Happenings

This month has been really fun as a lot of opportunities have popped up for musical involvement in the community. I'm grateful to God for these opportunities! This week was the annual 72 hour Prayer Marathon in Trujillo. For 72 hours straight people from different churches come to pray in the Plaza de Armas (the center square of the city). For 42 hours there was Scripture reading as well. Thursday morning I went with some friends from the Cristo Rey Church to pray. It was a great way to start Thanksgiving Day! One of the pastors asked me to play at the closing ceremony.

I was very honored. My pianist friend who was also my English student played piano for me. It was an interesting three days! Today, we arrived to play and we couldn't find our contact person. We found out that the rest of the musicians had come earlier in the day to try out the sound equipment. I also found out that the song I was planning on playing with music was going to have to be played from memory because I didn't have a stand and they didn't either. We were told we would probably play at 8:30. At almost 8:40 we still hadn't started. At this point I had almost ran away several times! It was definitely the Holy Spirit that kept me there.

There was a folk instrument band that played which is what is in the video. I am slowly learning songs in Spanish. I was quite thrilled to know two songs tonight!

Musicians

Last night I had the privilege of having some fellow musicians in my apartment. There were six guys and myself. The girls only Bible study is definitely not going to work! At first it was kind of awkward as I only really knew two of them. However, the bass guitarist had brought his instrument and amp so he ended up playing quite a few numbers for us including one with Beethoven's V. It was a fusion of classical themes with rock. It was really cool to watch up close. His fingers on both hands moved rapidly!

After listening to the bassist for awhile, the guys opened up and began asking me questions about the music education in the States. It ended up being an interesting exchange of ideas and methods of music education in both nations. They talked about various professors and the difficulties of studying music. In the process I was invited to several concerts in the near future.

I hope to have the opportunity to have more musicians over soon. I'm excited to talk and play with fellow musicians. It is really neat to connect with musicians in a different culture and see their perspective coming from a Peruvian musical background of the music of Peru. Maybe next time more girls will come :) I asked someone if there were more boys in Trujillo than girls as there seems to be more boys around then girls. They responded that they thought it was about the same. However, the three church plants as well as the University ministry, and English classes seem to have an overwhelming majority of guys. This is good for church leadership.

This link is to a slideshow of pictures a professional took while he was here. It will give you a little bit of an idea of what it is like here. http://vimeo.com/15889150

I miss you all a ton! Thank you for your prayers. They are both felt and appreciated!