First Days Back in Peru

Hello to all back home. I am sorry that it has taken me so long to get my first entry in from Trujillo, Peru. Last years 25 hour trip into the country was treat compared to this year. We had an uneventful flight from Phoenix to Houston. It was getting out of Houston that was interesting. Houston had a big thunderstorm come through on Thursday, June 28th. We ended up leaving Houston about 2 hours late. That was ok because we were going to have to sleep in the airport in Lima for 8 hours. The bottom line, outside of some minor delays, our group of 17 and all of our bags made it safely. We made it through customs and immigration without any trouble and an amazing three days with 20 amazing teens started.

Much of the last three days have been spent exclusively with these 20 teens in meetings talking about their faith and a personal relationship with God. What a great day Friday was. We arrived late morning, had some lunch, and a much needed nap before the teens arrived around dinner time. That night we did some ice breaking games and made crosses with the teens.

After some quiet time and devotions the entire group sat down to view a video about peer pressure and sex. Then the tough part....they discussed the abortion. The teens were shown graphic pictures of the termination of pregnancies. It is a big problem here. The think that Loys, the local missionary, was trying to get across was accountability, not only to themselves but to God. The men had time to be with the young men and the women time with the young ladies. We sat down to discuss and answer any questions they had. It was a real blessing!

Saturday, breakfast at 8 a.m. local time. We had some downtime right away, so that meant a chance to catch up on devotions. Late in the morning, we started to mix the solutions need to do some tie-dye t-shirts. Boy, did they enjoy that activity. And what a mess. The shirts turned out awesome! Saturday afternoon was spend doing some more activities with teens. The girls made purses and the guys made bracelets with hemp rope. The kids are so good with their hands. We though we might have to teach them some of the braiding, but they taught us a few we hadn´t practiced. That evening, Loys taught a lesson. After the lesson each of the teens was given a piece of paper to write their sins down on. They each went off privately and wrote them down. We then gathered for a bonfire and they where reminded of the lesson and that their sins would be forgiven if they would only confess them to God. They confess their sins by writing them down and then throwing them into the fire! What an awesome moment to see these twenty realized what they were doing symbolized! The evening was capped off by a movie.

Now to Sunday morning! Breakfast at 9 a.m......church at 10 a.m. I can´t tell you how awesome the music worship was. If you ever have a chance to go to a Spanish service....you must go! It was so uplifting! There was dancing in the isles and a beautiful chorus! This is were the emotions start to get to me. Sometime between Saturday night and Sunday after the service 12 kids gave their live to Christ! Amazing! Seven of those twelve were baptized this morning! I was double blessed Sunday morning! I sent two pictures to some of you last year! You will remember that I asked each of you to keep these kids in your thoughts and prayers! One of the pictures that I sent to you was of a young girl 14 years old, that I became close with last year. She was one of those that was baptized and I got to help baptize her! I am an emotional wreck!!!!!

If that wasn´t enough! The first night that we were at the camp, I was pulled aside by Loys and Francisco, another of the men from our group that translates a lot for us. They wanted to share a story with me. The young girl, Carolina(Galy), that I got close to, doesn´t have a father. I sent her a picture of the two of us last year after we returned. Well, when Fathers Day came around and they did a project on Fathers Day at school, she didn´t have a picture to take with! She took the one I sent and did the project and has it framed and hanging on the wall in her house!

I could take nothing else from this week and feel totally content! I have received all of my blessings in 3 days! However, I know there is more to come!

There is more to come....tomorrow is an off day. We are going into Trujillo to do some shopping. We are told that some of the women from the barrio have a micro-business sewing sweaters and ponchos from Alpaca.

Until tomorrow!
God Bless from Peru!

PS. I have to figure out if I can upload pictures from this internet cafe! Keep checking back.