PERU - Day 1 / Day 2

Day 1

Day 1 was yesterday. It was also the day I traveled to Lima, Peru from LAX.

So I had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning so I could be at the airport at 6 for my flight which was at 8. Usually I'm an early packer and pack at least 2 days before the flight for a trip this big but this time I pretty much waited till the night before to pack all my things. I don't know why I've been so lazy lately!!! I guess its because I just graduated from 4 years of non-stop education and get to finally have a summer without school. IDK.

Anyways....let me tell you a little about the plane ride. 1 connection; 9 hours total!! geez. I hate planes too. On the last connection I was able to have all three seats in my row but that still wasn't enough room. No matter how much room there is I never seem to be comfortable, or maybe it was the gay couple that was sitting right in front of me who made out like every 10 sec or every time they happened to look at each other :P I don't know if they were just trying to annoy me cuz they knew I was uncomfortable or they were on their honeymoon but they could not stop putting their tounges in each other's mouths...Anyways, enough about that....

I landed in Peru at 8pm local time (Peru is two hours ahead of Pacific Time) to find my Grandpa Herbert and my Grandma Ormi waiting for me. They were soo cute. Ormi is getting sick and is a little slow and it was awesome to see how much my Grandpa cares for this woman and how much he takes care of her in every way. As we were walking outside the airport we entered my grandpa's truck. His truck looked like a 20 year old Nissan pickup 4 wheel drive. Hahah, it was so cool to see him in his manual suspension pickups driving to their house. If you know anything about my grandpa he is a real down-to-earth guy. He doesn't care about fancy things (even though he could afford it), he is so content with the bare minimum. He is a man who is more interested in giving than recieving. Wow, I hope that I can be as giving as this man someday :)

Before I go on let me remind you that the last time I was in Lima was when I was 8; over ten years ago so there were alot of things that I did not remember about this place and one of those things was the driving! HOLY COW. Are there even any driving laws in this country! WOW! I have to give major props to my grandpa for living in a place were people drive so recklessly. I don't even know why there are lane markers on the road because people drive all over the road! They will seriously find any way to get past the next car even if it means going into opposite traffic or onto the curb! LOL. After about 10 seconds of waiting at a red light people will start honking at the light to see if their honking will make the light turn green faster, either that or they'll just go!! haha anyways..enough about the driving.

As we reached my grandpas's house memories started coming back into my head of the neighborhood such as the park near his house and the Pollos A La Brasa (Rotisserie Chicken :)!!) restaurant near his house. My grandpa lives in the city of Callao.

View Larger Map

Peru is a third-world county so the cities are not as clean and "wealthy" as they are in SoCal. My grandpa lives in a mediocre city that is very old. I'm guessing his house is at least 100 years old but its a well taken care of place. His house is huge!! It has 4 bedrooms and a bathroom on the seond floor along with an office/computer room (which I am in right now) Downstairs, is the living room, dining room, kitchen, backyard, and another room which seems to be detatched from the house which is where my Grandpa and Grandma sleep. In there, my grandpa has his office and right outside in the patio he has 2 dogs and alot of birds!

Once I arrived I met the whole family. Andrea, Alicia, and Camucha are like family who live in my Grandpa's house. My father adopted them about 20 years ago (Andrea is 13 so not that long ago for her) and they've been with the family ever since. Once I arrived and put all my stuff in my room and greeted everyone, Grandpa and I went arround the corner to get some Pollos A La Brasa. The currency here is in soles (sole-les) which is 3 to 1 to the dollar. So un pollo con papas fritas y ensalada cuesta 27 soles which in dollars would be 9 dollars. After eating with the family it was already 10 o'clock but I was eager to see some of the city so we went out to the beach area where there were some restaurants and clubs were still open. We didn't go to any but I was able to see some of the night life of Sunday night which was a little more crowded than usual because Monday was a holiday. We went to Miraflores too and I went into my first casino LOL. I played a couple of slot machines then went to go look around the rest of the city.

I took a cool picture of one of the views from the beach:

(will add soon!)

So my Spanish has been week while in SoCal so it was challenging to talk to my family in Peru who didn't know English hardly at all. Plus I forgot to download an offline translator on my iphone!! dangit. Well I seem to be getting my words accross so far LOL. After going out we came back at around 2:30 and then I called Mi Amor and my Mom to tell them I landed safely then I went to bed forever!!!

Day 2

As you could probably guess I was exausted from waking up the day before at 4:30am to going to bed at 3:30am the next day. Kinda wish I would have slept on that plane. So today was a great second day to my trip and I was also able to take about 50 pictures so that's cool. I woke up at 1pm local time and went downstairs to have breakfast. In Latin America countries, breakfast is usually the lightest meal of the day and usually consist of a tosted sandwich or a piece of toast with juice. Today I went for the piece of toast with freshly sqeezed oranje juice. A couple hours later after getting ready and such, we went out to lunch, which was good considering I only had a piece of toast and juice for breakfast!!! We went to this restaurant (I wish I remembered the name sorry) that was famous for their cebiche. Cebiche is a peruvian dish which is sautade in onions and a lemon juice which is called el leche tigre (tiger milk..sounds disgusting but its really good).

After eating my large portion of cebiche we drove and stopped at a couple of parks and then in the city of Barranco. Barranco had a nice church that seemed to be a couple hundred years old and had some nice modern elegant looking restaurants there. After taking some pictures there we went to a big mall in Lima where I met my cousins Carlos, Alberto, and Carolina (Carolina lives in SoCal near me and landed in Peru a day before I did; she is staying for 2 months!). We went bowling and then walked through the mall to eat Bembos which is a famous burger place in Peru. Its amazing how Peru has alot of the same shops and restaurants that the United States has. Some restaurants I've noticed Peru has that are also in the United States are Chili's, Tony Romas, TGI Fridays, KFC, Burger King, McDonalds, Starbucks (YES!), and Hooters. My cousins and I then took a taxi to their father's house where we stayed for a little bit and played some playstation. There I saw their dad's mom or my second grandma who hadn't seen me since I came to Peru on my first trip which was 19 years ago! After staying there for about an hour my grandpa picked me up and we went home. That was pretty much the day but I hope to do more exciting thing tomorrow!! :D

oh its time for some campaignin

so this is my definition of studying for my computer operating systems quiz today.

Why Would I Listen to Something I Don't Believe In

by Josh Tutwiler

So many times I hear many Christians say that they have a hard time preaching the gospel to non-believers because of the fact that they feel like they are talking to a brick wall. One guy told me "Why should I even bother telling them (non-believers) the gospel? They don't believe it anyways. It would just come in one ear and out the other." Some Christians use the approach of connecting with non-believers whether it be certain similar interest (such as in music or entertainment) or relating to them on a personal level by exchanging testimonies with each other. I believe this is an amazing approach to connect with non-believers and creates such a solid and secure ground for further conversation but it's so important we don't loose sight of the sword and the power it can have in the heart of EACH AND EVERY single person on this planet.
I can understand the nervousness someone can have about sharing the actual word-by-word gospel with a non-believer believe me I've been there. It's usually normal to establish a friendship with the person and once that person let's you into that little circle of trust and friendship then you might poke them with a little Jesus here and there. This is very risky however because the more you hang out with this person, the more opportunities you will have to do the practices that they (a non-believer) does. We must be careful not to be acting as the world does as Paul says in 2 Cor:

"Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" 2 Cor 6:14

As a side note, this verse is not telling you that you can't have unbelieving friends. It is telling us however that we need to not be in binding relationships that can hurt our relationship with God. I'm sure all of us have had friends who were not believers and in the end we have had many regrets as to the decisions we've made from the relationship. This is what Paul is emphasizing here.

However, back on track, if you do have friends who are non-believers it's important for them to know who you are and what you believe in (that's the easy part). But it's also important for them to know that you love them so much that you want them to be a part of the life God has offered them and that can't be done with anything but the Gospel message. Sharing the Gospel message with an unbeliever is another blog post but for know it's important to see the importance of sharing the word of God with people and especially those you call a friend.

When I first was open about sharing the gospel I felt very unprepared. Why??? Because I didn't know any of the gospel. The truth is, I still feel unprepared sometimes and that's not what God wants for us.

"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect."
1 Peter 3: 15

This is why it's so important for us to spend time in the word every day with God. We don't need to know the whole Bible word for word but we do need to know what the Bible says about many of the things the world doubts God on. Like my mentor Casey Jones says "It's going to happen to you every once in a while, but DON'T LET IT HAPPEN TWICE." In other words, when we come into a situation where we don't know how to correctly answer a question a non-believer has for us we need to dive in the word and search for the answer ASAP so that next time we are ready to answer the question just as the 1 Peter tells us to do.

For example, I was talking to one of my classmates in one of my computer science classes who is a agnostic. I was telling him about God and in our discussion he brought up the suffering of the world such as global warming and poverty in Africa and he asked me "If God is so loving then why would God let things like this happen to the world he "loves"?" This is a fair question I thought but the truth is I didn't know what God had to particularly say about this. I ended up telling him that God didn't want all this to happen but that conversation was on my mind all day and when I got home I dove in the scriptures as to what God had to say about the pain and suffering in the world. It wasn't that hard to find. What I found was that it started with Adam and Eve and the curse they set on themselves for not listening to God (Gen. 3:17) . And because of this sin, death has come into the world along with pain and suffering because of MAN not because of God (Rom. 5:3) I was now clear that all the things in the world that are so haywire like global warming are because of US and our actions and yet we blame God about it. Then I read this:

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it (MAN), in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought int o the glorious freedom of the children of God." Rom. 8:18

and on top of that I read this:

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Rev 21:4

WOWOW!!! how amazing is God?? Not only can I answer my friends question now but I can give him a hope that no one else can offer. A hope that only God can give him that promises him freedom for the bondage of this world and destruction that lies within it. HOLY COW!! This is how we grow in God folks. Not only by reading and meditating on his word but putting it into practice in our everyday lives whether it involves other people or just ourselves and the things we go through on a day-to-day basis.

I think one of the most important barriers that we must overcome as Christians is spreading the word of God. We must not be ashamed of it, instead we must be so eager to share it with other people who we know must hear it.

"I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes" Romans 1:16

Instead of thinking how they will think of us from now on, we need to think of them and how they are going to suffer for eternity if we don't tell them about the good news of Jesus Christ.

All the fol owing verses are so amazing and I encourage you to remember these whenever you have the opportunity to share the gospel with a non-believer:

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." 2 Tim 3:16

"So is my word (the word of God) that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." Isaiah 55:11

"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges and thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Hebrews 4:12

The word of God is so powerful. It is not just a book. "IT IS ALIVE AND ACTIVE" in every one's lives. So when you think that someone won't care about what the bible has to say or they even tell you that this doesn't mean anything to me just remember that "IT WILL NOT RETURN TO ME EMPTY, BUT WILL ACCOMPLISH WHAT I DESIRE AND ACHIEVE THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH I SENT IT". God will always be with you and remember "If God is with me, who can be against me" Rom 8:31


"All men are like grass, and all their glory is like flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever."
1 Peter 1 :25