Serving Christ in 'the third age' Sirviendo a Cristo en la tercer edad

The doorbell rang and, as we were expecting, an elderly, diminutive man entered from the street and greeted us. We were in the home of friends in Lima, Peru. Aldo was tired from a week of counseling and encouraging believers, and we coaxed him to eat a little, which he did carefully; in the last few years he has undergone major bypass surgery, a stroke and cancer surgery. He had just arrived from a week in the village of Diez de Octubre, perhaps fifty houses in the Peruvian jungle, where he helped to start a congregation three years before.				Sonó el timbre y, como esperábamos, un hombre anciano, diminuto entró por la calle y nos saludó. Estábamos en la casa de unos amigos en Lima, Perú. Aldo estaba cansado de pasar una semana de aconsejar y alentar a los creyentes, y lo convencimos a comer un poco, cosa que hizo con cuidado, porque en los últimos años se ha sometido a una cirugía de bypass mayor, tuvo un derrame cerebral y cirugía del cáncer. Acababa de llegar de pasar una semana en la aldea de Diez de Octubre, quizá cincuenta casas en la selva peruana, donde ayudó a comenzar una congregación tres años antes.
JOHN BUERER

Beyond divining dogs and the evil eye, God affects his plan

Felix, now 83 years old and almost deaf, grew up on a desert farm in southwest Peru near the Nazca lines. An oddly dressed European lady occasionally walked through his village by herself headed for the hills and carrying a broom. The kids called her the witch, and couldn't imagine what she was up to. Only later, as an adult, did he recognize her as Maria Reiche, the German mathematician who was largely responsible for mapping and describing the Nazca lines. These immense pictures of animals, etched into the flat planes, are a composite of shallow troughs that eventually fill with windblown sand, and only by sweeping the sand from them with her broom could their character be clearly seen. JOHN BUERER

In the fridge of life

The potbellied house with its foundation of round river stone was just a winter stop, but a transition from the mysteries of the Carolina East to the mysteries of the California West for a four-year-old (do people out there savor brook cooled watermelon, juice dripping, as the sun slides away from a sweltery, dusty day?). JOHN BUERER