It's Hot!!!

There's no getting around it: It is HOT here! I came home a few weeks ago from RUF and entered my room. You can see from the photo that at 11:53pm, it was 84.6 degrees in our room. I know I'm a wimpy modern person and my grandparents did just fine without it, but I love my air conditioning and we don't have it here!

February / March is our August / September in the states. Even though Trujillo is the city of the eternal Spring, it does get quite toasty here, especially if you are in the sun. Our kids are enjoying visits to the local pool as they try to keep cool. I've never appreciated ice like I do now!

Anyway, just a thought for my friends who are enjoying cool / cold weather back home. I just talked with Chad Scruggs, the RUF Campus Minister from SMU who will be bringing a group of 18 students here on Saturday. He told me that Dallas had a layer of snow on the ground this morning.

I just can't believe it!

McDonald's Comes to Trujillo

Our kids are excited about this.

"After ten years in the Peruvian market and with a $750 thousand investment, the US fast food chain McDonald’s inaugurated today its first restaurant outside of Lima (Peru's capital) located at Mall Aventura Plaza in the city of Trujillo (La Libertad)."

I guess what is interesting about this (other than our kids being excited about it) is what it says about Trujillo turning an economic corner. With two malls opening in the last six months, the arrival of Papa John's, KFC, & Pizza Hut, Trujillo is starting to have a bit of an economic boom. As many of you know, Trujillo is a city of around a million people--the third largest in Peru.

Says the general manager, “We have chosen Trujillo to open our fist restaurant outside of Lima because it is a city that has registered an impressive economic development thanks to the efforts made by its people and authorities”.

This restaurant "would create 80 new jobs and would offer the most complete McDonald’s restaurant with a playground (a children area with the familiar crawl-tube design with ball pits and slides), two dessert centers, a McCafé and two special rooms for birthday parties."

At any rate, FYI. I guess I'm a little excited too. I never thought I would be at a place in my life where I thought McD's hamburger's were real hamburger's--and would actually crave one, but in comparison to what passes for hamburgers around here, we're all lovin' it.

We're all fine after the Earthquake in Peru

We wanted to give you an update on the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Peru last night. As of this writing, some 337 have been confirmed dead and some 1,350 injured, mostly from the region south of Lima. The death toll is expected to rise.

We have just arrived back home from Lima where we spent a few days on vacation. We were in Lima last night on the 6th floor of an 8 story hotel when the earthquake struck. We were getting ready to go out to eat at Chili's (our favorite home away from home restaurant in Lima and a little taste of Texas!) and Heather had just entered the bathroom to freshen up. I was checking out the news on the TV when the bed started shaking. My first thought was that a couple of our kids had started started wrestling on the bed. That's when Kevin yelled, "It's an earthquake!"

It was pretty freaky. I gathered the kids to stand under a door frame. We probably should have made a run for it outside but the building was moving so much that I didn't think my five kids could have maneuvered the six flights of stairs (plus Heather had been sick throughout our vacation). Things were falling off shelves, lights were swaying, our legs felt like jelly--as if we were on a boat that was rising and falling, and we had sensations of being dizzy and disoriented. I can only imagine what the building looked like from outside.

The whole thing lasted about five minutes, maybe longer, maybe less. At one point it eased and I thought it was passing, but then a second more powerful wave hit. That's when I started getting scared not knowing how this was going to play out. As soon as it was over, we ran down the stairs. On the way down, we saw plaster that had fallen from the ceiling. Most buildings didn't suffer damage in Lima, but some lost some windows, some small concrete pieces & rubble had fallen, especially where buildings connect to each other.

FoxNews is reporting that this quake struck about 90 miles SE of Lima and 25 miles down. A couple little cities called Ica and Pisco took a severe hit where most of the casualties occurred. We had planned on visiting this Ica to see the famed sea lions that live on the coast there, but we never got around to making the arrangements for that leg of the trip so we ended our trip a day early.

For those who don't know, we live in Trujillo which is about an hour flight north of Lima (or a nine hour bus ride which we took last night), so most of the tragedy is occurring on the opposite side of the country from us.

For more info, check out these news reports: FoxNews Photo Essay, Breitbart, 24 Dash & CNN.

Thanks for the emails & voice messages! Please pray for Peru, & especially for the Church of the Lord Jesus in central and southern Peru.