Hasta los Confines de la Tierra: Week Four

It's been another week of adventures here in the anise capital of the world. We've gotten to do several kids' clubs in nearby farming villages, which has been really sweet. This past Saturday, Natali and I joined all six of the Caires and two Germans on an all-day horseback ride, starting at 6AM. It truly was an adventure: 3.5 hours each way, steep rocky trails with an abundance of thorny trees, some of us (myself included) riding horses without stirrups. Our destination was a beautiful, remote lake at the top of the mountain. Despite our many layers of clothing, no one was prepared for the lake's frigid winds, and we all found it a bit harder to fully appreciate our surroundings due to the utter numbness of our extremities. After about half an hour of eating and shivering, we decided to head back down--to the great surprise of our Quechua guides, who were undoubtedly expecting to spend several hours leading us in a mountain exploration. I think they were even more confounded when over half of us opted to walk the majority of the way down the mountain in order to avoid even more saddle sores. (I can just hear them telling their village about us that night: "You should have seen this wimpy group of gringos we had to haul around today…. Unbelievable!") We all had to sit rather gingerly for the next day or two, but overall, it was such a fun and unique experience. That night, we had a little 4th of July party for the few Americans here, complete with a backyard campfire and Peter's homemade rockets. On Sunday afternoon, two of the other U.S. interns came with Natali and me on a hike up to Capitan Rumi, which is close to the Mirador. We also had fun with them last night having an intense ping-pong and foosball tournament. Yesterday morning, Natali and I went to the hospital with Allison at 5:30AM to help with her weekly bread-baking, and since the bread-forming machine was out of commission, we formed 750 rolls by hand--but great conversation with good friends made the time pass quickly. A few days ago, I got to shadow Will, and one of his patients was an 8-year-old boy with severe developmental delays. He was pretty much uncontrollable throughout the consultation, running around the room and screaming. His family was explaining that they don't have the financial means to put him into any kind of quality therapy program, which he desperately needs. That little 10-minute window into their lives kind of rocked my world, and the Lord has really continued to put him and his family on my heart. Raising a disabled child in a first-world country is hard enough; I couldn't imagine raising that boy in such seemingly insurmountable circumstances. Still, I can rest in the fact that that boy is God's child. Please join me in praying that the Lord would work a miracle in this boy's life, and in the lives of so many suffering people in this region.