The trip of a lifetime...Photojournal

So, I´m liking the idea of doing photojournals for these trips, so forgive the pictures =)

Our plane the beautiful mountain city we flew into to take a 6 hr. bus to the destination town. When we finally got there, our friend met us there, and we went to go find a hostal and get situated. It was late, so our friend went back to his house, and we went to bed. That next morning, we went out to grab breakfast and ended up finding some women who wanted to study the Bible later that day. It turned out to be something much bigger than that. =)

We brought an audioBible in Quechua, which is their native language. We were sitting around listening to Luke about when Jesus died on the cross.

We also brought bracelets with symbols explaining the gospel on them. So that gave us some opportunities to talk to people about the gospel.

Look who I found in the street! So cute...

Two ladies that I got to talk to for a little while, and a precious little boy that just liked hanging out there with us.

Part of a family that was walking by

Mom and baby

Many of the woman in this town carry all kinds of things on their back...sometimes their children, sometimes clothes or food or things they have bought.

Cuties.

Explaining: Jesús Cristo vino a la tierra, muro en la cruz, resucito al tercer día, se fue al cielo, y algun día va a regresar para las personas que han dado su vida a él. (Jesus Christ came to the earth, died on the cross, rose again the thrid day, went to heaven, and one day he will come back for the people that have given their lives to Him.)

One of the ladies let me borrow an extra hat she had.

Lauren sharing her heart with a woman.

This kid was sooo cute.

 

This precious woman was 28 years old but looked like she could have been 40 or 50. She had some kind of sickness that made her whole body ache. She´d had this for about a year. I asked her if I could pray for her. She said yes. I also got to talk with her and then one of my Christian Peruvian friends came up and started talking to us, and he shared his testamony with her. It was such a cool moment, because it was the first time my friend had shared his testamony with someone other than Lauren and I.

This girl is 13 years old. She sells tea in the street every day to earn money for her and her 9 brothers and sisters. She invited us to her house and we went...

This is us inside of her house with two of her brothers. We found out that three of the ten kids live in an orpahange down the road, and the other 7 live in a tiny tiny room that they rent with a part upstairs that I´m sure was probably just about as small. The father left some time ago, so they have to make do with whatever money the mom and her kids can bring in. 

Precious boys.

This was the son of the sixteen-year old sister....makes 9 living under one tiny roof.

They only go to school for 3 hours a day, and one the way to walking them to school that night, we stopped by school supply shop and Lauren bought them a few school supplies. What a precious family. Such sweet memories that I will never forget.

The following day, we woke up and went to the local nursing home to do a quick Bible study and some activities with the people there.

Many of the people here look like they are so much older than they are. Many of them have had such hard lives. None of them sleep there, because there are not the funds to be able to support people actually living there. The people come from about 8 in the morning to about 2 in the afternoon. They eat breakfast and lunch there and work on things like studying Spanish (most of them speak Quechua), working in the garden, sewing, cooking, and many of them are able to get a bath as well.

We taught them a few songs, and they were so great to sing and clap along with us!

This precious man was so involved in what we were doing.

We walked to the back of the compound and found these ladies making yarn out of wool. This is a common practice called ¨hilando.¨

This was such a neat experience. It´s crazy to think that 40 or 50 years ago some of these precious ladies were my age.

Next, headed out to see a place I´d been dreaming about seeing for a while now. Lauren had told me that this was the most beautiful place she´d seen in Peru, and after I´d seen it, I agreed. It´s called ¨Three Canyons.¨

Look! I can do stunts!! Hehe.

The bridge made out of hay.

Motorcyle crossing hay bridge.

It´s okay. Be jeaous. It was pretty awesome. =) You can see the ¨three canyons¨ in the background.

This is the type of houses many of the families live in when they work in the ¨campo¨or field (Three Canyons is located in this type of terrain). Most of the family spend a good part of their year working in the campo to harvest potatoes and other food. The families eat or sell what they produce, but it is a major part of life in the mountains.

Hiking on up

Lauren dancing with a woman who also took her necklace...hhahah oh the stories.

Another bridge we crossed.

 

A woman that was resting at the end of the bridge.

Llamita!!! (a little llama)

We headed back to the town to eat dinner and headed to bed. What a great day!

The next day, one of our friends invited us to come eat lunch at her house...there is our picnic lunch (so yummy...potatoes and home made cheese) and then we headed back to the bus station to catch our bus and flight back to Lima. God did so many amazing things during this trip. Again, I can not put pictures or mention names of the sweet friends we hung out with, but we were able to leave materials with our friend, and he is going to start a house church there. It was such a great time to get to hang out with him and get to talk about what God is doing in his life. We were also able to have a prayer time with him, which was a really cool experience. Please pray for the housechurch he is starting, as well as the one that will be started in the other mountain city I blogged about below. Blessings!

Roadtrip: Peruvian style. Pics.

I didn´t get a chance to put up all the pics of the roadtrip I blogged about in the last blog...so here is a little bit of a recap of the trip in pics =)

Lauren and I sitting in the bus station...waiting for our bus that was an hour late =)

After the eight hour bus ride to this little mountain town, this is what greeted us.

We headed to the central location that most Peruvian towns have. It´s called ¨La Plaza de Armas¨ and it´s kinda the equivelent of the city square. Trying to figure out where we needed to start on our search for our friend. Ready, Set, GO!!!! Treasure hunt Peru style =)

But first things first. Gotta fully wake up with some good strong Peruvian coffee.

One of the first people we came in contact with was another American missionary. We met in the street as he was on his way back from his English class. Things like this don´t just ´¨happen¨...God totally guided our steps...we met so many neat people that day.  He led us to a Peruvain friend who was able to give us some other pointers on where we should look next for our friend.

So this Peruvian friend also let us go up on the roof of his house and see a great view of the city.


In a ¨combi¨on our way to another location...still haven´t found our friend.


Entrance to the mine. In Peru, the mine is a symbol of weath and brings many jobs. The workers and their families many times live in some type of gated community which may include a school, community center, etc. We suspected our friend might be teaching in this school...so we went to find out. Turns out, friend wasn´t there.


We stopped by a store outside the mine to get a quick snack. We ended up talking to the lady that worked there. She was 37, I think and had two kids. She was Catholic but understood having a relationship with Christ. It was so neat to get to spend some time with her. She did not give her life to Christ, but she said that she felt like God sent us to her that day.

Some of the sights along the way.





We ended up going to several more places, and spending almost the entire day looking for our friend, but about 5:00, Lauren was able to get in contact with a mutual friend who knew where our friend was.

Amanda and I in the taxi on the way to our next destination. We finally found our friend, and they were so surprised! I can not publish names or pics, but let me tell you...it was so great to get to see them, a fellow Christian and get to encourage and be encouraged by them. It was cool to get to see their life and hear what God is doing in their life. We were able to leave quite a bit of house church planting material with them, and they are starting a house church!!! Praise the Lord! House church number 3!!!!

Okay. Confession. That night when we all went to dinner, Amanda and I did something we had never done in over the 1 year we have both lived in Peru. We ate guinea pig. Yes, we did. It´s a typical food for the mountain city where we were.

Later that night, after we got to talk to the homeless people (which I talked about in the blog below) we went to the local market to look around. Such a great day. Afterwards we headed back and got ready to head to the bus station for the 8 hour bus ride back to Lima. Amazing memories.

P.S. Amanda was our photographer for this trip, so you can thank her for these amazing pics. =)

The Perfect Day.

Well, our perfect day started out Thursday night. I grabbed coffee with a friend I met at Bible study and we got to have some really good conversation about what it means to follow Christ...what the difference is between religion and finding the truth in really knowing God. This girl is amazing, and it is crazy cool to watch the things God is doing in her life.  So much fun.

We went to one of our missionary friend´s birthday parties in Surco and then went to the bus station to get on an 8 hour bus that would take us to a mountain town where one of our friends lives. She has been living there for a little while, but wants to start a house church and needed some English materials. She is a strong Christian who we had been able to spend a lot of time with when we first came to Peru. She actually came to know Christ through some conversations she and Lauren had. So, she is someone that has been with us from the very beginning, and is very dear to our hearts. However, this is where the story gets fun. She didn´t have a cell phone, and hadn´t got online in a few days (which was unusual...). So, while Lauren had sent her messages beforehand telling her we were coming, we had no way to get in contact with her. So, the fun began. We got off the bus in her town and eventually ended up at the main square. None of us had been to this town before (We invited one of our other friends, Amanda, to go with us, so it was us three.) Anyways, we started asking a few random people if they knew our friend, and they did! Unfortunately, they didn´t know where she lived. They did however, have some idea about where she might be. So, it was like a treasure hunt!

We got a cup of coffee and found a hostal to leave our stuff in, and headed out to a couple of schools where we thought she might be teaching. Each place we went, the Lord opened up doors for us. In our search to find her, the Lord put specific people in our path, and we got to talk to them about the Lord. One of the first people we found was a Christian American missionary. (coincidence??? hahaha. don´t think so). We were trying to find one of these schools and Lauren spotted him. We figured he would probably be able to help us, so we started yelling at him in Spanish, but he didn´t respond. So then we tried in English. Bam, baby! He turned around, and turns out, he had lived in San Antonio Texas and had been in Peru with his wife for 7 months, along with another young couple. He was able to take us to the house of a Peruvian who was able to give us some more information on where our friend might be. While we were at his house, a neighbor lady walked by and told us to go up to the top story of her house and look at the view. So we did. Here´s what it looked like. We could see the whole city. So cool.

Lauren, Amanda and I

So we continued our search for our friend, and continued to meet people with whom we were able to talk to about the Lord. A director of a Catholic school in a gated commuinty. A precious lady that worked outside the gated commuinty in a little store. Security guards, taxi drivers, so many people. We ended up having to go to another nearby city, and when we got there, it reminded us of the scenery in the Sound of Music. Amanda and I tried to sing and record one of the songs to SOM, but it failed miserably cause we kept laughing. Anyways, finally made it back to our hostal and took a nap and headed to the internet to try to see if our friend had written us back. She hadn´t, BUT, Lauren ended up being able to get in touch with someone who knew where she stayed. And, WE FOUND HER!!! Hahah it was great..she walked out of her front door, and there we were! We went to eat dinner together, and Amanda and I decided to try cuy for the first time. So we ate alpaca burgers and cuy. It was great. But more than the food, the sweet time of fellowship that we got to share was so much fun. It was great getting to sit there with our friend and share our struggles, joys, etc.

Well, after dinner, she had class, so Lauren, Amanda and I decided to ¨pasear¨ (we don´t really have an English word for this...it just means to walk around and see what´s going on... haha) since we really hadn´t time to look around and just hang out. Well, we walked around for about 6 minutes and then we came across some homeless people. I walked past this one person whom I didn´t know if it was a man or woman, but they were groaning and yelling loudly, and no one seemed to hear.

A homeless woman.

I walked past her (turned out to be a woman) once, turned around, and knew I should go back. I eventually worked up the courage to go over to her and I started talking to her. I asked her why she was crying. She just looked at me for a little while, and kept on crying. I told her that we have a God who we can spend eternity with and that there is no pain or tears in this place. She took my hand and put it on her chest. She had some sort of tumor or something I think. I asked her if I could pray for her. I started praying in Spanish and ran out of words. Started praying in English. I asked God to heal her and as I was praying I asked the Lord to show me what to pray for. I just kept praying. I got to share the gospel with her, and she started telling me a long story about her life I think and I guess about the tumor. I couldn´t exactly tell because she was only moaning and using hand signs to explain things. She kept motioning about things that involved pain and death, but it was more like she was telling me a story of things that had happened to her. I tried to imagine her life. I can´t imagine some of the things she has probably been through. I kept asking the Lord what I was supposed to do...a million things ran through my mind, but I just kept waiting for Him to tell me. I sat there and listened to her for a little while, and then feeling the Lord say it was okay to leave, I gave her a kiss on the cheek and left.

I hope I never forget this encounter with this woman.

Well, ended up heading over to the market and looking around there for a little while and then headed back to meet up with our friend who was done with class. The rest of the night included hanging out with her, going over church planting and English stuff, getting showers and getting packed and heading to the bus station to get on the bus back to Lima. I could not have asked for a better day. It was incredible, and although we had no idea what the day would hold when we came, the Lord totally directed our path. So many more things happened that I did not include in this blog, but I am assured now more than ever that the Lord truly does direct our steps as we walk in faith. We now have a community of friends in another city a day´s journey away, and we were only there for a day. Not something we could have done by ourselves, and we know that. Thank you Lord for leading us and guiding us. And thank you for your protection. I am so thankful for the opportunity to live this life.

 

Woman in traditional dress.

Hmmm....

Well, friends, today has been a little hard. Your prayers would be much appreciated. God is closing a door that I never thought would be closed, but it´s okay. He is sovereign and He knows best, and I give Him all the glory for the amazing things that continue to happen in Peru.

Went to talk to the prisions, and that turned out to be a bigger thing than I expected. Turns out, we need to establish a Peruvian non profit organization to be able to go to more than one prision. So, work cut out =)

Kinda at a loss for words on this blog...more to come later.

Blessings.

Employee day, Mexican fiestas and Prison

So yesterday was pretty flippin sweet. We had house church as usual and Lauren and I had to split up because she and Alvaro needed to go study the Bible and I needed to go to the doctor with the lady that is the hostess of our house church. So their Biblestudy went really well, and Lauren thinks the lady will become a Christian soon. Things with me and this senora did not go so well...come to find out, her DNI (peruvian form of identification) was expired and so she would not be able to get healthcare without that AND everything was closed or emergency only because Sunday was...Employee Day. Yes. Not kidding. Anyways, I think this lady has cataracts and so she is probably going to need surgery...as well as a new DNI that is not expired (not expensive). So, please be praying for this situation.


Our landlady and her family over for a Mexican fiesta (yes…it was leftovers…don´t judge =) Anyways, way cool cause like one of the first things they asked was what the symbols meant that were painted on the wall above the dining room table. These symbols are the arrows, cross and tomb that explain the gospel. It was Lauren´s idea to put them up there, so pretty cool that it is obvious enough to ask about, and that we get to explain the gospel every time someone asks. So anyways, we got to actually talk about the gospel several different times that night which was really cool. Her parents were there, and they were from the jungle, and it was so fun just getting to know her family. We were explaining what a blessing and miracle it was that we found this house, and she too told us that she had been praying for just the right people to move in.


Anyways, the night was great, and Nicchola came too and ended up staying after they left, and he, Lauren and I finished watching The Proposal which just happens to be one of my favorite movies. So we did that and ate some ice cream and Nicchola left and we went to bed.


So please continue to pray for all of the people that had dinner with us last night. The family as well as Nicchola. I know God is working on Nicchola´s heart, and it´s so cool to see.


Today was really good too. I worked on my newsletter and got it sent out (FINALLY) and then we went to the orphanage to do a late Easter event with the smaller kids’ houses. That went well. Some of the older kids that help out in the houses started asking me some tough questions and told me that the religion teacher there was teaching evolution and that Eve was a prostitute. This made me mad. The evolution thing is easer to talk about because that’s a more common one, but Eve being a prostitute? Really? Uggg. I told them that she was not, and that I would do some research on how reproduction happened in those first days (hmmmm should be a fun topic…) and then get back to them. So more than anything, my heart was burdened for the kids that are getting all this false information in school. Uggg. Please pray that God will protect their minds. Anyways, we got 4 of the 15 house Bible studies at the orphanage done, and looking forward to getting the others done sometime this weekend probably.


Tomrrow, I am going to the prison to talk to them about Lauren, Alvaro and I doing prison ministry. The minor crimes men´s prison is like 20 minutes from our house so doing ministry there would be cool. With Alvaro of course =) Alvaro was so funny…he told us that he was going to change his vocabulary when we went to the prison, that he was going to talk in a whole lot of slang (which, he already uses slang all the time), so this should be fun. Hahaha.


Anyways, point is, please pray for tomorrow, that the meeting will go well.


Also, just personally, I am dealing with a lot of negative thinking. So many awesome things happen, and I end up thinking about all the negative things…like how something could have gone differently or mainly just things personal faults or flaws and I focus on those. Please pray that God will help me to make an active pursuit against Satan´s schemes and that instead I will focus on the Lord and meditate on His thoughts about me and on scripture. Thanks!

Calm before the Storm

Ahhh. Finally time to sit down and write about things here. We finally got our tentative weekly schedule set for the rest of the year. I guess you could call it more of a routine. Now it´s just a matter of putting it into practice.


Yesterday I read a verse that really hit me hard. It was talking about sharing the gospel out of duty verses sharing out of desire.

Can I just be honest for a moment? I many times don´t have an overwhelming desire to share the gospel, but it´s more of something that I feel compelled to do. Yesterday as I went about the day going to the orphanage, going to the market and the grocery store, there were several people that I came into contact with that I felt I should pray for in passing or witness to. But there was one particular lady that was sitting on the steps of the clinic at the orphanage and I just wanted to share the gospel with her. It was kind of one of those things that I was out the door before I realized what was happening. For the first time, I am realizing the difference between telling someone about Jesus out of duty and doing it out of desire and love. There are certain people that the Holy Spirit leads me to talk to, but I am seeing that just rambling off a story that I´ve said 5,000 times with a glazed over look in my eyes is not witnessing out of love. I think I am honestly scared to witness out of love, because it involves a deep sense of sincerity and being transparent. Granted, these things come pretty easily within friends but to a stranger? That is hard. Real hard.

I am just burdened even more to pray that God will do something in the hearts of the people that live in this city. No matter how many times I tell them that Jesus died and rose again for them, and that we can´t be ¨good enough¨ to get to heaven, they will not give their lives to Christ until the Holy Spirit works in them. But this requires me to be vulnerable. Jesus was. Sooo vulnerable. I walk down the dirty street of such a poor city and my heart is overcome with a deep sense of sadness that most of these people have not found security in Christ.

I am praying too that God will send more people to our team…after doing our weekly schedule, it´s easy to see that things this year are going to be crazy, and there are only two of us. Three when Alvaro is there. I know that God has given us more than what we need to do what He has called us to do, but I can´t help but think how our time would be multiplied with more people who are here long term. So, please join us in prayer for this.

Things we´ve been doing around here…we´re putting the final touches on the house and breaking in the new appliances! Such a blessing. Pics to come!
Please pray against fear in my life. It is something that I struggle with on a daily basis. Fear because of where we live. Fear of failure. Fear of the unknown. Un-rational fear. I know that perfect love casts out fear, so please pray that I will not only have a deeper understanding of his love in my life, but that it would truly fill me.

Met with a teacher that I worked with last year to help him with an English class he is teaching. He admitted to me that he wanted to be more ¨religious, ¨ and I explained that it´s not about religion but about a relationship with Christ. I invited him to come to one of our house churches, so please pray that he will come.

Also, another cool thing happened today. Last night, we had our Mexican Fiesta night with our gringo missionary friends here, and we also had a prayer time. During this prayer time, the other missionaries prayed that our landlady would come to know Christ, without Lauren or I really saying anything about it. Of course this has been on our hearts since the day we met her, and we have been witnessing to her, but she has not given her life to Christ yet. We decided to invite them over for dinner tomorrow, and guess what, 10 of them are supposed to come!!! Not only the landlady, but her parents that live in the jungle and a bunch of her other family too! Please pray that we will really share Christ with them and that they would have open hearts.

¨If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.¨ Romans 10:9

Shaun, Amanda, Mark, Lauren and I. What a fun night.

I painted the the verse on the wall above the stairwell =)