Mango trees galore

I get into this way of thinking over here, that the more that I say "gracias" the better I will be at speaking Spanish. In itself, this is a terrible mistake that I continue to make. Really I'm horrible at speaking it. I have to tell the speaker constantly to slow down so that I can even try to understand what they are speaking. Twice a week now, we are going to Spanish tutoring which seems to be helping a ton. Even though it is struggle to speak, we all have made huge bounds in our abilities.

A major part of the week that we live in Peru, is spent in the town of Tambogrande. Our main man, John Mark Davidson, works for the company Diez Mil Arboles. Here is the uber abridged version of what they do, and what we are doing. There business revolves around mango trees on farms in Tambogrande and the small villages surrounding the area. With the way that the mango industry has gone, the mango that they sell here now has lost much of its worth in the market. When selling these mangoes, the farmers are getting pennies practically.

The need was seen and the solution was sought out. It's over the top, God filled, and whimsy. The goal of Diez Mil Arboles is to visit and inform farmers in their homes and on their land. After seeing if the land fits the criteria and the farmer is willing, they sign a contract and everything begins. Workers will then come in and cut down the standing trees, and they will stay standing for 35 to 40 days. During these days, the brush will be put into piles and burned, the land will be cleared of unneeded vegetation as well.

I hope that you can tell that we are having a good time getting that job done.

As time continues to happen in the process, buds or shoots will start to reach out on the sides of the trunks and large branches. This is key. Into these tiny future branches, a different type of mango branch will be grafted that produces mangoes that almost triple in value of the former.

So this is the brilliant caper. We are here to make everything run smoothly, help out in whatever way is... wished, make it look like Americans remotely have some type of work ethic or worth other than sitting behind a computer, and...

...to love. I'm praying silently as I work that I can love sufficiently. Just make any kind of difference. I'm not good enough, neither is anyone that is with me. And yet it is the one reason that I am here, the only reason that anyone is breathing, or that anyone has any kind of peace. And I am an insufficient player in it's game. At moments I am just downright bad at loving. I can pick at, criticize, ridicule, and begin to hate even all the things that I was put here to love, to be thankful for. With this type of thinking, which usually starts with a constant criticism of something/everything, a person ends up missing out on something that he would ultimately be blessed by. Simply, when I am being constantly critical, I'm missing out on blessings coming direct from the Lord.

If you're feeling the same way, it's all good. No worries. No one is always constantly good at loving. Looking around, it seems like everyone sucks at it, be it someone in a bad moment, having a bad day, or maybe they really are just unpleasant people. But who cares! This is why we have Jesus, he fills all the gaps and holes that we have, making us perfectly whole in Him, giving us life fully, where we can love in our imperfect ways and he can fix where we come up short. Thankfully, love is something that can be practiced over and over and over, like Spanish, and isn't a one time opportunity that if you mess up, you fail.