Rat 2. Mindy/Amber 0.

My upstairs neighbor and teammates hates spider.  I hate rats.  So we made a deal when I moved in that I would take care of the spiders in her apartment, if she'd take care of the rats in mine.  I'd never had a rat in my apartment.....until tonight.

I was sitting peacefully minding my own business working on email and watching TV when Ricky the Rat (as my father has affectionately named it) ran across my floor.  I jumped up on the couch and screamed, just like they do in the movies, and yelled for Amber.  I thought Ricky ran out the front door instead of in my bedroom, but I wasn't 100% sure.  Amber checked my bedroom and bathroom like a champ and couldn't find Ricky.  All seemed safe.

Maybe 45 minutes later, Ricky ran back in my kitchen and hid under my stove.  I'm sure he was after the popcorn that I made the other night that fell behind the stove and I had been too lazy to clean it up.  Amber came down to my rescue again and chased Ricky behind the refrigerator.  She tried and tried to get him to come out, but it's like he magically disappeared.  We have no idea where he went.

So hours later, here I sit on the couch hoping he would show his little face so we (or Amber) could chase him away.  What would I do without my awesome neighbor?

Maybe tomorrow the score will change.  Something like Rat=Dead.  Amber=Victorious.

Thankful Thursday

I had an idea yesterday as I was blogging about how much I wanted to blog this year.  Each week that I'm home on Thursday and not off somewhere in the mountains or jungle, I'm going to post about something that I'm thankful for.  The Lord is always showing me new things and hopefully it will be encouraging too.

For today...
I'm thankful for the friendships that the Lord has given me in Peru, with teammates, volunteers, hotel clerks, translators, and vendors at the artisans market.  These are the people that I looked forward to seeing when I returned two weeks ago and a huge part of the blessing of living in Peru.

Happy New Year!

Happy (belated) New Year!  

I realize that I've been absent from the blogworld for a couple of months, but I decided to take a hiatus while I was in the US.  Now that I have returned to Peru after a glorious 2 months with family and friends, it's time to kick it back into high gear.

Every January I like to set new goals for the year.  Some financial, some spiritual and other lifestyle related.  This year I added a new category...the blog.  You all can help keep me accountable to this, but my goal for the year is to post 5-7 times a month.  For some, that doesn't seem like very much, but for me, it's a challenge!  We'll see how it goes!

Happy Heart

Just a quick thought before I head off to bed.  I love my students!

One of the summer teams had a skype conference call tonight and they all called and surprised me.  It was so wonderful to hear their voices, catch up on life, and hear about how they still miss Peru.  It's fun to know that they still keep in touch with each other and that their friendships didn't end when they went home.

Goodness, it blessed me tonight to talk with them.

Fifteen

Those who know me best know that I had a bad habit of counting down the days for events that I'm excited about.  Instead of counting down the days (15) until I set foot back on US soil, I thought it would be fun to think of 15 things I'm excited about in the States.

In no particular order (except the first one)

• Lots of quality time and laughter with family and friends
• Ethnic food (Korean, Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Mediterranean, Indonesian, etc.)  Can you tell I grew up overseas?
• Free refills 
• Sunshine, especially if it requires me to wear sunglasses
• Fall leaves changing colors
• The wide open blue Texas sky
• Christmas in Virginia.  I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.....
• Shopping and sales
• Worship at Grace Community
• A good haircut with no crazy Peruvian layers and no super short bangs.
• Diet Dr. Pepper
• Driving an automatic where people actually stay in their lane.  I apologize now if I over use my horn, it's the Peruvian way of communicating on the road.  
• The freedom from a Spanish language barrier, especially at the doctor and dentist!
• Mobilizing students for missions
• Sleeping in my bed

What would be on your list of "Things to Look Forward to When Going Home?"

Wong: Donde comprar es un placer

Translated: Wong: Where shopping is a pleasure.  I've lived in Lima for almost 2 years and know that grocery shopping at Wong is typically a pleasure.  Yesterday Amber and I went grocery shopping for one of our SC churches.  They will be a team of about 15 going to the jungle for a week where there are no stores.  We had so much food and water to buy that we filled 3 grocery carts!  The beauty of doing this kind of shopping at Wong is that we are waited on hand and foot!  At one point, we had 6 people helping us check out and all we had to do was stand there.  Three guys unloaded our carts, one lady rang it up and two more guys bagged everything.  We paid, and then three guys pushed our groceries to the truck, got inside the camper of the truck and loaded everything for us.  That is some customer service!

I didn't have my camera handy at the store, but this is what it looks like loaded up and ready to send out with the team:

Food boxes loaded and heavy!

About half the water that was purchased.

Karis Anne

For the last couple of days, I took cake of this cutie, my "niece" Karis.  I love, love, love this little girl.  Her parents are my best friends from Richmond, and now we serve on the same team together.  Isn't the Lord cool?  With the arrival of their second daughter, I got to hang with Karis.  Our week was full of repeating her favorite words: shoe, sock, eat and hey.  We visited mom, dad and Adalyn in the hospital each day and she took such good naps for me!  It was a fun and eye-opening couple of days for me.  She has had me wrapped around her little finger since the first time I held her.  I see a lot of spoiling in Karis and Adalyn's future from Aunt Mindy!  How can I resist these two?

Also this week, Amber and I are taking care of our boss' kids.  They are 11 and 14, so it's a little different than with Karis!  They can bathe, dress and feed themselves, no diapers to change, they speak in full sentences, etc.  They are great kids and we're having a lot of fun with them too.  Since Friday was a Peruvian holiday, they were out of school so it's been a nice long weekend.  Sorry I don't have any pictures of them to share!

In other news, I leave three weeks from tomorrow for my stateside time!  As I talked with my grandparents and aunt tonight, I got so excited.  I was already looking forward to it, but somehow it seemed all the more real.  On Halloween night, I will be standing in Richmond once again.  I'm looking forward to being able to spend quality time with people catching up on life.  Some of my time will be spent on the road traveling seeing friends and family, and the rest will be in Richmond.  I know I won't be able to see everyone I want too, but funds and time are limited.  Regardless, it's going to be a wonderful two months stateside and I can't wait to catch up with many of you in person!