Reuniones

Reunion is the word in Spanish for meeting. I think it´s a pretty easy word to remember because in English, reunions are after all the meetings of family, right?

I´d like to share about some of the reuniones that I´ve been a part of since coming to Cusco!

1. Reunion of PROMESA teachers
Last Saturday morning there was a meeting for the teachers at Ron & Regina´s house (EMM missionaries). The meeting included a rompe de hielo (ice breaker), breakfast, worship and gritty details of school stuff. In all it was 4 hours long!! Most of the teachers (besides Ron obviously) are single women in their 20s so I think we will all become good friends. Some of the details of school stuff like classrooms, what subjects and grades we would be teaching and etc were quite overwhelming. My head started to hurt by the end! I think a meeting like that would be overwhelming even if it had been in English instead of Spanish. Whew! I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength!!!

2. San Jeronimo church
On Sunday, I went with my roommate Dawn (who came back to Cusco on Sat night) to the San Jeronimo Mennonite church. There are three different Mennonite churches in the Cusco area and I will most likely visit them all. San Jeronimo is the largest with about 150 in the congregation and is in a section of Cusco with the same name. This is the main church and has the PROMESA school attached to it. The best part was the cows who were hanging out in front of the entrance and the beautiful view of rolling green hills all around! Pastor Ruben preached about becoming like Jacob who was desperate to be blessed by the Lord. A sermon about seeking God´s blessing might be misconstruyed in the states as prosperity gospel but from what I am hearing and learning it seems that the church of Peru needs to shake off a poverty mentality and truly grasp that they are blessed.

3. Super Bowl Party
I´m in South America where futbol is played with a soccer ball but I actually went to a Super Bowl party! The EMM missionary team all met at Dawn and my apartment and we watched the Super Bowl via cable. We had pizza (a bit different from North American pizza), wings and ice cream sundaes! We also had some worship time before the game and played a card game at half-time. The kids did pretty good during the game but I tried to entertain some of the girls with a game of UNO. Yay for the Colts winning the Super Bowl! (I voted for them for the sake of my friend Steve who is from Indianapolis area!)

4. Missionary Worship Night
Another reunion was with all the missionaries from the Cusco area. They get together once a month for worship nights. There were missionaries with Wycliffe, the Presbyterians, Lutherans and other independents. It was a sweet time of worship and getting to know the other missionary families here. I met one missionary couple that has a home for children (they have 28 kids) in a town close to Cusco. There is also a missionary women´s bible study on Tuesdays that I will be joining (until I get too busy with school stuff).

5. Tutoring
My final type of reunion that I´m going to tell you about is my tutoring sessions. Everyday from 3-5pm, I have a Spanish tutoring session with a Señora Magda. She is a great teacher (telling me not to do the things that people do that are grammatically incorrect in Spanish). I´m having lots of fun reviewing, learning new vocab and practicing. Magda has so many exciting stories and she loves to talk! I´ll do this for the month of February and probably just have a couple of days in March.