C-mail, its over...

Howdy all,

1. The Lima Trek is over, sad times. Although other treks are still out and you can read about the treks around the world at: http://www.urbana.org/feat.trek.home.cfm. I'm actually back in Boise right now since I got sick, again, and decided the wisest choice was to wimp out, return home, and get better. I'm on the mend, but I don't know how long it will take to get completely better, but its nice to be back regardless. I'll be heading back to SLO and do the California tour thing in hopefully two weeks. If you're in CA and want to be visited, let me know, place, time and such and I'll see what I can do.

2. The trip ended well and tough at the same time, see the story below (being completed as we speak on the blog: http://pressonforjoy.blogspot.com/) if you're up to a grand amount reading. We got the playground done, as well as the community center, and the community of San Martin gave us a great going away time and cooked for us (which was awesome of them, except we had already had a large lunch two hours prior, so some of us had a difficult time cramming down the last quarter pound of rice. I think I have the stomach of a hobbit, so I was only too glad to get a second lunch.) They also regaled us with a number of individual gifts from families, pins, dances, and knit beanies (except with the ear flaps (this style of hat is a Peruvian invention called a chullo (pronounced chew-yo or chew-jo depending on what side of town/South America you grew up in (don't you love parenthesis?)))). We finished the trip with a few days in Lima proper doing some tours of the town and seeing some more cultural things. Highlight of my life: CATACOMBS! Overall, the trip was amazing, good was done, people were loved with Jesus' love, bridges were built between our team and the Peruvian team as well as between some of the long term missionaries and San Martin, and the road is paved for continued partnership between future global urban treks and the Peruvian student ministry.

3. Leaving is tough, but only once you've actually left. First, goodbye to San Martin, then the kids from the area at our World Vision living site, then the Peruvian students, then the Peruvian staff, then the whole American part of the team. I sat in the airport in LAX on Friday realizing that it was the first time I was alone for over a month. Before this trip, I had expected to breakdown into tears looking into the tragic face of poverty or something empathetic of that sort. But no, it was just when I was completely by myself and isolated that I couldn't stop sobbing, which I gotta say, is really embarrassing, so major hats off to all those girls I've known that ever started crying in public, way to be. I think that it just goes to show that my team was/is awesome, all of it, Peru and united states.

4. The next email will be the last. That one will be the lessons learned, and the follow up on the promise of how you can get involved and help poverty across the globe. (And yes, I think I kinda have an idea for you, yes you, and no, I won't ask for money).

5. Again, thank you for all your prayers. My Spanish was more than enough to get by and communicate even to the point of a few deep conversations. I have to give all credit to God and your prayers on my behalf. If you were praying for Jorge (pronounced hor-hay, not sure about spelling) check the story below. Also, thanks so much for writing back, its always awesome to get email and I hope to respond at some point this week.

Alright, that's it for now,
Press on for Joy!
Cameron


Ok, the following is going to be tough to write, so bear with me, I'm going to try to go through the following experiences sequentially. Unfortunately, I think that it will make this super long, so yeah, here it goes. Read in sections if you so wish, or just skip to the end for the lesson, but you'll miss a lot.

1st Encounter.

It must have the been after out first night of sleep in San Antonio at the World Vision building. After being rudely awakened at 6:00 am by the seismic horn of the water truck making its rounds, it was difficult to get back to sleep. Breakfast was at 8 so I stayed in the sleeping bag till about 8. I dressed, got up, and moseyed outside. The building had a concrete walkway with a wall at about perfect sitting height running about half the length of the building. Our team had just founded this spot as the hang out zone before breakfast. I don't really know how to introduce what I next noticed as I stepped outside, so here goes. CRAZY GUY. There was a crazy guy out in the dirt street, right outside our concrete deck. Every so often he would yell out in a loud but dulled voice. I couldn't understand it, and even if my spanish was perfect, I don't know how much I would have understood. He squat down on thin legs revealed by tattered shorts and terminating in stained flip flops. He covered himself in a greasy black jacket. His hair was curly and looked liked it had been heavily gelled, but it had probably never been washed. He held a plastic bottle with the bottom quarter full of a black liquid. He never drank it, but held it close. He would move from squatting to jumping to convulsing to squatting again. I figured the people on the deck knew something I didn't, so I waited for something else to happen.

Now, I'm just a clueless about how to handle "crazy" people as the next person, and so often that leads to inaction. And awkwardness. And that what was our teams response, we chatted, thrown off guard by every incoherent scream, and kept going. I was kinda disappointed. We were here to help the poor, right? Just because someone is crazy doesn't mean they are outside God's love, right? Isn't God big enough to handle this guy even when we're not? I kept looking over at him and was so broken for him. I guess was frustrated me most was that we had no way to act. Nor even a way to try. So, I just started praying. Now, what I should have done would have been to say to everyone out there, "Hey, this is awkward, there's a crazy guy right here, what should we do?". But I didn't, and I'm sorry I didn't. Big lesson learned: step up if something is awkward and needs to be dealt with, no matter the situation or group, don't wait for someone else to do it.

After breakfast, the team left to go to their work sites. The construction team I was part of (we soon renamed ourselves the team of destruction) stayed behind to finish building some showers on the deck. I was on the roof of the building and saw the crazy guy in the street and someone from the town grappling with him. The crazy guy wasn't doing to well. It looked like a small bag of candy was the object of contention and the "normal" man wrestled it out of his hand after a half minute. The normal man proceeded to walk away, pick up a rock and chuck it at the crazy guy. It missed, but the crazy guy laughed evilly and squat down. Next time I had a chance to look, he was gone.


2nd Encounter.

It was later that night when I thought about that guy again. It was during worship. I can't remember what made me think of him, one of the songs or something, but I just thought about that guy and how I had failed to do something, anything for him. I kept thinking how we had come to help out the least of these, and this guy definitely was it. After worship, we were given some time of silence. I went outside and sat down a few yards from the building. A few others filtered out as well. I can't remember what all I was thinking, but after about 15 mins, here he came. He sporadically made his way up the street in the yellow lamp light. I ended up locking eyes with him as he jaggedly sauntered over to me. "Que te quieres?" I asked. (I wanted to say "Que tu quieres" which means "what do you want", but I think what I said might mean "what do you want of yourself" , which might have been a better question anyways). He laughed uncomfortably loud, and sounded out some word I didn't know. He stood there looking at me, eyes so acute, yet so dead. He was only two feet away. He loudly spoke another drawn out word. He starred for another second then pulled together the corners of his mouth and spit at me. I was leaning forward a bit and jerked back well after the fact his spittle hit the ground between my feet. I don't think I had ever been spit at before, except for possibly sometime in my dark childhood days, but I'd prefer not to think about that. Needless to say, I was thrown off and a bit frozen. I just kept staring at him, searching his eyes. Why was he like this? Who is this guy? He spit again, again I pulled back, but it wasn't necessary. He laughed dementedly. What can I do? How do I show this guy that Jesus loves him and is his only hope? This must have gone on twice more. I can't remember if I said anything else to him or just tried to give the most compassionate smile I could muster. Finally, the confrontation was broken when one of the Peruvian staff came over.
"Let's go" he kindly asked.
"What's he saying?"
"He's saying bad words, only bad words. So let's go"
"k"
I stood up, at which point the crazy guy made a dash straight past my left. I had completely forgotten that one of the directors of our team was sitting a few feet behind me. She had gotten ready to run while the other staff came up, but the crazy guy was going to try to her reach anyways. I came to realize this once I had turned around and saw the whole thing play out. I called out to the guy to stop, he didn't. He couldn't catch her anyways. At this point the security guard began to chase the guy away.

The girl who was chased was shaken up and rightfully so, but was ok. I was in the same state. I stayed out on the deck a bit longer watching the guard chase and scare the guy away. At some point the guy ran off to a nearby house with a pig pen and the pigs went nuts with their unsettling squeals. I went to bed at this point. I was still pretty shocked and just lay there. I pretty much resolved to always pray for him, everyday I was there, and rest in the fact that God can and will restore him. I know God cares for those on the outside, the outcasts, and I was asking for God to heal, love and restore this one. I didn't know what else to do, and it seemed that any type of action other than distant prayer might endanger the team or myself (which would endanger the team if anything happened and my parents found out). At some point, staring at the ceiling, praying, asking questions, resolving and replaying the encounter over and over to try to deaden the impact, I fell asleep.


That's all I'm going to write here for now. I'll be working to complete the story on the blog, so check there for updates. Sorry to go to be continued, but I figure I'd get this out as soon as I could. Thanks for reading this far. There's a good lesson at the end that I thought was worth it, but that's how it happened in my life, and I think my life is worth it.

Alright, much love to you all,
Press on for Joy!