Broken Glasses and More Deliveries to La Legua and La Piedra

Today, my glasses broke. However, I was extremely lucky that the 'Eye Mission' from Oklahoma was present, because one of them, Jim, managed to fix the screw of my glasses. Unfortunately, that soon popped out when we fixed the next segment of my glasses, so I had to wait for either super glue or a wire that I could tie tight around the screw hole. Thanks Jim! I would have definitely been visually impaired for the next couple of days had I not gotten amazing advice from you.

Luckily, Johnny had spare ethernet cable that I could use. I stripped one of the wires, pulled a copper section out, and then finally wound the strip tightly around the screw hole. Fortunately, it was tight enough that it fit, and hasn't caused my glasses to spontaneously fall apart since!

The ethernet cable and me holding a part that I separated out

The wire, pliers, screwdrivers, and FIXED glasses!

Jim's most insightful advice didn't come from his knowledge of how to fix glasses though. He reminded me of Saul's inspiration that he gained while he was blind. This bit of knowledge really got me thinking about my purpose here in Peru. If I really had no way to fix my glasses again, what would I have done for the next few days? Doing every day's work here in Peru really need glasses.  If I needed to fix a couple more computers for the missionaries here, I definitely could just hold the screen closer to my face or just close one eye. Having broken glasses is a huge handicapped and I learned that having perfect sight is a privilege. This experience also made me extremely thankful for the doctors and nurses on the eye mission. They decided to make other people's lives better by improving their vision.

After I resolved the broken glasses incident and gained some valuable insight on life, I went to deliver food packages to families in La Legua with Megan and Isabel! I felt that this trip of delivering food packages was even more meaningful because we added a prayer with each family, which made each family visit extremely special. Some of the families we visited were near the school Madre del buen Consejo, and the parents were attending the church nearby so only the kids were present. Their maturity was definitely amazing and I loved talking to the kids.

Pictures with the family (no parents!)

During this trip, I got a better glimpse of the family's life than I did before. Those that live closer to town opened stores to make extra income to support their family. The children stated that they helped to run the stores and watched the house in general when the parents are away. Again, all of them expressed that they loved receiving food and that the food really helps them both financially and emotionally (LESS WORRIES).

Bringing food into a family's house

Another picture with everyone!

Delivering food to villagers at San Jacinto village!

Other than working at the schools and parish, I have the opportunity to interact with the Peruvian family by delivering food to villagers. It is an amazing experience and is extremely fun! Each Peruvian family that is sponsored by a United States family will receive food monthly.  To ensure that everything is correct, the mother of the Peruvian family had to provide a picture ID and acknowledged through her signature that she had in fact received the food. One of the social worker from Santisimo Sacramento will always that photos of us making the delivery.

Typical ration: two bottles of oil,  2 lbs of beans, one bag of floor and two packages of noodles, and six packets of oat meal.

12 bowls of rice and 12 cans of milk

Delivering supplies to one of the Peruvian family with "Math teacher" , from St. Anne's, Texas.

I absolutely loved delivering supplies to all of the families. They were extremely grateful, fun loving and kind. Each of them gave us a tour of their home and expounded on how they loved having us here and how much they were grateful for having us deliver food to their houses. They also explained that because we give them food (which is worth $25 USD), they can use the money to buy other materials and improve the quality of their life!!

Unloading the supplies

Three packages of supply per family.

The packages are color coded: Blue, Orange and White

Photo op with the Peruvian family.

We were given a tour of the house and they share their stories with us.

Giving Manuel some Math hints on how to do multiplication quickly.

Life at the Parish

This is where I'll be living for the next two weeks! The room is quite comfy, and it has a really soft bed.  Piura definitely lives up to its name as the "City of eternal heat" because its always t-shirt and shorts, even at night!

I will be staying in Room 19 which is located at the second floor .

I am doing Math homework on my bed.  You can see that the walls are built from bricks. Wifi signal degrades while traveling through them

Here are a couple of important places in the parish where I stay at. There are many different missionaries that came here to work in Sacramento Santisimo, and they all have different rooms similar to mine.

These are the missionaries that are volunteering at Santisimo Sacramento, Piura, Peru while I am there.

My room, and entrance to the bathroom. Yes, I have an attach bathroom.   I don't need to queue for the use of restroom. I enjoy my stay at Santisimo Sacramento already. it is just like my home.

 However, we all share a common kitchen, eating place, and lounge. Delicious food is prepared for us after we come back from volunteering, and we get to talk about our experience at the table. At lunch, we usually hang around and discuss our plans for the next half of the day.

Breakfast in the morning.

There is always a bowl of fruits at every meal. The bananas there are super sweet and this is the first time I've seen a doughnut shape tangerine.

The kitchen!



Food is always serve in a pot. The left pot is instant noodle soup and the right pot is rice  (arroz).   I manage to pick up some Spanish especially when it comes to food.


 Someday we have beef stew instead of instant noodle soup. Yum.....


 It's always  buffet style.


Chow time, Yum. The food here is always yummy.
Usually I will take fried chicken, fried potato ball, fried fish and fruits. Chicha Morada is my favorite drink. It is made from purple corn (chicha) .

After we come back from our afternoon work, we have about an hour before we go to mass and then have dinner. Dinner's always a special time because we can relax and have fun and make up the itinerary for tomorrow.

Part of the eating area

The lounge


Doing my Math homework outside the kitchen (cocina).