Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Family and Friends,

I can not tell you how proud I am of my team. This has been an amazing week and it is hard to believe that tomorrow is the last day. It has been so rewarding.

This morning we were met by about 50 kids this morning. Loys and his team had activities all set up for the kids. We fed them, told them a story about Noah and the Ark and did our butterfly craft. We used coffee filters colored with water color markers, then sprayed them with water so the colors mixed and made little antena out of pipe cleaners to make a butterfly. The kids, ranging in age 3 to 5, had a great time creating the butterfly.

We spent most of the early part of the afternoon getting ready for our party with the youth. These would be age 13 to 20 year olds. We decorated the community center with ballons and streamers and then got ready for an obstacle course rely race. Let me explain....we put three poles in the ground....set up tires for the agility part of it and a beam for the last part of the course. It was the gringos vs. the Peruanas......Here is how it worked....seven people to a side for seven seperate stations. The first two people had to pop a series of three ballons....one with confetti, one with water and one with flour. The second person also had to jump rope three times.... Person number three(me..no one else wanted to risk getting sick from the water) had to bob for two apples and move them from one container to the next. Person four ran the tires...person five had to move four glasses of a peruvian corn drink under, over and under ropes and then fill a container at the other end before tagging person number five. Person six had to walk two beams and person number seven had to eat five marshmellows. After person seven eat the marshmellows....all seven had to fit into a small tent and zip it up and the time was recorded. Best time won. The gringos came in 3rd.....not bad considering our seven probably could equal 12 peruana. LOL Great fun!

Kris gave a talk to the teens about the possibilitys they have to change the way their lives are by just following Christ and gave her testimony and then we shared a meal with the teens. These kids crave the attention just like the little ones do, but are often the ones that get forgetten because they are more grown up.

One more day in the barrio. We are going to finish up some work tomorrow and then I am going to have the last word. I have been asked to talk to the community leaders about leadership. It will not be long and the Loys and Theresa will move to another barrio and start over. They will not leave this barrio high and dry. They will still spend time there, but the concentration will be to start helping another barrio come to Christ and build leadership! I think it is somewhat fitting that the last word will come from me on this my last trip leading. Makes me sad to think about it!

I know I have not posted pictures the last couple of nights. I will post some when I get back to the Valley. It has been a bit busy the last couple of days....trying find the right words to put into my lesson and to make them meaningful! Keep me in your prayers over the next 24 hours that I can give my brothers and sisters in the barrio the right encouragement and that God gives me the right words. Pray for Kris too....she has to translate on the fly for me!

Love to all!

Mitch