The holiday season has been a busy but beautiful time for us here in Peru. We enjoyed our first Thanksgiving in Cusco celebrating with our teammates who, as we discovered, have great skill at replicating American food with Peruvian ingredients for special days like this! We also spent our first Christmas in Cusco and were blessed to host my parents and three of my siblings for a week. It was very special to be able to show them around Cusco, introduce them to our teammates and people in our church, and share with them what life is like for us here. Finn had a blast with his grandparents, aunts, and uncle, and of course all of the nice things that they brought him from the States!
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| We live in the tall apartment building directly behind us. |
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| Finn loved having many volunteers to read to him after his naps! |
In Peru, December 24th is actually a bigger holiday than the 25th, because it is on the 24th that families spend time together cooking, feasting, sharing gifts, and then watching the fireworks at midnight. Everyone stays up until midnight to celebrate, kind of like on New Year's Eve. For this reason, instead of holding a Christmas Eve service on the 24th, when families are spending time together in their homes, our church had a special candlelight service on the 23rd.
At this Christmas Eve-Eve service, I directed the children of our church in a small nativity performance. Finn was the youngest child who I had a costume for, a shepherd's costume, and I had my doubts going into it about whether he would cooperate for me. Sure enough... as soon as I put his costume on that evening he became upset and was quite determined not to wear it. So Finn got to watch the performance from the audience with his grandparents. Maybe next year!
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| The church kids getting ready for their performance. |
On Christmas Eve we spent the morning at the annual Christmas market downtown where vendors from all over were selling artisan-type products. At this market, like many smaller artisan markets around Cusco, customers are expected to negotiate prices of the items for sale. When we first arrived Derek and I did most of the negotiating with the vendors for my family on items they were interested in, but over the course of the morning it was fun to see my family gradually gain confidence with their Spanish and negotiating ability!
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| At the Christmas Market |
On the tale end of my family's visit we flew with them to Lima, and then stayed there for a few extra days to enjoy some family vacation time. Our time there was very nice and relaxing, and Finn loved getting to swim in pools and play at new playgrounds. Aside from those things, one of the highlights of our trip was getting to shop in grocery stores that carry things we can't get in Cusco!
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| Finn enjoyed getting to see the ocean while we were in Lima. |
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| We enjoyed the summer time weather in Lima! |
While in Lima we randomly ran into some "old" friends from language school last year and enjoyed getting to catch up with them!
Now we are back home in Cusco, and spending the week preparing for new ministry ventures that are about to begin. Tomorrow morning Derek begins teaching a series of Christian Life courses for Peruvian university students, and on Monday I begin a new semester of homeschool co-op with a handful of missionary kids on our team! We are both so blessed to be able to serve in ministries that we love so much!
