Ines Izarnotegui Lay

I think I am in a real trouble here. I have great stories to tell, and experiences to share, but they are so many they all come like a flood in my life before I get a chance to write them down. Abu!

I’m going to start just saying thanks for all the sweet birthday wishes:
Thank you!!! :D Now I will thank you all by sharing how I celebrate this special day…

I celebrate not really a new year that is starting, but the year that has been completed. So I take the time to thank God for the year that just passed and embrace the joy of the memories… I made it! I survived my life ONE MORE YEAR!! If you were to take a look at my schedule you would agree that is quite an accomplishment itself.

So… every birthday wish I received on my Facebook wall and messages and texts mean A LOT to me… I’m a kid when it comes to this, I know it

Working with 128 people from Johnson Ferry Baptist Church this week was a delight! I think I started celebrating my bday dancing the Super Hero song at the main square of Huaycan Wednesday night during the outreach. My interpreter friends told me it lloked like I was one of those chinese characters from chineses stories, those that fly around because of al the jumping while dancing…

Thursday I visited the Home for Special Needs Children and Burn Victims. I had gone the day before and felt a little bit of stress from the teenagers but on Thursday I got some good smiles and giggles from the teens when they saw my hair ornament (part of my Bday outfit). That was sweet. Hopefully I can show a picture of it (I don’t have a camera, but some people took pics of the ‘bday outfit’)

I also felt that I needed to address the people that were working with me at VBS site 1 (we had 3 simultaneous sites and I was leading Site 1), just to say thanks because they were doing a great job. When I did, they started singing Happy BDay to me… I almost cried… so sweet!
Monica, who I just met during this week, happens to be Pepe and Roger’s cousin and a stickers psycho. She covered my forehead with foam stickers that said “BTHDAY GIRL” and kept adding more around my face as I removed them… I changed the ‘sign’ to “B-DAY GIRL” and removed it from my forehead to my sunglasses (compliments of Stanford’s student 2 weeks a go). Still, that was cool, I love Monica!

Then, during VBS the students just interrupted me and Cristobal (aka la jirafa) grabbed a mic and said it was a special day because it was my birthday and they all sang again… after VBS the children from Huaycan came and said: “Is it your birthday? Ooooh…. Happy birthday!!!” The look in their eyes was too sweet, like, I could hear Jesus saying “my little ones” when I look in their eyes as they came to hug me…*tears&smile*

That evening Monica and Janet (fellow interpreters) had balloons and signs and escorted me to dinner and then asked me to walk in and wait… and act surprised when they walked in the dinning, LoL… That night Pepe finished our Frontline meeting praying for me and then we all went to the little square… more fun goofy times…

So… my birthday had important moments that only God would understand, goofy moments, basically loud and quiet moments… it was good. Yes, I turned 26, although I still look 16.

I am home for just a few more hours. Packed and ready to go tomorrow for another week of intense missions along with 128 people from Georgia and about 30 interpreters.
I will be visiting the Special Needs School and leading the VBS site 1 (we will have 3 running simultaneously).

The last couple months have been busy for sure!

I really need to catch up here… I just feel like 2010 is a year that is flying away.God is doing SO MUCH!!!
Working with the last teams (Spring Break) was exhausting, in a good way. I have really experienced His strength in my weakness and His amazing protection! I wonder if I still struggle with feeling tired too easily…I still think I can do better on that part.

The teams have been a great blessing to me. I have been strengthened, inspired, blessed in so many ways by them. I really thank God for their lives and pray they continue blessing many serving with God’s love.

It is so strange how it has been exhausting and refreshing at the same time. Something I really appreciate is that only going through extreme preasure I can realize it is His presence taking us through each day and not our own hability.

…the city where “I live” but really this year has just been a storage of my belongings because I have spent most of the time everywhere but there…I mean, here.

My last week in Arequipa was a little hectic. I had to take care of vaious things and to add to all that I got a stomach infection. The morning after various vomits and diarrhea, I got back to be (after cleaning the bathroom) and I thought to myself : the devil must be trying to laugh at me… How can I not let him? ah! Thank you God for this… now I can rest!!! and I sang a song of praise.

(this is a picture of me my last Sunday with pastor and friends who saved my life with their company and support and gave me a nice farewell dinner)

I followed what the doctor said (almost) I mean… a week on bland diet… I really did 4 days because I was starving, you know me… I better not tell y’all everything I ate that day…hehehe.

Hey! That Anís Najar licor really works for indigestion! (although my alcohol allergies also reacted, but nothing serious just a little red and heat on my neck and face…)

So… I was doing great! But then something was not right and I am not going to give any details…

My aunt who is almost 80 years old and has A LOT of experience and knowledge told us what I had could be caused by stress and said rice soup should help as well as drink cevada and linaza.
She was right. It helped… my symptoms went away as soon as I did what she said.
But! As much as I enjoy my new affair with an old time friend and now lover…rice… I am not going to live eating just that..oh me?! Hmm…

Sooooo I finally went to see a doctor. There are 3 options:

1.- The medicine they gave me in Arequipa didn’t work (I explained how the first cypro I took was from the US and it stopped my diarrhea inmediately but as soon as I started taking the peruvian government generic cypro… diarrhea came back for 5 days).

2.- Stress. Although if this was the cause, then my symptoms should stop now that I am home and without stress… if stress was caused during my traveling.

3.- Parasites.

So he has given me antibiotics for parasites and I have to do stool tests for 3 days (ew!!!! who’s idea was that?!) and see him again next week… and follow a diet.

Tada!
Thank you for your prayers. I have lost some weight and my face shows weakness, but nothing serious

I will have to write again because there are other fun things that have happened in my life (like a french guy with a crush on me… that’s a new country I hadn’t had interactions with before…Do you see me living in Paris? LoL)

This is my dear friends making fun of my skirt. I have been called Snowhite before but this is like the full picture with the old witch and the dwarves..he he he

Hello!
So, I am here at the Girls Home… I feel like a teenage mom with teenage daughters.

They are all between 12 and 15 years old. And EVEYBODY tells me they are tough… but I haven’t experience that yet. I love them and I am amazed at how much they listen to me.
Of course when it is time to do chores they bring out their evil personalities and I have to watch it or they bite… but, I am 10 years older… I bite harder! Hahaha…
Yesterday I took 5 of them to the park, and a couple cops drove by and the girls started yelling: “Help! Help! I am being kidnapped!” I felt like they would come and ask “where is the adult?” totally overlooking at me. Seriously, all of them weight more than me… That’s not hard is it?

Ah! Sad note: I lost my camera…if you could still call that a camera (?) I had it at the amusement park on Friday, and I don’t have it anymore… I don’t know when I lost it or if I got it stolen. It was a piece of crap already but I think that is exactly the only reason why I would miss it. That camera has been with me through a LOT. I don’t think it was worth any money. I had some great pictures of the girls on the rides… but thankfully I had downloaded everything else… it could have been a good piece for the museum of my life one day. Don’t you think? That is why now I’ll post a picture from my visit in May.

I think I am called to be here at this particular time, until the end of August. And I am SO thankful that I scheduled to come here for a month before I even got the job offer. It is just another time of many where I experience how God schedules my life perfectly without me knowing it. I have no idea where I will be at this time next year, but He does, and He lets me know just what I need to know. All I have to do is be ready to go for it and enjoy the ride!

I know this life is like a vapor in the wind, and though we have so much to do, that is exactly why God knows best where and when it will all happen and I have nothing to loose, therefore nothing to be anxious about.

I am starting to think that I will change the whole idea about coming to the Home.
There are a lot of needs here, but I know I am not called to do everything that needs to be done.

With the years, in my life I have learnt to just seek after God’s heart and trust that He speaks to me so I can tell where I am supposed to be. All I want to do is please His heart, and He has taught me that what’s in my heart is also in His heart! I used to have doubts about things I desired, but He has told me many times that the very reason why I want those things is because He wants (and has) that for me. Is early, maybe I am just mumbling in my writing, hehe, but this is how I feel… and we Latin people are ALL about emotions aren’t we?

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” Matthew 6:33
“…for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” Phil. 2:13

I went to Church last night and this verse really encouraged me!!

“The LORD turned to him (me?) and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel …Am I not sending you?” Judges 6:14

So… regardless of how I feel, I go! I mean.. I am here!
The decision about moving to Arequipa is still not clear yet, but I know God will make things clear on time. I am not patient at all, so, I am going to try to distract myself doing what I can for now and maybe I won’t realize that time is passing by and God will surprise me with His plan again!

We are done with my Church’s missions trip. We have an Iglesia Bíblica Emmanuel here in Arequipa and that is where I have been staying since I got here. The pastor lives in the second story and they gave me a room

We had around 160 people between 14 - 40 years old maybe. The trip was for the 3 youth ministries from my Church. Read the rest of this entry »

So I am here.

I have never really written about the Arequipa opportunity at all I think, so here it goes:

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first day in Cuzco, and my 7th year doing mission’s trips.
I flew in Cuzco this morning. 11 800 feet high. Feels so good!

Read the rest of this entry »

Note: Sorry if this doesn’t make sense all together for you. It was my freestyle thinking early in the morning.

There are so very few people who can really listen to you. Read the rest of this entry »

Rosita is the tuthor of the “medium” girls, and her mother passed away two days before I got here.
Therefore, I am in charge of that bedroom until Rosita comes back.
20 girls starting in 1st grade age up to 6th grade (I think). Read the rest of this entry »

Trip to AQP by myself this time!

Don’t get me wrong, I love going with other people (ehem…gringos…ehem…).
But this trip will be different.
I am going to Arequipa, alone, to the Girls’ Home there for 2 weeks. Read the rest of this entry »