Walls line the edges of every street here in Arequipa… But what is behind the walls? Sometimes it’s a beautiful courtyard like the one in the photo below, but sometimes it’s the city dump. Other times it’s another passageway to more of the city. The walls hide whatever is behind them… Maybe that is why I love the gates so much… Like looking into the eyes of another … You get a glimpse of what is on the inside. ~Shawn
Driving in South America is awesome. They probably have traffic laws but none of the signs or lines seem to matter at all. It’s really a game of chicken. You pull out in front of people with a small ‘beep beep’ of your horn and they might stop. You keep inching your way forward until someone else is the ‘chicken.’ This is a typical intersection with no light and no sign (not that they would matter too much anyway). Notice that two cars are trying to fit through one hole with two lanes. How there are not more accidents every day is one one part of what makes this place amazing.
We took a few hours this morning to play some fútbol. Not the big version but rather the small one – fútbolito. It’s basically the same thing except the goals are smaller, the field is smaller, and you can’t shoot the ball until you are inside the white line. Making it a lot more about skill. I could feel the elevation just walking up the steps to the field as 7,000 ft is a big change. But for being a gigantic white north american I actually did very well and scored a lot of goals. Earned the respect of the locals for sure. You might also notice Taylor is the goalie which he loved and did a great job. Normally this is played on concrete but we rented the nice field complete with synthetic grass and shade. Great time and I’m only a little sore.
Hot water comes a little different here in South America. It’s actually quite shocking – literally.
Steve wrote a great article for Worship Leader Magazine about musical missions and it was published today in their online newsletter. You can read it here.
This is the private Christain school that the church runs during the school year. They are on summer break right now but we are using the building to teach the musicians every afternoon and evening. Taylor and Michael are doing their school work here too with Jiacin, the pastor’s son. It is a lovely place to spend the day.
