Louisa... Teaching?

I never thought my name and that word would ever combine. The thought of being a teacher never appealed to me. I always wrote it off and thought maybe there is something else, something more exciting. Although in

Peru I became amazed!

First I will start with the background story though. During the past school year I realized many times that I had to step up and help some of my classmates. I dismissed the idea that I was actually helping them pass because I didn't think of it like that. I thought, "Since I can figure this out and our teacher can't seem to teach it to them I will just help them." Never did it settle in my brain that I was actually TEACHING them what they needed to know to pass the class. I was just trying to be friendly and kind, it's not fun to see people you have gotten close to fail. One day well I was sitting in Sunday School we did the highs and lows of the week and of course my low was that I was trying to pass and helping 5 others attempt to pass in this certain class.  One of the adults helping out looked and me and told me that maybe it wasn't a burden and that maybe it was something I needed to look into. Maybe God was trying to tell me something!

Wait, hold up. Me, Louisa Jastram a teacher, ya right. It gave me the creeps so I dismissed it but still hid it in the back of my mind where it would creep up from time to time.

It began creeping in Peru. This became a good creep though. I partially, kinda, not really accepted it. Still, in Peru we taught an English class almost everyday we were at the tree house. Our first class was very music based and became so much fun!! We sang a few songs for them and then taught them How He Loves in English. It was pretty powerful night and on the way back from Sappy Sappy( the pond) me and my sleeping buddy were walking with this man and we began to sing Here I Am To Worship off his phone. It was so very powerful!

Another night a part of my team went out to teach. I got there and automatically realized a difference in how the night was going to be based. Right away I got teamed up with a girl. I was really confused one what we were suppose to do. Then our translator looks at me and says they want to learn verbs. From then out the night became outstanding! My favorite part of Spanish I and II were verbs. Why? Who knows! It just was! Now I got to sit here in Peru at a beautiful pond at sunset and teach this outstanding girl verbs! It was such an eye opening experience, for the first time I really got to bond with a person who speaks a completely different language in a different country! After the verbs, we spoke sentences! I am honestly doing this night NO justice! I remember going back afterward to the tree house just bursting with excitement! That night was life changing! I didn't think that then but I do now. Gods plan for me may or may not be related to this but He shook me up alright. (I realize there is an excess of explanation points, I was trying to get my point across. Since it may not have worked that well you will have to ask me for the story in person!)

All of the other English classes were fantastic as well! The last night was pretty moving knowing it was possibly the last time we will ever see them. 

Unfortunately the wonderful girl I taught was not in this picture on the last night. But she has changed me. I am now going to start my Spanish III class tomorrow for my Junior year! :)

Discovering the Tree House

That tree house... It brought out so much. It turned those deep dark places and exposed light. The seeds hidden were able to feed off that light and shoot out roots that are now growing, growing from the light of God and feeding off the water that I am dipping my toes into. They went from horrid to part of my story, my testimony. Beautiful.

The tree house became our home. That first day we all got there after a pray circle and a group photo, the work began. For the first time in my life I experienced "making camp". The rope was strung from above and we began tying mosquito nets to it how ever we could. Some of the Peru Cru members and I almost did some serious falling off of shoulders to get that accomplished but it came to be. (My mosquito net buddy and I never really understood our mosquito net until the second to last night we had to sleep in it. We cuddled every night for a good 3 weeks.)

The first day already we experienced the kids. Their faces and smiles and hearts were incredible!!! I have never been normal acting around kids, they just make me nervous and I become extremely awkward. So I attempted to get into it with playing some fútbol and pato pato gonzo. Then of course dehydration set in and I got a major migraine, which was alright I needed some down time!

That next day God began to shake me again.

"Rise up oh you sleeper awake, the light of the dawn is upon you. Rise up oh you sleeper awake, He makes all things new, all things new."

I was beginning to be new.

Travel Purgatory

Imagine a bus packed with enough people to make it 3 to a seat and all there luggage and you have to sit on it for 2 hours! Sounds awful doesn't it? Well when you add in that it is 2 in the morning and you are on your way with your team to the airport to leave for Peru it automatically becomes amazing! Because when you have a person sleeping across your lap and are squished in between a person you met 4 days before and another person you have never met you don't have enough room to even think of complaining. 

The morning of July 4th was the CRAZIEST forth of July I have ever experienced. By 9 a.m. the Peru Cru and I were sitting in the Fort Lauderdale airport ready to start an 8 hour layover! The time flew by so fast I can't even remember how we spent the hours. At around 5 we boarded the plane to Lima and were now in "Travel Purgatory" as one of my team mates called it.

My first plane ride out of the country was an interesting one. I never realized what it was really like to not understand most conversations around you until that. Although the 6 hours spent on that plane opened up a lot of things. I look back in my journal and realize I was stoked about what was to come! Things had changed and I had realized that. But only in the aspect of that I possibly could be related to a bit, and only a bit. Let's just say that wasn't even close to half of it!

As we arrived in Lima I almost couldn't control myself I was a nervous wreck being told to go here and not there and say this and not that. But I made it through and soon was in the corner of the Lima airport camping out with the Peru Cru waiting for our 6 a.m. flight. I had been up for about 23 hours and had eaten a McPollo which was very stressful to order. Slowly I drifted off to sleep on the cold airport floor. 

3 hours later I wake up to talking and the first thing that registers in my brain is that they are talking about brushing their teeth. At that, I jump up or what felt like jumping up and went and experienced using dry shampoo and attempting to feel clean when you are completely gross! 

Skipping past some crabbiness, sickness, sleep deprivation and a flight delay...

On the flight to Iquitos I could hardly handle it! The sky and ground, everything was SO BEAUTIFUL!! It was the most amazing sight I had ever seen! Before I knew it we had touched down in Iquitos. After meeting some very important people we headed off to where we would be staying. It took about 2 hours but when we arrived I couldn't believe it. I was seriously in Peru and as I jumped over a puddle with my suitcase and saw "The Treehouse" we would be staying in. I got teary eyed and extremely scared... (Not anything an amazing pray circle couldn't fix though!)

Boken and Messy?

Where to begin? How about the very beginning.

I went to Peru. On June 30th I left Sioux Falls for the first time on an airplane. I made my way over to Chicago and then down the Georgia. There in the airport I met up with 4 of my teammates and 1 of my leaders. With a packed bus and growing anticipation we headed off to Gainsville for 3 days of training camp. The first meal with my new family was a bit awkward for me at least. It was just 10 teenagers having just met trying to find something common to talk about, we settled on the phone call interview. 

That first night was rough. All I remember was letting God have it about how He left me in the dust. Threw me out to Georgia and into a 3 high bunk bed with bugs everywhere! In my journal I say how nothing that could happening during the day could ever surpass this horrible feeling. I remember writing that... It is truly how I did feel, not anymore though.

At the end of the first full day of training camp I caught a glimpse of God beginning to move even if I didn't know that is what it was. Our team of 13 (3 leaders and 10 ambassadors) had instantly meshed! We all were broken messy people. That took me by a major surprise as you can see by my past post I thought I was the utter mess. The best part is we all unraveled the messes as a team. This really doesn't do training camp any justice because there are SO many other things that took place but you will have to wait for the right time and place to hear that.

When leaving the airport in Atlanta on the way to Peru I was clueless about what my father had in store for me. I assumed what had just happened at trying camp was a change in it self and there was no way anything more could happen. But it did. He pulled through and changed me forever! You all are just going to have to wait for the continuation. :)

The Peru Crü! Only the beginning of the adventure.