Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Since moving to Pucallpa our daughters have found many ways of having fun. As many of you know, while living in Lima we had no yard at all and just a garage for our girls to run around in. Well now with all of this free space our girls can run and bike and play as much as they want. This past week it rained nonstop for several days and so on Saturday the kids finally decided to accept the rain and turn it into something fun. Thus the above photo. Yes that is Sarah doing a belly slide through a giant mudhole.

Somedays the trees are their playground. Myah really likes getting all of her friends up in the trees and climbing around. They even have a clubhouse in some trees behind a neighbors house. We have bought bikes for all the girls too and they love riding them around our property and also riding them to school. I bought a bike the other day too but don't actually receive it for a couple months more.

Swimming is a favorite activity of ours. Whether its in the pool at the hotel beside us or in a nearby lake we love to be refreshed by the water and play around while doing it.

Shoot, it even rained at night...

Forrest Gump: One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night...

Well guess what Forrest, we have all kinds of rain here in Pucallpa too.

We are right now in the middle of four months of steady rain. Last night was the most impressive that I have seen though. When we left prayer meeting there was constant lightning that Hannah was really enjoying watching. Then through the night the rain would go from hardly falling to torrential downpour in a single second. It went back and forth like that all through the night. Then as if the storm needed a gran finale a huge multi-fork lighning bolt hit the ground right beside our house around 6:15 this morning. I know the rain should not fascinate me like it does but after 4 years in Lima of not seeing it, this seems great.

Canoeing in Cashibo

Last evening I took two of my daughters out to Cashibococha to go canoeing. Now it had been a few year for me since I had done any canoeing and it had been even long for the girls. We borrowed a canoe from some friends who live on the cocha and we set out. At first I was relieved to see that I still had the touch when it came to paddling and steering which was good because the girls lack of paddling told me they were just along for the ride. After a while, Sarah started to hint to the fact that she wanted to go back to shore. I tried to ignore her and kept taking us to more interesting places, but she insisted. After about a half hour I guided us back to shore and Sarah got out. She went to play with our friends the Brocks, and Hannah and I headed back out.
     Once we got to the other side of the bay there were many trees in the water. The water is rising now because of all the rain so it floods way back into the trees. While exploring the trees in the water we noticed that Sarah was jumping off the back deck of the house into the water with her friends. Hannah and I found a tree that had hundreds of flat round seed pods that she recognized as being used in local jewelry making. We collected a few to try drying at home and headed out onto the big part of the lake. We met some indians who were paddling in the dugout canoes. It made me wish I knew how to make my own cedar strip canoe so that I could show them and offer to help them make one if they wanted. Maybe a future ministry opportunity there. It started to thunder so we headed back into shore and watched the kids jump for a while. Just before dark the rains came so we got in the car and headed back home.
   I really found it relaxing to be out on the water again but I also discovered some muscles that had not been used in a while. I think that canoeing on the cocha could be a favorite evening or weekend activity of ours.

Crazy Night of Conquering the World

Last night I got an invitation to go to a neighbors house to play his favorite board game. I must be honest and tell you it has been a number of years since I have played a board game, but I was intrigued by the description. It was called Axis and Allies and I was told it was something like Risk only a lot more involved. I like Risk, so I was interested, so off I went with another couple neighbors and we sat down for our lesson on how to play. The description that I got was accurate, it was way more involved than Risk, in fact the instructions for how to play took nearly two hours to explain. Finally we were ready to set up the board, which only has a couple hundred little pieces, this took another 20 minutes or so and we were playing. Now it might seem all harmless, 4 neighbor guys sitting around playing a game of world domination, but when 2 of them have German as their mother tongue and 2 of us have English as ours, there can be a lot of behind your back strategizing going on. In the end the game took a couple of hours to play with my team, the Allies, coming out as victor. It was a good night of entertainment and I was warned that it doesn't always end as fast as this game did. In fact there have been some games in the past that have gone on for days at a time.