Welcome to benjamin's blog 2.0!

My blog is officially “changing”…new title, new focus.

Why the change? Starting tomorrow, I need to “keep up” with this blog for another purpose: to receive credit for my “International Family Medicine Rotation”. I’ll still post fun pictures and ramble about my life, but inter-mixed will be posts specifically related to what I learn/see in the clinic.

So we’ve officially crossed the “half-way” point of our time in Peru, as we finished our time in language school and are now moving on to the volunteering portion of our trip: maren at Promesa (a bilingual Christian school) and me at La Fuente (medical clinic).

After taking time to reflect, I have a random list of things I feel that I’ve learned so far (warning: this is an incomplete list, but i do thing it captures a God bit of the things on my mind after these first 2 months)

-Travelling abroad with Maren is really wonderful, I do have a tendency to enjoy “random wandering around/poking into shops” more than she does (a trait I most assuredly got from my mom/auntie linda), but for the most part we love doing the same stuff and we love doing it together

-I have learned 1000s of Spanish words, but when I am in a conversation with someone, I use maybe 10% of them, there is a big difference between “knowing” a word and being able to spontaneously use it

-Going into this trip, I would have thought that I’d be ok in any sort of home-stay, as I realized that people live very differently than I do, and I realized people have a lot less than I do in the world. But, now I would say I “have limits” when it comes to cleanliness and courteousness. This isn’t to say first home-stay was a negative experience, the family was very welcoming, but lets just say I was very ready to be moving (as a side note: after only 1 day at the new home-stay, I am thrilled to report that it is an amazing situation, the family is incredibly generous and friendly, very patient with our Spanish, plus they the Father is the president of a local pastors association and the mom works at Promesa as “the cook”…so the food is amazing at their house and despite our language barrier, I’ve already come to respect Roberto as a really solid guy, plus their 35-yo-ish daughter is really cool too!

-God is faithful, and he loves us. I guess I should have put this first, but this is more of a “Stream of consciousness” than a ranking, but this has been a big theme of the past two months. Gods faithfulness, a “theme” that I first realized during a Sunday sermon one week, but its something I can attest to in many areas of life here. We’ve been reading through psalms and Isaiah each morning, and I’ve been struck with how many promises God makes to his people, especially promises to save them or protect them or destroy their enemies or make their paths straight, etc…

-I think wayyyy toooo much about the future, this has always been a problem for me, but with residency starting in just a few months, the hours/the lack of time off/ planning for the future…its become a bit too consuming and sadly taken away from my ability to enjoy/embrace the present

-Having deep conversation with non-Christians is really important. I typically am fearful in these situation and just content to listen, but the discussions at the meeting place (see older post for more info on the meeting place) have really been amazing, especially for me, I cherish/need to hear other people’s view points, it challenges me and keeps me thinking. I never want to be complacent with my beliefs

-I think I came here with too high of expectations, but one of the big reasons I wanted to spend 4 months in Peru was to learn what its like to be an American missionary here. Despite meeting lots of missionary families, and even having the opportunity to share with them this expressed desire of ours, no one has reached out to us or tried to pour into us. Now I understand we are only here for a short time and that these people have real lives and real ministries to spend their time with, so I think most of this is faulty-expectations with a little bit of self-centeredness, but still, I do hope these next few months afford us the chance to get to know some of the long term people here, better.

-I’ve also learned that being a missionary doesn’t mean you have to live an uber-simple radical life without any comforts or privileges, to my surprise, most of the missionaries we’ve met have really nice houses that are pretty and spacious, and I do think this adds to their ability to “not burn out” and instead have a little bit more of a “normal life” abroad.

-I can actually enjoy a “simple life”, in the states my life has always been very “full”. Lots of stuff to do, not enough time to do it all. But here, life is refreshingly simple, we have time to sleep (8+hrs every night), read, watch movies, be spontaneous, etc…its rather wonderful, even though I cant imagine not going back to my “normal busy self” upon returning

-We can handle high altitudes and rain! We’ve been living at 13,000 ft for the past 2 months, and for the most part feel “acclimated” now. And its been rainy season ever since we got here, and it hasn’t stopped us from loving life, so I think we’ll be able to handle Seattle’s rain (I hope).

-I love singing worship songs in Spanish, it has probably been the most “fulfilling/worthwhile” part of spending all this time studying Spanish, as I generally understand 90% of what I we are singing, and it is really fun to be “using” the language, not just studying it

-When living away from “friends” (as in not having face-to-face friends in my midst)…an email, a text/voice message, making time to skype…all of these things are a huge blessing. At times, other than my beautiful wife, it’s the only “relational stimulation” I receive, and it means a lot