We travelled in four motocars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldZvghfiKQY) to an Amazonian crafts market with beaded jewelry, dried piranhas, toy blow guns, and a little monkey running around.
Then we were off to the famous Yellow Rose of Texas, a restaurant with American and Peruvian food, owned and managed by a real Texan that spent time in Peru with the US military and never left. I chowed on alligator nuggets with yucca fries.
While our food settled, we travelled to a busy market area with countless grills serving up fish, fruit, chicken, and banana leaf wrapped goodies. We all got into a long canoe with a blue plastic tarp as a canopy and a long hand powered motor to get us around.
While our food settled, we travelled to a busy market area with countless grills serving up fish, fruit, chicken, and banana leaf wrapped goodies. We all got into a long canoe with a blue plastic tarp as a canopy and a long hand powered motor to get us around.
We moved from the wide Nanay river to the golden watered Momon river to an island zoo with monkeys rampant and a roaming anteater. The monkeys made friends with us quickly, climbing on our shoulders and heads. We saw and held anacondas, sloths, prehistoric turtles, and small gators. Juanita was the monkeys' favorite. 
Back on shore, Carlos convinced us to eat grilled suri, a beetle grub found in decaying palm trees. I made the mistake of eating the head, a hard and crunchy part that you are supposed to discard, but it was otherwise rich and fatty with a slightly tougher skin, flavored with wood smoke. Not bad if you can keep your mind off what you're eating. We then had grilled nuts that tasted like roasted peanuts but were crunchier and more crisp. The abundance of the Amazon jungle is incredible.
Back at base, we showered and ate a supper of burgers with tomato slices and lettuce, trusting they were safe. We dressed in the best we had, old khakis and a blue oxford in my case, to head to Iglesia Belen, our partner church. We road motocars through less inhabited streets to a neighborhood with fewer streetlights, smaller houses, and plainly dressed people with years of hard life seen in the lines on their faces. Carrying our speakers and bags of props for dramas, we drew a few double-takes as we passed carts selling raw and cooked meats, peeled fruits, spices and sauces. I went into olfactory overload from piles of rotten produce and trash, fresh grated garlic and cumin, human and animal waste, wood smoke, and sweat. Two blocks down the road was the church, bright with yellow walls and filled with about 75 people young and old singing praises to God in the hot and stuffy air. I sat under what I realized later was the only working ceiling fan of about seven.
They finished two more songs, then introduced PR and our group. We did "Tu has," Tim Fermin gave his testimony, and we did "Doors," our primary drama gospel presentation. PR gave a sermon tying in Jeremiah 32:27 (I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is there anything too hard for me?), as written in Spanish on a banner over the pulpit, then called anyone that wanted to step up into church leadership to come forward, as well as anyone else that needed prayer. We layed hands on people and prayed passionately, and frequently they started weeping, sometimes shaking. This was an incredible reassurance of our usefulness and unity with the Spirit.
Back at base, we showered and ate a supper of burgers with tomato slices and lettuce, trusting they were safe. We dressed in the best we had, old khakis and a blue oxford in my case, to head to Iglesia Belen, our partner church. We road motocars through less inhabited streets to a neighborhood with fewer streetlights, smaller houses, and plainly dressed people with years of hard life seen in the lines on their faces. Carrying our speakers and bags of props for dramas, we drew a few double-takes as we passed carts selling raw and cooked meats, peeled fruits, spices and sauces. I went into olfactory overload from piles of rotten produce and trash, fresh grated garlic and cumin, human and animal waste, wood smoke, and sweat. Two blocks down the road was the church, bright with yellow walls and filled with about 75 people young and old singing praises to God in the hot and stuffy air. I sat under what I realized later was the only working ceiling fan of about seven.
They finished two more songs, then introduced PR and our group. We did "Tu has," Tim Fermin gave his testimony, and we did "Doors," our primary drama gospel presentation. PR gave a sermon tying in Jeremiah 32:27 (I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is there anything too hard for me?), as written in Spanish on a banner over the pulpit, then called anyone that wanted to step up into church leadership to come forward, as well as anyone else that needed prayer. We layed hands on people and prayed passionately, and frequently they started weeping, sometimes shaking. This was an incredible reassurance of our usefulness and unity with the Spirit.
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