Month Two in Peru

Tomorrow it will be May. WHAT? April has flown by! The past month has been quite the ride, with ups, downs, celebrations and frustrations.

At the beginning of the month, my parents came to visit. It was great to see them and cool to share my life here with them. While they were here, they were able to meet the set of seven-year-old twins they sponsor at the Inca Link daycare. Though the kids were shy at first, they warmed up to us all, and continue to ask about my parents whenever they see me.

After the quick week with my parents, I was frustrated with life here and now as well as with my plans for life back home. Here, my project was not advancing. I kept getting sidetracked with work other than my project and coordinating it was hard. For my own safety, I'm not supposed to go anywhere alone, which means my schedule has to be based around other people's schedules. I don't consider myself to be a fiercely independent person -- I like having a companion -- but good grief do I miss the convenience and ease of going places by myself! Concerning my plans for home, I continued to be wait-listed and rejected from my preferred schools. When I finally was accepted to one, it was my last choice. I was not convinced the school nor the career path (speech-language pathology) was for me.

Then, something great happened! I got accepted to another school that I liked better. Though it was still low on the list, the program was good and the director was really nice. As soon as I had accepted the fact that I probably wouldn't be going to one of my top picks, something amazing happened! I was offered admission to Northwestern University! Northwestern's speech-language pathology is ranked as one of the top schools in the nation, and as it is just north of Chicago and has "legacy" value (both my dad's parents attended), it was my top choice. So, I enrolled!

After a couple of weeks of coordinating and struggling to get moving on my project, I finally was able to take some kids from the daycare out for a little field trip, just for fun. So far, my friend Claudia and I have taken out six kids, three sets of siblings. We were also able to visit their homes and meet their families, which is always good to understand their home lives. Usually, the home situation is difficult, with absent fathers or mothers, too many kids, and not enough resources. Most homes in their neighborhood are one or two rooms made of "adobe" mud-bricks, with dirt floors and little ventilation. The poor conditions are even more grim with life stories and harsh conditions that make young women look old. We leave with heavy hearts.

Seeing the homes of these children makes the necessity of the daycare so clearly evident. I've seen relief in mother's faces as they mention the three meals a week their children are fed at the day care, three less days she has to worry about how to feed them. I feel overwhelmed with compassion for these people, and overwhelmed by how much needy people need. I often feel that the help we are able to provide is inadequate, and it is. We will never make their lives perfect. BUT we must have faith that God will use what little we can do to do something big. We can't rescue every kid from every bad situation, but we can bring hope to a hurting world -- hope that situations can change, that wounds will be healed, that God will provide for us and sustain us.  Maybe we don't have the resources to meet everyone's physical needs in abundance, but we have the abundant love of God that covers all.