beach baptisms, buffets,babies & a braid

The Baptism

Last weekend, we had baptisms at the worlds biggest baptismal...
(a.k.a the ocean!)

It was such a beautiful thing to be a part of!

The whole group

Pastor Walter giving a short talk to the church members before the baptisms.

2 of the church leaders leading a new Sister into the water to be baptized

The joy of in their faces! After publicly demonstraitng their new lives in Christ

Its hard to find too many pictures that don't have these folks laughing in it. Peruvians are joyful, funny people.

I love this lady! Hermana Monica! She is so fun!

The Buffet

After Baptisms, we had a church potluck/buffet style. Everyone brought different dishes to share.

Peruvians love their food and love to talk about food, so I have become quite the expert on Peruvian dishes.

(if your mouth doesn't water just by looking at these pictures its just because you don't know what it tastes like) 

Cara pulcra, causa and papa rellana

The spread

"Oyoquito" .

Aji de Machas. This stuff was ahhh-mazing. (I think Machas are clams but I am not quite sure- at least its some sort of sea-animal and tasted somewhat like clam chowder... ha ha )

Arroz Jardinero

We call ourselves Café, leche & café-con-leche (coffee, milk, coffee with milk) Can you guess which color I am? 

The Baby Section...

So, it's pretty much split half and half. 

Half of the peruvian babies like me and half of them just start crying when they look at me! :(

I never thought I would have that effect on babies! They all stare at me for  along time and more often then not, start to cry. 

I guess they just aren't used to blonde hair and blue eyes.  

kids over 2 years old, think I'm fascinating and stare at me and follow me around talking to me, but the majority of the little ones are pretty much just scared of me, no matter how try I hard to make them smile, they just cry!

Little Blanca- one of the brave few that isn't scared of me

this little guy is too young to be afraid of the Gringa yet.

and lastly the Braid:

Thanks Hmna. Monica for the beautiful 'trenza'.
Funny thing is here they comment on how super thin my hair is, whereas in the U.S everyone always say that its SO thick. Guess its all perspective!