Carmen with a group of their kids in Enace. Callie couldn't be there since she is at home with her family but all the kids asked for her and she sure was missed!
Here in Peru they also celebrate Christmas at midnight on Christmas Eve. They eat a huge dinner at midnight, open presents, let off fire works and go out into the streets to wish friends and neighbors a Feliz Navidad. We were planning on celebrating Peruvian style but because Daniel and Andrew wouldn't be home until Christmas morning we decided to wait for them. We did go to the Christmas Eve service where we watched an adorable Christmas play. Then we stayed up to midnight playing games and drinking hot chocolate. At midnight we watched all the fireworks from our balcony. The next morning we all slept in---well, I didn't. I really wanted to have Boppa's famous cinnamon rolls for breakfast so I woke up early to make them--totally worth they lack of sleep:) We make stockings for our team and opened them up when the boys got home. We had a lazy, relaxing Christmas and had a big turkey dinner (with paneton & hot chocolate). It was hard for all of us to be away from family for Christmas but I felt blessed to be able to celebrate with our new family here! 
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The next morning we left for Nauta, 2 hours by bus where we were greeted and introduced during a ceremony and then we were boated across the river to ¨Fisherman´s Island¨ where we arrived and began gathering our 8 balsa poles. After a few hickups by the organization finally began constructing our raft about 2 hours later. We really had no idea how to go about constructing a raft that would last us 3 days and over 21 hours on the river but what the heck we went for it. It began getting dark around the point we started fastening the middle and back braces and then a fantastic lightning storm started and then the ¨rainforest¨ worthy downpoor quickly followed. We were about the only team that continued on our construction throughout the rain but we were in a groove. After we finished and were drenched to the bone we headed into our shanty tent where there were already 4 other competitors laying out. So if you can picture a tent with muddy sand trounced throughout our sleeping area, the rain dripping through the tarplike ceiling and no space to lay down because the other team took up most of the room. Oh yeah and then add the fact that the mosquitos were horrible and then to add insult to misery, one of the other team members says, (in english) let´s sleep sitting up. Yeah, great idea genius with the whole mat to himself. So Andrew and I ended up sleeping literally shoulder to shoulder on the wet sand floor trying to avoid the drips. Sufficed to say I slept probably less than an hour.
The following day we woke up around 5am and began preparing our raft for the journey and at our danty breakfast of one slice of bologne and cheese. So we put it on the water and it passed the float test, but would it pass the whole trip test, we had yet to know. At 8am sharp every group put in and the bell sounded and we jetted off, ramming about two teams trying to get started which put us in dead last place. It took my body at least about 30 minutes to work out the kinks and then hit my stride, but it was great to pass a ton of teams to start out and then finish Day 1 passing another 5 more teams close to the finish line. However, we finished about 30 seconds behind the ¨Mormons¨ or so we thought. We ended up gunning for them the whole 3 days and then on the last day we figured out the weren´t mormons at all. But anyway, it was a good goal to shoot four. Day 2 we just cruzed and beat the ¨the mormons¨ and at one point there was no team in sight behind us and one team in front of us. We got another danty portion of supper and breakfast in a small pueblo and then headed out again for Iquitos which was going to be another 8 or 9 hour day on the river. We paddeled and made really one mistake in reading the current of the river that cost us some time but we were quite pooped at this point. Daniel´s shoulder ¨wasn´t responding¨as he said and Ramon was as dark as a raisin. The final 200 meters was upriver and really killed us, it probably took us 25 minutes to move that small distance. Anyways, it was a blast, I hope to do it again in the distant future and there is much more to write and explain which I do not have time. It was great fun and a great time of bonding for Andrew, Daniel and myself. Thank you all for your prayers, we felt safe the entire time even though we were inches off the water the whole time. One of the Peruvian competitor told me he had seen a Boa during one of the smaller windier sections and was mortified. But we only saw Dolphins and lots of jumping fish. That´s it in a nutshell even though there is much more to say, I´ve included a website here to read a short article (in english) from one of the journalist spectators. 
We arrived at Famento at 9:20ish and walked with our gear another 20 minutes to the town, where we settled down at the church to put up our bug nets and beds and then headed to pastors Nehemiah’s house for dinner. We all got fish and I do mean fish, the whole thing, and some even got one or two on our plate. The fish had about as many bones as my Spanish dictionary has new words. Imagine swallowing one of those pins from a new collared shirt from Nordstrom and have it stay in your throat for 2 hours. Anyways, this is a normal meal which we were soon to find out, and we knew to always eat and accept what is given to us. The girls had a harder time, but it was very delicious, even the one with the huge teeth. 
So we woke up the next day, had fish for breakfast and got ready to help the local pastor with his evening service and invite another local village to the service. So we headed to San Juan which was a cool 20 minute walk. It looked to be a slightly larger village than Famento and bumped up to a beautiful oxbow lake. As we split up to invite the community, we began noticing a somber and concerned mood amongst the villagers. The first house we arrived at explained that a local man went missing the previous afternoon on the lake. Each house we went to invite was concerned but not with empathy. It’s difficult to describe but it was as if they had been through this so many times before, they just didn’t display their sadness visibly. It’s as if this sort of thing happens more often than it should, with health issues, dangerous jungle animals and hospital visits out of the picture. We gathered around and followed the local pastors lead in prayer for the family of the missing man. Whether there was a relationship with the pastor and this family or town I could not tell, but my prayer was for open doors for the pastor in that village and peace for the wife. There was a man who went in search of the man the previous day and kept saying that it was likely the large Boa living in the lake. As we returned to Famento, I just thought about how surreal it seemed to me that this happened during the little window of time that we were there.
Our hike lasted an hour and we came to another village with a man who had a sugar cane slash alcohol making operation which he showed us. We were excited when he said he was willing to take us 2 hours up river in his boat to our destination. Beautiful jungle river, like out of National Geographic and then finally and hour by bus and we were back. It was memorable and great for our group to spend this unique experience together and help with what we could. Had our group not been there it’s likely that Pastor Nehemiah would not have visited San Juan and met the community at their point of need. Thanks for reading and sticking with our blog, your support and prayers are so appreciated.
