Joe's Journey Day 1

Joe called me last night around 10 o'clock. I was so glad to hear his voice.  He sounded good, but somewhat tired.  They are staying in a town called Otuzco, Peru.  When I asked him how the hotel was, he laughed and said, "Well, let's put it this way...if we drove up to this hotel, you wouldn't get out!"  He knows me pretty well, I think.  Anyway, he said that they left Otuzco yesterday morning around 7 am and drove on a small dirt road for about 3 hours to a town called Escuela.  He said it was mountainous and beautiful.  He saw 130 patients.  There were a lot of patients with arthritis.  He said they farm on the sides of mountains that we wouldn't even be able to walk up.  He said they are very hard workers.  One woman traveled 6 hours to see a doctor.  I believe this was the lady he said was having congestive heart failure secondary to aortic stenosis, that she didn't know she had.  One man had been hit in the head with a rock of some sort when he was younger and was now having headaches.  Joe said you could see an obvious skull fracture in the top of his head that apparently was never seen by a doctor.  

The team seems to be really doing well.  Joe said that they had beef steak, salad and potatoes yesterday for lunch.  The breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs and flat bread.  The first night they arrived the serving pastor's brother-in-law, a chef, prepared lamb and chicken and last night they had Chinese food.  

Today they were headed to a different town, but I'm not sure of the name yet.  Hopefully he will call again tonight and give me another update.

It is still SO hot here.  My Dad said that if we don't hit 100 degrees today that it will be the first day all month that we haven't had triple digit temperatures.   We have had practically no rain and everything is crispy, dry. A cool front is predicted to come through tonight and bring the temperatures down to the low 90 degree mark.  I, for one, can't wait.

Since Joe is gone, I've decided to let the kids pick what is on the menu each night!  Last night we had Hamburger Helper.....this is, hands-down, their favorite meal EVER!!  Tonight, homemade pizza is the star!  We bought the personal size pizza crust, so everyone can have their favorite toppings. It should be fun playing in the kitchen with them tonight!  I'll remember to take pictures.

Our county fair begins tomorrow night.  It is a BIG deal in town and the kids are really excited.  It is always a good time for us.  Jake signs up for football on Thursday.  Other than that, we should have a pretty quiet week.  Looking forward to seeing Joe on Saturday afternoon.

Bye for now...