Two Things Happened on Friday

Can I tell you my tale about Friday?

It was the perfect example of what it means to live in a missionary life.

Two things happened on Friday, the first was that I told David, the children’s ministry director here, that he didn’t have to worry about finding $2000 in two weeks. You haven’t lived until you’d told someone that, really. He was so amazed and thankful and excited and amazed and grateful and relieved… I mean, he knew that God was going to provide, he just didn’t know from where. What an amazing feeling to tell him that.

I give all the kudos to God, of course. There’s no way I could have raised $2000 just because I’d wanted to. But I’d felt God telling me to do this, and we prayed that he would release the money, and he did (or rather, his peeps were obedient to His call). Amazingly, some of the money came from people I’d never even thought of, in quantities that I wouldn’t have dreamed of. 

Before I started, I was accepting of the fact that okay, if no one donated anything then I was going to fund this camp solo.

‘It might wipe me out, but that’s the burden I feel, so I gotta go with it.’

Then God’s like, ‘Calm down Kerryn, I got it under control.”

Amazing. Really, really cool.

Such a high.

Two things happened on Friday, the second was that I went, as usual, to the Boulevard. My little friend Camilo isn’t usually there on Fridays, but I wanted to catch up with his mum, Lari, again, just to make sure we were still cool that I picked him up the next day for the Saturday morning program.

It was a strange night, because when I got to the Boulevard, and to the market shops where the people I know are, the lady at the front’s shop was closed. She (Hermanita) was one of the first non-YWAM people I met when I came to Iquitos, through the American girl here, Becky. I asked a girl I vaguely knew ‘where is Hermanita’ and she said at a conference at her church. Oh well, that’s okay.

Then I went to the next shop back, Lari’s shop. Expecting to see Lari, I was surprised to see a new lady. I asked her where Lari was. She said that Lari had travelled, (which in Spanish, means basically what we’d say as ‘left’). I was confused because I knew she and Camilo were traveling to Laticia just after Christmas, but I didn’t know where she’d gone for this time. Perhaps she’d be back in a few days, I thought.

I left the Boulevard and wandered the streets for awhile, just looking at shops and taking in my last few weeks of Iquitos. Eventually, I headed back to the base. Before entering my room, I stopped off at Becky’s room (it’s right next door) and let her know that Hermanita had been at a conference. And also that I had been told that Lari had ‘travelled’ but I that I hadn’t thought that she was going to Laticia until the 26th.

Becky looked at me, then looked at her computer and looked back at me.

“It is the 26th.”

OF NOVEMBER!!

Crap.

I had got it wrong. Somewhere between my inability to understand Spanish and my inability to speak Spanish, I got confused.

[On a side note, I think this was mainly cos I'd said I was leaving on the 16th of December, and she said she was leaving on the 26th and then another time I'd said 'you're travelling after christmas' and she 'd said yes, but then, who knows what I'd actually said because I always say random badly Spanished things and it's totally legit for someone to agree even if they don't understand (heck, I do all the time!).]

They’d left. My one little buddy, cutest thing around, had gone. And I didn’t go and say goodbye. What a horrible gringa I felt like!!

But, when I looked back, a lot of things fell into place. The week before, when I’d come around, she’d insisted on giving me a photo of her and Camilo. The next day I went back and let her and Camilo pick a photo of me from my photo album (funny story: Camilo actually really wanted the photo of Perth by the river but his mum said that he couldn’t have that and that I had to be in the photo). I thought we had weeks left to exchange photos and gifts and stories.. turns out it had been just days. She’d known that so we got to swap photos.

And really, maybe, maybe, that was the best thing. Saying goodbye to Camilo would have been hard – heck, I’d had enough trouble saying goodbye to my nephews when they left for South Australia to live and I knew I would see them again. Lari, Camilo and I had had some kind of closure with the photo-exchange, so really, I couldn’t have requested more from God than that.

And that’s the life of a missionary. That has been my life for the past five months. In ten days, I go for my missionary ‘exam’, as I like to call it – the Children’s camp. Hehehe, I do feel like it will test to see if I ‘pass’ my time in Iquitos. Will I be able to survive four days in the stinkin humidity, the lack of bathing facilities (i.e. everyone watches the gringa bath in her t-shirt and shorts in the river. yay.), the lack of spaces to escape to from the kids once in awhile, the constant spanish spoken by poorly grammatical children, the expectant stares from some parents for me to understand what they’ve just spoken at the speed of sound (I’m thinking like, a sonic boom in Spanish?)… it will be my exam. If I survive and pass (failing is not an option, I’ve come too far to throw in the towel and curl up into a cataconic ball, rocking back and forth muttering to myself lines from Pride and Prejudice)…then three days later I leave Iquitos.

Wanna do missions? Prepare yourself for the extreme highs and the extreme lows of life.

Kerryn. Currently somewhere in the middle.

Making Faces Because We Are Cool

Squeezing Shut the Eyes

Smoosh!

How To Be Awesome… (in four simple steps)

Amigos!

Gracias for all your interest in helping these kids! If you’ve decided to take the plunge of being awesome, here’s what to do next:

1) “Register your interest” – email me, Facebook me, leave a comment here, tell my parents, send a carrier pigeon… let me know.

2) I will send you an email, Facebook message or carrier toucan with bank account details to deposit money into/electronically transfer from the comfort of your own home. The bank account is Australian, ANZ-ian and mine.

3) On the 3rd December, one week before the camp starts, I’ll withdraw everyone’s money in Neuvo Soles and pass it on the Ministry Directors.

4) They will give me individual receipts for each of your donations and I will get you a copy/original (/carrier pigeon version – those are really tiny but).

5) Kids will smile. I’ll get you photos!

That’s how easy it is. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to bless the world. I’m not!

More questions? Still confused? Not sure how carrier toucans work? Pondering why blue food colouring turns poo green? All legitmate questions. Leave a comment on the blog and I’ll respond.

Bless you all!

Dios los bendiga, mi amigos!!

Kerryn.

LOVE ME!!

Yes, We Can.

Today I officially begin my campaign.

Asking people for money.

Yikes!

I suppose you could say that God has brought me 360° in my study of poverty. Coming from thinking that I knew what to do and doing the inappropriate thing, I then didn’t know what to do and was reluctant to do anything. Now I’m here, 3 and a half weeks to go, and I know what I can do and I’m doing it!

In the past months, I’ve been hesitant to encourage Westerners to pour money into situations they don’t totally understand. And I still am. But what happens when someone you trust, does understand. And is working to counteract the flow of poverty.

Then you give everything you’ve got.

Well, at least that’s where I’m at.

I’ve found myself a cause. Ministerio Niños Para Cristo (Children for Christ Ministry) is the reason I’ve been woken up every Saturday at 7am for the last 5 months. Our front bell buzzes and the day begins, with children streaming in over the next two hours, absolutely LOVING being here (thus, they get here at 7am…) – a place with music, laughter, colouring, fun, love, safe people, food, hugs and Jesus personified many times over. (Heck, I love it and I’m 25).

Directed by two full-time South American YWAMers, the majority of the help comes from the local youth group. These teenagers are here every Saturday morning, helping run the music and teaching and drying tears and giving piggyback rides and supervising and cooking for 130 kids and cleaning up once they’ve finished eating. Huge effort from a committed team!

The kids themselves are a crazy bunch, as any group of over 100 kids normally is! There is every type of personality – from the shy ones who are wary of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed gringa, to the extremely bold, like one girl who jumped up for a hug, the first time she ever saw me. I love that this is the kind of place where they feel safe to do that. We are their safe people.

So, that being said, here is my cause. The children at risk of being coaxed into drugs, drug trafficking, child prostitution and teenage pregnancy. With nothing else to do, no guidelines of how to live and no other way to earn money for food, this is what will happen.

But you, dear reader, have the chance to partner with me, with the children, with the directors of the ministry (who work hard) and with the local youths of Iquitos and help support their end of year camp (in 3 weeks).

It costs $37 Australian Dollars for one kid’s camp experience. This camp is going ahead, whether you support it or not, because the Directors are trusting God to provide. And He will, but don’t miss out on this opportunity to directly, and responsibly help.

Wanna help change the world through a generation of children?

You can.

Let me know.

Kerryn.

P.S. This is painted on a prominent wall along the Bouevard. If they have to condemn it, then clearly it’s happening.

...this is why the Children's Ministry is so important.

Or, check out a short video of the Saturday Morning craziness…

The Symbolism of a Mango (…and other poverty thoughts)

The more I learn, the more I wish I already knew.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll know that one of the things I’ve been dealing with over my now 5 months here, is the issue of poverty. What is is, what it isn’t and what we can do.

But these days, it’s more than philosophy. It’s no longer some book I read, or a discussion I’ve had… it’s going into town and connecting with the town’s most at-risk. Greeting them, speaking with them, asking about their lives… over and over and over as I visit their ‘hood (and now, my hood) throughout the weeks and gradually the words on the pages I’ve read have become real.

The best example I have is with my little friend, Camilo. He’s 5. I’ve been visiting him for quite a while now, just hanging with him and talking to him, and we are friends.

And there’s the part inside me that knows, “You know what? I can do so much for this boy. It’s in my power to bless him immensely, and take him fun places and give him things his mother could never afford.” And perhaps, many years ago, I would have done exactly that – come in and decided what was best and acted on it.

But I suppose the difference now, is that I think. (Good one, Kerryn.)

With my experiences and what I’ve been learning, I feel like I’m being trained in how to think better. Ask questions that I’d even never thought of, consider answers that I would not have been able to predict before.

And here is some of  the answer that I haven’t arrived at yet…

The question of need, I believe, should be addressed in this order: family, community, government then outside aid.

Basically the idea of, look after your own.

LET ME QUALIFY THIS STATEMENT though.

In a perfect world, well, a perfect world where people still had needs, the needs would be fulfilled in this order. Obviously we don’t, and obviously (at least, to me), this doesn’t exempt us from our responsibility to help those in need. But it does help stop the debilitating mindsets of:

• I don’t need to be responsible for my life because someone else will do it for me, and
• Westerners are the heroes and will save the day.

 We honestly don’t get to see the effect of the second point in Australia.

Only when it’s not in the ability(/or desire) of family, community, government should we, as westerners, step in. I believe. They (locals) are the very people who know the situation the best, they know the needs and they have an investment in making sure it works.  Without going into detail, I find this to be true also in Australia. A family that has a clearer idea of whats going on with a member, is going to do a better job of bringing about healthy change, than the further outwards you go. Sweeping statement, yes, I’m full of them, but I am also happy to discuss it another time.

Back to Camilo – My dealings with Camilo have focussed mainly on the second part. It was within my ability to spoil him rotten. But then, think about it… what is spoilt? It’s when something has gone off – it had the potential to be good but its had too much of something and now its wasted. Did I actually want to do that to a child??

I was toeing the fine line of being stingy white girl and rich westerner, confused about where to fit in, how to be around Camilo. Then it came to me. I’d been referring to us as ‘amigos’ since the very beginning, when I introduced him to anyone, and that’s what we were. Amigos. Friends. And what I wanted, and what was best for him, was for me to be just his friend.

Just one of his friends, (that happens to look a bit different).

This allows me to build relationship with him, where he doesn’t expect presents; it allows me to bless him, but where he doesn’t hold me up to some White-Person pedastal because I’ve got money.

So I’ve refrained, in a lot of ways where I could have ‘blessed’ him – an icecream here and there, a drink, some toys – and instead, I’ve just spent time with him, knowing him, being with him. I suppose I want him to like me, not because of what I bring for him, but because of my commitment to him. And that’s harder to do, because as a westerner, I’m so used to solving problems with money. But, I think, what I’ve decided to do, is a much better thing, for everyone.

So, that’s me and Camilo, my 5 year old friend. I don’t claim to have figured out exactly how this relationship will work, but I do feel confident in the point I’ve come to, concerning my responsibility to bless him. If, in the future, he needs money for food or school, well that is something I will talk about with his mum, and try to work out something that is fair and just for both of us.

Oh, the other thing, when I take Camilo to the Saturday morning program, his mother had asked me how much it costed me. I hate talking about money with people who clearly have little, but she’d asked me, so I was truthful and replied, 2 Soles each way, and I went twice, so, 8 soles. I wondered what she thought of me spending that much money (it’s actually only about $2.50AUD) just so a kid could go to some program when perhaps they had greater needs. I didn’t know what her daily income was, and how 8 soles compared with that, but I hoped that if she did have a greater need, then we were at (or, probably, would be at sometime soon) the point where she could express that to me.

But, anyway, the next day, today actually, when I came to pick up Camilo, she got him to give me a mango. A present for me.

Now, before, I would have been like, ‘thanks but maybe Camilo can have it (cos he’s a poor kid and probably hungry)’, which, really, would be a western mindset. And I understand it. But now I’m also beginning to understand the need for dignity and a fair(ish) trade of services and goods so that that dignity is preserved and built.

So, this time, I just took it and thanked her. She’s ‘paid’ me in what she had, and I was blessed, and she was blessed, and I think, something good and healthy and uplifting was done today.

Finally, I’ve decided, that there is no answer to poverty. There are, in fact, 3 billion answers to poverty. Every person will require a different course of action, sometimes they need training, sometimes people to listen, sometimes lifeskills and sometimes just time to reach conclusions that take other people less time. And I don’t think we can figure out these 3 billion answers on our own, I do believe we need to Holy Spirit of God to guide us, and change us, and convict us and motivate us. We can’t do it alone, but we are not alone.

And that’s my blog! If you have comments, please write them, disagree with me wholeheartedly if you want, I’m prone to writing ridiculously sweeping statements and if no one tells me why I might be wrong, then I continue believing in my own self-assuredness… so please don’t let that happen!! (for the good of mankind)

More sun, more heat, more Peruvian experience.

Chau amigos, hasta proximo vez!

Kerryn.

Let’s all take a minute to remember, The Blog That Was.

I used to feel sorry for the software people whom had to field complaints from irate customers because they’d lost their email/document/30-page-thesis and were calling up to rant and rave to this poor geeky software designer, who was not trained in grief counseling.

 But I’ve changed my mind. After losing my ridiculously long, if not fantastically well-written, blog yesterday, I feel the software designers deserve every bit of malice coming their way if they create a faulty program that eats people’s long and fantastically well-written blogs all in the name of ‘Save Draft’. Yes, I was even being proactive about it.

 Now I have vowed to pre-write everything in Microsoft Word – not that it’s perfect, but at least I know where Bill Gates lives.

I’m not going to re-write what I wrote yesterday, it would just be too painful to have to go through that whole process again, instead, I’ll write anew, of my comings and my goings, my passings and my adventures. And what adventures they are…

Yesterday, I spent the morning sorting bed sheets. Riveting stuff, right there. Is it a double, is it a single, it looks like a double, but maybe it’s just a big single, shall we unfold it to see, yes we will, it’s a… SINGLE!!

Ok, write that down.

Next one.

Is it a double, is it a single….

And so it goes.

Some of you will have noticed that my last post was in Spanish, unless of course, you are like me and can understand enough Spanish to forget what language you just read or talked or listened to. If you can’t read Spanish, don’t despair, come closer to the screen, I have a secret for you. There is a cheat code to the blog that will translate it into English with the mere pressing of a few buttons.

Get a new window up and type into the browser www.googletranslate.com. Once that screen comes up, highlight the text of my blog and copy it (edit, copy – in the toolbar up above), move windows, place the cursor in the text box of the translate page and paste (edit, paste). It should translate immediately, and if not, click Translate.

Don’t worry if you didn’t figure that out yourself, I’ve had hackers trying at it for years without result.

I have the most fantastic news, that I can only share with you, my potentially Australian readers. I have a thong tan. Yep, all the walking in the sun in my thongs has led to the most faintest, but definitely present line to show up on my feet, where my thongs lie. I can’t really share this news with my American friends, cos a ‘flip-flop tan’ sounds silly, and the alternative may just offend their decencies.

Only one month and 10 days until I hit Aussie soil. I’ve been having such a great time here since I came back from Bolivia, it’s going to be sad to leave. I’ve been thinking about myself and what kind of demented weirdo goes to Peru for 6 months and lives there and doesn’t know the language but learns it over there and hugs kids and gets eaten by chiggers just because a God that heaps of people don’t believe in told her to. Who does that?!

People are starting to ask me what I’m going to do once I get back to Australia. Actually, over here they are asking when am I returning to Peru. But Australia is where I’m going to stay for awhile. The plan is to hit Australia, enjoy some weeks with family and friends and the beach and the Aussie way of life that isn’t necessarily the best culture in the world (there actually is none, JSYK) but it’s my culture so I love it. After that… work? Find a job, or go back to my old jobs, that I am ridiculously over-qualified for and start (or rather, continue) contemplating my life and existence. I’ve turned 25 (which, I still don’t actually think occurred since my birthday itself was a pretty low-key deal over here) and am not as young as I used to be and my desires for life are superficially different to when I was 20 and the biological clock is ticking, Kerryn, and your looks won’t last forever…

Or, something like that. I tend to tune out the crazy in me from time-to-time.

One pastor here thought, very seriously, that I was 19. THANKYOU!!

I would like my brain, my experiences and life-lessons-learnt to remain with me, they are indeed the blessings of years passed in existence, but perhaps if I had the insane amount of energy I did when I was 17, and the ability to recover from sports within, like, an hour, that could be perfect, thank you very much.

Have I written enough to justify this as a real blog? I haven’t really told you about what I’m doing these days, apart from the adventure of sorting sheets, but a lot of random things go on here, today there was a whole pile of sand dumped outside the front of the base for the construction that is going on up on the 3^rd floor. You think I’m going to say that I helped moved it up there. I didn’t, I just watched. There were more than enough guys around to do it. Gender stereotyping is alive and well in Iquitos, Peru.

This arvo, I’m going to try my luck at the LAN office. I need to change another ticket, a different one to the one I mentioned in my Spanish blog, and I have very little confidence that it will even work, let alone not cost an exorbitant amount of money, and I have big confidence that it will be long and frustrating.

Before, or possibly after that, I’m going to help Becky, an American girl who works with YWAM here, cut out sewing patterns.

Life here is always different and interesting. Except for the sorting of sheets, that’s quite structured and ordered.

I like both.

Peace mi amigos, escribeme okay?

Kerrynita.

El mundo. En español.

Yo piensé que los escribiría en espanol ya que, esos dias, yo pienso en espanol tambien. O, al menos, yo lo trato. Yo escribo este sin ayuda de Google Translate, aunque mi diccionario es muy útil.

Hoy, yo fui a la ciudad con la espera de cambiar mi vuelo. Yo lo quise cambiar a uno dia mas temprano porque los vuelos de Iquitos tienen una costumbre de salen tarde y no quiero perder mi vuelos siguiente a Santiago y Sydney.

Sin embargo, la oficina estaba muy ocupado y yo tuve que esperar por cuarenta cinco minutos. Luego, yo salí, pero yo no había cambiado mi boleto.

El dia no estaba un fracaso todo. Yo envié tres tarjetas y tomé una Coca Cola.

Quizás, el próximo vez yo escribo un blog, lo escribiré en ingles. ¡Tomará menos tiempo!

Y disculpame, habladores de español, por algunos y todos de mis errores.

Tambien, ¿como estás?

Sonrisa, mis patos.

Kerryn.