Us with an American flag at the beach volleyball court

Whew! It’s been a while since we last talked, but for once, it’s not because I’m just super far behind on updating you. This time, the delay is because of a much-needed vacation! I’m actually in the States at the moment, and I have been for a couple of weeks now. I’m headed back to Peru soon, but it’s been a very refreshing time catching up with friends and family.

The last two weeks in Peru before I left were fun and busy. During the first week, we had another mission team visiting, this time from Kansas City, Missouri. Like I said in my last post, this was an extra exciting team week for me because the team included a couple of electricians!! I spent the two weeks before the team came trying to get everything ready for their service projects, and the electrical projects added some extra complexity into the usual planning. It was cool, though, knowing that I was going to get to watch everything come together. I guess it’s kind of the same with the building project, but that seems like a much more overwhelming situation whereas the team projects feel manageable.

Brown brown brown neighborhood
The neighboring neighborhood (hehe) where a bunch of our families live. You can see some of the team members climbing up the hill!

The demographics of this team were also a little different than what is typical. Often, there are a few team members in their teens, maybe one person in their 30s, and everyone else is 40s and up. This team had the whole range of ages represented, but there were more 30-somethings than the usual. It felt a bit like hanging out with my friends from home which was a lot of fun.

The team with our neighborhood in the background
The team!
The team's boat heading out to sea
Headed out on the boat ride! I haven’t been joining the teams for the boat ride recently because last time I went, the water was really rough and I mostly spent the ride with my eyes closed trying not to puke. Not my favorite feeling.

On top of all that, Betsi’s (a 3-week intern) mom came with the team, and Betsi filled her in on how much we like brownies (we’re basically in a constant state of desperate for anything that feels like home). She brought 5 BOXES of brownies with her. Talk about an MVP. They made three of them during the week and left two for us! I know that this probably doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but just trust me. There’s nothing better than having our weekly Sunday movie night with a warm brownie on the side.

Selfie with Dina and Betsi
Me with my friends Dina (she’s a translator at EA) and Betsi

In general, it was a great week. The brownies didn’t hurt. Also though, it was fun working with everyone, they got an amazing amount of work done, and the results of their hard work were super visible. For example, the property has felt very dark since the construction started because they took out some of the exterior lights, and there weren’t very many to begin with. The electricians installed a bunch of new lights outside, so the night after they put them up was the first in a long time where I was confident that I wasn’t going to unexpectedly walk into/trip over anything while walking around the property. Imagine that!

Electricians at work
The electricians installing some switches for the irrigation pumps we have underground
Disassembling the temporary roof on the bathroom
There’s been a “temporary” roof over the bathroom building for the last 5 years, but it needed to be removed because part of the new building is going on top!! The team helped to disassemble it. This new building is getting VERY real!
The bathroom without its roof
No more roof! And within an hour, the construction team was already storing materials up there… probably not the best idea structurally to have stacks of bricks on a roof not designed to hold them… but no one else seemed to think it was a problem sooo here we are.
Parade in Chilca for Peruvian Independence Day!
Colorful Barranco buildings
Lima sightseeing with the team!
Friends!
Jocelyn, me, Betsi, and Julie in Lima

I was the most excited about the lights along the sidewalk. They’re the first lights that I’ve picked out that I haven’t just felt neutral about. Usually, I’m picking things that are simply functional. These are functional, AND I think they look cool. They turned out exactly how I hoped, and the fact that we found lights that were actually what I was looking for is a miracle in itself.

Linear lighting underneath the walkway roof shade
The new walkway lights!! Aren’t they cool? (Feel free to keep your opinion to yourself if you don’t like them.)
Pump house with a new over-door light fixture
This is also the best thing… The front of this building used to be completely dark, so good luck trying to find the keyhole to unlock the door. But now there’s a light right above the door! And it’s also overgrown with the passion fruit vines, but that doesn’t matter for lighting the keyhole.

I’m going to totally overuse the word “exciting” in this post, but I’ve accepted it and you should too. Do you know what else was exciting? The construction! GUESS WHAT? We have our first ceiling!! It’s crazy because now I feel like I can really begin to imagine what the new building is going to look like. It’s the ceiling for the first floor on module 1, and that’s the side of the building that’s adjacent to the existing 2-story building. There’s a railing between them still, but you can climb over it and move from construction site to existing building. It’s awesome.

In the process of preparing to pour the floor/ceiling, they put in the electrical conduit (the tubes they’ll run the wires through) for the lights on the first floor and the outlets on the second floor. I had to dimension my drawings… talk about stressful! I had to make the exact final decisions about where things should go, and now there’s no changing my mind because it’s literally set in concrete.

Getting the ceiling ready for concrete
Almost ready to pour concrete! The big brick area is over/under classrooms. The corridor is the bricks to the left. The stairs are the bottom right where there is SO MUCH steel
Formwork in place for the stairs
Future stairs!
Electrical conduit zig-zagging the future ceiling/floor
This mess is all of my electrical conduits. Not quite the same way it would look in the States… Debbie and I went and checked to make sure that everything was in the right place before it was time to pour the concrete.
Ceiling with tubes in place
It looks like someone threw a handful of giant spaghetti at the roof and then decided to use that as a guide for the tube placement.
Pouring the ceiling
Pouring the ceiling!!!! We had two concrete trucks bring the material, and it was crazy how quickly it went compared to when they’re hand-mixing it
A dude with a board texturizing the top of the concrete
I was totally fascinated by the whole process. This guy came by after they made sure there were no air pockets in the pour and finished it off
Wet concrete on the stairs
Stairs!
Almost finished pouring the concrete
Just a little bit more…
Module 1 second floor!
The next day… voila! New floor!
Debbie using a hose to water the concrete floor
Debbie watering our new concrete floor to help it cure
Module 1 second floor with the beginnings of a wall and some columns
Wasting no time after putting in the floor… it took one second before they were working on the walls and columns for the second floor!
Two brick walls on the second floor
I love how quickly the walls go up
Finishing the second brick wall
Almost there!
Back view of Module 1 and the bathroom building
It’s starting to look like an actual building!

Since I left for vacation, they’ve been working on the ceiling on the second floor. Eek! It feels like they spent forever getting set up for the first ceiling, and I wasn’t prepared for Debbie to send me a picture of them already working on the next one. I feel like I’m missing too much! But I can’t be in two places at once, and this really has been a nice break. So, who even knows what it’ll look like when I get back? We’ll be surprised together.

Oh! I almost forgot. One more exciting thing! Every four years, in the year before the summer Olympics, the Pan-American Games are held. It’s like a mini-Olympics just for countries in the Americas. This year, Peru was the host country! Julie, Debbie, Jocelyn, and I bought tickets to watch beach volleyball. I don’t think any of us were expecting much, but it was a ton of fun. We cheered on a bunch of random countries until the last match where we got to see the U.S. women beat Paraguay in the quarterfinals (they ended up winning the gold). It was cool getting to see an international competition live. Now I feel like I need to go to an Olympics someday!

Us with a Lima 2019 sign... and the "9" is cut off
We asked someone to take our picture… and this is what happened. LIMA 201!! Hahaha
Selfie with the sign
We decided we’d better just do it ourselves
El Salvador vs. Guatemala men's match
There were two courts: the “A” court with the big games, and this one, the “B” court with the losers’ bracket games. We went here first and had fun being 4 of maybe 7 people in the stands. We picked whichever country to cheer for and then screamed our heads off.
Selfie at the main volleyball court
At the main court
USA vs. Paraguay beach volleyball game
We moved closer before the USA match, and we ended up with awesome seats!
Us with an American flag at the beach volleyball court
Julie, me, Jocelyn, and Debbie with Karissa Cook of Team USA! We only saw one other group of U.S. fans, and we asked them after the game if we could take a picture with their flag. Pretty sure they were Karissa’s family because they called her over to be in the picture too (and she listened to them haha).

2 thoughts on “Another Team Week… and a CEILING!

  1. Thanks Lara, this was really a fun article ! I loved the lights and the fact you got to go the Volleyball Matches.
    Also, it is great you got to spend time with family.

    Do you have the chance to minister and share the gospel much there ? May the Lord keep you strong and faithful.

    In Christ,
    Suzanne

    • Thanks, Suzanne! Glad you like the lights 😀 hehe.
      Personally, my job here doesn’t include much evangelizing. The language barrier is a big one standing in the way! However the ministry as a whole is definitely working to share the gospel with the kids and families who participate in the programs, and much of that is led by the national staff. It’s great for the kids to hear about Jesus from people they can identify with! I’m just happy to support the work here in the ways that I can (and slowly improve my Spanish, one baby step at a time).
      Lara

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