or bus… never open the window more then half way. Rule #2... Always lock the doors. Rule #3... Never flash things of great value. We finally arrived at Italo’s and shared our story with them. They all laughed at the events that go on in their streets. We ate turkey, rice, sweet potatoes, salad, gravy, and pineapple cake for dessert. Some good Peruvian home cookin’ food!!
While we were waiting to eat… Jano got a phone call and it wasn’t the best of news. It was about the church in Trujillo. We where all shocked and kind of at amaze. We are planning on visiting that church in 4 weeks.
On our way home from our lunch, I was in a taxi with papi, mama, Ali, and Anni… and as we came to a traffic jam, we saw a man out of his vehicle beating on a taxi driver. The poor driver just sat in his car and took the beating. Some guys rushed to the attacker and grabbed him and pushed him back into his car. I was startled at what I had just witnessed. The rage of some of the drivers amaze me. The driving here is outrageous. I would never attempt to ever drive in it. People cutting off people, more honking in a minute then you would hear in the whole day in the town of Montgomery, cars not watching out for pedestrians, and roads without stop signs. But the funny thing is that you hardly see accidents. I think we saw our first ambulance today since we’ve been here. How is it that in our towns, we have so many rules and yet so many accidents… and here, no rules and no accidents?! Something isn’t right.
Tonight for youth Jano had us TREKers dress up in all black. He talked on the death and resurrection of Lazarus. How we need to die to Christ. So dead that we stink. We need to die so we can be risen, we need to be hurt so we can forgive, we need to feel pain so we can heal. We need to really die. We then put a paper with our names on it and through it in the fire. Then he shared how when we raise for the dead… be bring color into our lives. Us TREKers then took off our black shirts and exposed a brightly colored t-shirt. It touched many people. It touched me. I had never thought of it that way. That when we die to Christ… really die the death and be made new.
After our lesson we headed to the market place where they had a special dance presentation going on for free. There was Polish, Peruvian, and some other dancing we had never seen before. It was so exciting and new for us. There were so many people there. Chairs set up filled with people and the circling area was overwhelmed with sightseers.
So for the most part… today has been the most eventful day of our 4 weeks here. We are starting to see the reality of life and how serious things can get. How fast situations can turn to the worst. We are starting to see the seriousness of togetherness and protection. And we are starting to see God work in the lives of the church member and also in some un helping neighbors. We are starting to see the devil working against the work we are starting to do. Please keep us, the church here and also in Trujillo, and the hearts of these Peruvian people in your prayers!!