Update III

Last one....I think..

While most of our days were filled with hard work, we were also there to build relationships and build trust. Some of that involved giving them something they don't have a lot of.....food. After one of the childrens programs we fed the kids. The women in this picture was standing to the back of the Community Center just watching. I happen to have one sandwich left! I gave it to her little one. Boy that felt good!

In this picture are Jennifer and Kristen. They are two of the finest young ladies I have ever met. They are so caring and loving! They realy showed the people of Villa Hermosa a lot of love, including these two little ones. What a terrible place to have to bring up a baby!

And finally, these are just a few of the people that I will be missing. These young people have an awesome opportunity. They have the opportunity to help the missionaries with getting through to the youth of the barrio. They already have a good start! They help Loyce and Theresa with all of the youth events. It is a big job! They can do it! It was so much fun to get to know Caesar, Claudia, Fernando, Pamela and all the other teens!

That's it! I hope you have enjoyed the updates. I hope you have enjoyed the pictures. I am certainly thankful to each of you for your support!

Mitch

Update Part II

Ok....I have talked a lot about the Community Center and probably have not talked enough about the effort the women made in painting a number of homes during our stay. They complete 9 or so homes. They were painted in all different colors! But the one thing they all have in common was the Anchor and the saying "es por Amor!" Awesome! The picture to the right is an example of their work. These kids were so proud of the finished product.

We take for granted the ability to head down to the local home improvement store when we need to make repairs or do some contruction. Not in Peru! These people in Villa Hermosa save their money over time to build their homes. Many go unfinished until they can afford to finish them. This picture is pretty self explanitory. It is of a mound of mud with brick in front of it. The brick is the end product of a mixture of clay, mud and water. They use these brick to build their homes.

Our trip was not just about doing construction or painting homes. It was also about building relationships and building trust. We did a lot of that over the week. This is a picture of story time with the kids on one of our two final days in Peru. The story was about Jesus' love for the children.


It's going to take one more update!



Mitch

Update

First thing I want to do is thank Mike, Danelle & Loyce for everything they did for us! For all the hard work they put into loving and teaching the people of Villa Hermosa. This is a picture of me with them. Now....there have been a lot of photo's that I wanted to share with you, that won't post with my original updates. This photo may not seem like a lot, but this is what it is all about. This symbol was painted on each house thtat we painted...I believe it means "it's for love" or "all for love."


This photo is from the out side of the place that we stayed. Huanchaco is 10 mintues out of Trujillo, which is were the barrio is located. The hostel had three floors and attached to it was a small restaurant that we ate at each morning before the days work began. Breakfast consisted of fried or scrambled eggs, a glass of juice, a plate of break and jam and coffee.

And this photo is of the "caballitos de totora" or reed boats that fisherman have used for centuries in Huanchaco. Every morning when we left for Villa Hermosa, we could see several of this out in the Pacific ocean fishing. The day that we left to return for home there were two or three heading out for a morning of fishing.




I'll post more on the next update.

Mitch

Finally Back Home

I have safely returned home. It is amazing how smooth things went on this trip. We had no health issues, with the exception of the cold I came home with. Our travel went well, with the exception that we got pulled over by the Federalies on the way from Trujillo to Lima. I guess it isn't that unusual for that to happen. Our flight out of Lima was delayed for 45 minutes. Never did find out why. That was ok though. It gave us a chance to sit down and have hamburger from McDonald's or a piece of pizza from Papa John's. Boy was that good! And then we almost missed our connecting flight in Houston. We were suppose to have three hours in Houston, but had two. Then we had to clear customs and immigration. Our group made it on the flight with 10 minutes to spare. Plenty of time!
Every moment was worth it for the blessing that each of us received from each child in the barrio over the 10 day period. Thank you again for all your thoughts and prayers and your kind support. Please know that it went to a very good effort by our group. We did so much good while there. Oh...and we left even more cash behind that was previously thought. It will be put to very good use.
I have updated the first week or so of my entries, with pictures. Feel free to go through them again. You can click on each picture for a larger image. I will update some more tonight and tomorrow....and even added some more picture pages in the days ahead. I plan on continuing this blog for the foreseeable future!



Thanks again and God Bless!

Mitch

Captains Log-Star Date July 21, 2006

This will be fairly short tonight. It was our last day at Villa Hermosa barrio. There were a lot of tears late this afternoon. This morning we spent some time doing some construction. We started building some of the trusses for the roof of the community center. Dinner with the group and then story time for the kids.

It is the highlight of our day. This was also the second day this week that we got to feed the kids. I handed out sandwiches for them at lunch and to see some of the sad eyes turn to smiles when they get a simple piece of bread with a thin slice of meat and a drink. They are precious! I have wondered over the week whether they really realize they live in such terrible conditions. Some of the kids look,and quite frankly smell, like they haven´t had baths in weeks.....or they slept in a puddle of urine over night. None the less, you can´t help hugging and loving them!

We had a final supper with our barrio missionaries Loys Pezo Ramirez, his wife is Teresa Paredes Rodriguez. They are very special people. They told us at supper that they really did have some different recreational activities planned for us when we got here. That all changed when they saw how the kids had taken to our 12 member team. They couldn´t believe how each one of us had 6 to 7 different kids around us during the times we had with them in the afternoon. Here´s the kicker to the whole trip....we had quite a bit of money left in our budget. Enough in fact that we are leaving it all behind so that home can have a bed so that the children don´t have to sleep on the floor. A family that has no home is going to get one built for them! And there will be enough money left over to help with some medical needs.......medicine etc..

I think that this trip has been as rewarding for me as it has for the kids in the barrio. I hope that they feel the love for a long time to come and they hold it in there hearts until I can return next summer.

This will be my final entry until at the very earliest Sunday night. I will be traveling beginning tomorrow morning and returning to Phoenix on Sunday. I hope this finds you all healthy and happy and enlightened. I will share pictures when I return!

God Bless to all and thank you for your support on this mission!

All my love!
Mitch

Thursday

Wow! Can´t believe that my time in Trullijo is nearly over. We have made such great progress with the community center. While the men have be constructing the building, the women have been out painting houses. How do they decide who gets their house painted. The way they get the houses painted is if the adult or adults are involved with a bible study with the local church group in the barrio. It might sound odd to be painting mud and clay bricks.....but in a funny way it really makes these modest accomodations look much better.

Speaking of the community center. We have all of the walls up! It was another exhausting day. The say it has been unusually warm in the area. This is actually their winter. Humidity is high but the temps are bearable. It looks like we will be starting to put the siding on the building tomorrow.

After lunch today the women in our group held a hygiene class for the women of the barrio. They taught them some basic hygiene....things we take for granted and then taught them a little about cleaning up simple wounds...cuts, scrapes etc.....

The recreation for the afternoon was to finish up the soccer tournament. We had a brand new soccer ball for the winners of the older kids game. The younger kids got t-shirts....some candy and an orange or two.

I think it is going to be very hard and emotional to leave these kids after our day is done tomorrow. We have become so attached and they just crave the attention. It´s going to be difficult knowing that we won´t be going back again this year. It is my hope to come back next year.

That ´s it for tonight....I´ll leave an entry tomorrow night and then it´s headed home. I´m really looking forward to that too! Maybe I can sneak one or two kids home with me!!!!!!!! I have really fallen for quite a few of them!!!

Good night!

Mitch

Wednesday

As I told you a day ago or so, the rest of our stay will be to continue to work on the community center in the Villa Hermosa barrio. Today we started to frame up the walls. We completed about 5 or 6 of them before the afternoon program. When I say completed....I mean actually up and attached to the posts. There are nother 5 or six ready to be put up, probably tomorrow. Very unusual the way the go about there work. But as we were told, do it their way! They don´t want us trying to change there methods. They have their ways so as they say, ¨When in Rome, do as the Roman´s do.¨

After lunch, we cleaned off the floor of the Community Center and set up for a story and craft for the kids. We must have had around 80 or 90 kids stop by. The got a chance to hear about Noah´s Ark and then did a craft that went with the story. They got a cloud, a sun and a rainbow. It was a lot of fun to see their faces as they completed the project. It was also awesome to watch as they ate their lunch. It was the first time this week that we were allowed to feed the children. More about food in a minute. We have handed out fruit to some of the local kids for helping us from time to time, but it was the first time we have actually fed them. That may sound a little cold but understandable. The idea is for these familys to understand that the need to help themselves. That they can´t count on handouts! I get it! It still breaks my heart to see them go without.

And then this afternoon....recreation with some of the teens and adults. Mixed team volleyball. It as so much fun to get together and play. Volleyball is very popular in Peru. This is the time of the day all of us love so much.....the interaction with the kids and adults. I told you more about food......well I did play some volleyball, but before I did, I sat in the stands with the kids and adults. I had a chance to talk(sort of...in my bad spanish) to a young girl. She always has such a beautiful smile for me when we show up. I sat down and tried to talk to her. I asked what her age was. I though maybe 8, 9....maybe 10. She told me she was 13. So petite...I couldn´t believe. I´ve got believe she is so small because of the lack of nutrition, but what a sweet young girl! We actually struggled through our language barrier and talk about our families. She has two sisters in the barrio with her and her mother. I told her all about my family. I realized I had a picture of Ashley on my cell phone and showed it to her. She looked at the picture for about 10 minutes. She thought she was so beautiful! The volleyball was fun, but I enjoy sitting in the stands trying to talk to the kids and playing with them more!!

More of the same tomorrow! Can´t wait to get back to the barrio! The work is hard! The rewards are amazing!

God Bless!
Mitch

Pour, Pour, Por Favor

As I mentioned in yesterdays entry, today was a day of really getting some work done. We poured cement all day long and actually finished the floor of the community center. We did it with two wheel barrows and one motor operated mixer. The center is measures about 24ft by 70 ft, right around 1500 square feet. I can´t tell you how good it felt to get the cement mixture out of my hair, eyes, ears and nose. We shoveled rock and sand and lifted cement all day....but boy it felt good to do it. The men doing the work with the concrete are from the barrio and work all day for free. The local missionaries want them to take some kind of ownership in what they are doing in the barrio. They were amazing! They level the concrete in ways that seem so backward to us, but for them it works perfect. Needless to say there are a lot of sore bodies and tired people tonight.

It felt even better to take the last hour and a half of the afternoon and spend it with some of the kids that are becoming our friends. We are welcome by these children each day with a smile, a greeting and an exchange of kisses on the cheeks. One little boy even came out to show us that he could ask our names in english. It is so cool. What hurts so much is to have to leave them each day in the barrio and we get to go back to clean rooms, clean sheets and a meal.

I did get to taste a dish that one of the families in the barrio had prepared for lunch today to feed some of the workers. It consisted of potatoes, eggs and a sauce that was prepared with cheese, milk and I think she said peppers and it was all on rice. It was delicious. Tonight our missionaries treated us to a bonfire and hambergers and french fries. Huanchaco is a village or town that sits right on the Pacific Ocean. It was so cool to have the fire and the waves crashing on the shore in the background.

More work at the community center tomorrow. I think we are going to start putting up walls. Amazing!

Until tomorrow!

God Bless!

Mitch

A Day to Refresh the battery!

Good evening to all! A very restfull day today! We got a day off before the real work begins.

Our day began with breakfast at the hostel in Huanchaco....scambled eggs, bread with jam, pineapple juice and coffee! A bus picked us up at 8:30 for a day of shopping and a little sightseeing. We spent much of the morning in the central part of Trujillo!
We went through a market where I saw the biggest avacado that I have ever seen! Looked wonderful! I tried a piece of local fruit. It had seeds inside and you just scooped them out and ate it. Tasted a little like grapefruit. Very good! I liked it anyway. The market was awesome! They butcher and hang the meat right in the market....beef, chicken etc.
The afternoon was spent at Huaco de la Sol, which is the Moon Temple where the native Moche carried out many of there religious rituals. Rituals......like human sacrafices...there own people. The Moche and the people that lived in Chan Chan were rivals. The picture to the left is the outside wall of the 5th Temple. Four other temples are with in the outer wall.

Then the evening ended with supper back in Huanchaco. We eat a local restaurants in the evening. Some nights regular food. Tonight, I ordered something a little different. Cevieche....raw fish, octopus and calamari.
It is all uncooked with the exception of the lemon juice they put it in and they say that cooks it. It was amazing! I absolutely loved it. Then another local dish for my meal. I had what they called a tortilla....but was more of an egg and batter mixture with shrimp in it. It was very good.

Enough of a little fun! Tomorrow back to the realy work, winning over the people of the barrio and pouring some cement.

Thank you for your continued prayers.

Good night and God Bless!

Mitch

Day 3 Sunday

To all:

I can´t begin to tell you how blessed I am to be here. We experienced a spanish church service this morning. The music was in spanish and the message was in both spanish and english. The head of Project New Hope spoke and talked about compassion using the parable of the Good Samaritan. He asked which of the three we would and should be like. Dah! The Good Samaritan. It has been an emotional day with the beauty of the service and the trip back to the barrio.

We had lunch in downtown Trujillo, not far from the church. We had grilled chicken. Lots of it. We were told the people of Peru eat 40,000 chickens a day! Chicken, rice and a sort of potato fry.

After lunch it was back to the barrio at Villa Hermosa and the kids!! We enjoyed an afternoon of playing games, dancing and singing with the kids. I talked about the smiles amidst all the poverty yesterday! More of the same today. What really made the day so extra special were the kids that remembered you and came running with smile as we arrive! It is so very difficult to leave them at the end of the day.


I was told today that about 80 % of the people in Trujillo and surrounding area live in what we consider poverty and these kids and unwed mothers and kids with kids.....live in the worst of all of it!

We will be meeting with our native missionaries tonight for supper and a special evening!

What a day!
My Love and appreciation for everyones support and prayers! Don´t stop....we need it and the people in Villa Hermosa need it even more. I´m trying to convince Anna to do this with me next year. I already know that I need to come back!!!!


As for pictures it doesn´t look like I be able to post any until after I return. I will continue the blog for some time after so that I can share some of the with you!

Love you all and God Bless!
Mitch

Day 2 Trujillo

What a rewarding day! We were to go to Villa Hermosa, our barrio, today to put on a carnival for the children. This picture was just prior to the start of the carnival. There must have been close to 300 children that came out! It was absolutely amazing to see the kids come to the common area when the music started. They were all so anxious to get started with the games that were set up for them. Our team had games from ring toss, face painting and even beat the goalie! It´s all soccer here! The kids absolutely love it and are always playing it. And then to see the smile on their faces was worth it all! What a great day in a such terrible surroundings. These people live in mud brick houses that many times are no more than a two or three rooms with a combined 30 x 30. And many times they live in them unfinished because there is no money.
While we were not suppose to work on the community center today...we did. Our team started clearing dirt, sand and a lot of rock from the floor area. We are about halfway through and they are going to begin pour cemet for the floor tomorrow. The community center in the future will double as church for Villa Hermosa.


That´s it for now. The team will join for supper, devotions and then get a good night sleep for another big day tomorrow.

God Bless and lots of love to all!

Mitch

First Day in Trujillo

It has been a long day to get here. We spent about 26 hour traveling. We left Phoenix on Thursday morning at six thirty a.m. and arrive in Trujillo around eight a.m. Phoenix time Friday. Our total flight time from Phoenix to Lima was about 8 hours. Then another 8 hours by bus. We lost two hours and then with layovers and waiting for another group to come.....wow what a trip What an experience already. It is already very evident that we should all be very thankfully for everything that we have. The Peruvians have very little in this area and really make the most of everything. We had some lunch at a local restaurant and then went to the ancient mud city of Chan Chan.
The picture to the left is of one of the many altars within the Temple walls. The Chimu believe in human sacrafice. I hope you had a chance to read a little about it! The native Chimu have an interesting story to tell. One more day to acclimate and then the work in the barrio begins.


Until then....God Bless!!!!!!
Mitch