a couple weeks worth of blog. :)

January 3, 2011
After two weeks in the states for Christmas, I arrived back in Pucallpa this morning around 5:15am. It’s now 9:30pm and I haven’t slept since 11am yesterday morning. I’ve had a mini naps in the airport and on the planes, but that’s about it. Coming back is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I’ve really missed family and Jacob a lot, and in a lot of respects going home made it worse. I’m so grateful to have been able to go home, but I don’t think I would advise other SMs to do the same thing; it’s too hard to leave the states again. I’m okay with being back, and will be interested to see how this semester goes. I lost my debit card today! Thankfully, I was able to cancel it before someone was able to withdraw any money from it. It’s going to be a little hard to live on twenty bucks for the next three weeks though.  Here goes Peru, round 2!
January 4, 2011
We ate a regional food today, that is absolutely yummy! They call it Guanes (not sure on the spelling, but it’s spelled gwah-nays), and it is best described to be like a tamale except rice is used instead of the corn and it is wrapped in a banana leaf with chicken and a greek olive in the center. It has to be one of my favorites that I have tried so far. First, they cook the rice and then mix it with garlic and other seasonings. After that they wrap the rice, along with an olive and a piece of chicken, in the banana leaf and boil it the rest of the way. Que rico! I spent a good majority of today cleaning up the dental instruments and figuring out what supplies need replenished before the big medical campaign next week. There’s quite a bit missing, and since I lost my debit card as soon as I got back In Peru, I won’t be able to help replenish is. Haha. I left my debit card in an ATM in the Pucallpa airport, and when I went back to retrieve it, it wasn’t to be found. Fortunately, I was able to get it cancelled, but for the next three weeks I’ll be rather poor until my new card gets here. Rachel has been very kind, and will be spotting me for food until I have money again. We will start the campaign next week with eight of the original eleven missionaries. Laura was only planning on being here until January and then the two boys Caleb and Chris have decided it would be best for them to not come back. We’re going to miss them terribly! This next week will be quite the test of endurance. Praying for God’s strength.
January 5, 2011
We came back to Km 38 today on our day off. I found a lot of supplies in the boxes here for the clinic next week. I’m a little worried about next week just because I’m the only one from the original dental team. It won’t be too bad though, because Caleb and Chris taught Jonathan a little bit about dental and Hanna trained with us at the very beginning. I got a message from one of my professors today, and I possibly have a job next semester! That’s good news, I was a little worried about finding a job next year with so many students at Southern competing for jobs. The rest of the day today, Rachel made pumpkin cookies and bread. (yum!) And we just hung out the rest of the day.
January 10, 2011
Today wasn’t as stressful as I thought it would be. We started our medical campaign this week at kilometer 6, in a little village called La Gran Via de Manantay or Los Mangos. This campaign is different than other campaigns that we have done in the past. This time we have an evangelistic team that will be going to the houses of the people here talking to them and offering Bible studies. In the evenings we have meetings for the kids and for the adults separately. We didn’t have a great turn out tonight of adults, but there were at least sixty kids. I guess that this is how campaigns at AMOR Projects are suppose to be. We use the medical campaign to get to know the people and that way they feel more comfortable coming to the meetings in the evenings with us. The kids are going to be really fun to do VBS with. We are going to be doing VBS for about 3 weeks with them, I hope that we don’t run out of activities for them! This week will probably be one of my most prayer filled weeks that I’ve ever had. I’m really scared that something will happen while I’m doing an extraction that I can’t fix. Fortunately, Dr. Matthews can pull out pretty much any tooth, so if I get stuck he can help me. I’m tired at the end of the day, but I’m not worn out or super stressed. Praise God that today went well!