Hard to believe another week has flown by already! As I stop
to catch my breath, I’ll do my best to fill you in on a little bit of what’s
been happening around here.
Tues. night we were invited over to the pastor’s house for a
cell group meeting. It ended up just being the 4 pastors from the church with
our team, but it was a lot of fun. We enjoyed some cake (which they made us smash our faces in before they’d let us eat it!), great conversation,
and prayer time.
Wednesday was a crazy busy day! We started out visiting 2
schools in the morning. The first one we went to was huge! All the kids were
lined up outside in perfectly straight rows waiting for our presentation. I was
amazed at how respectful and well behaved they were. The discipline at this
school seemed pretty intense. They even had the school’s motto written on the
side of the building. “Order, Respect, Responsibility, Discipline, Studies, Work.” Our
presentation went pretty well, and we got the chance to perform one of our new
dramas “The Sin Chair.” The second school we visited was a little more laid
back and had a huge age range of kids from probably 5-12.
That afternoon we went into the Industrial Park area of
Villa el Salvador
for what we thought was going to be street evangelism, but we actually ended up
hanging out in a furniture store all afternoon. Apparently the woman who owns
the store is a new believer who had asked us to come and pray for her and talk
with all her employees. They actually closed the store for a couple hrs, and
rearranged a few of the furniture displays so we could all sit down and talk. This
was probably one of the biggest highlights of my trip thus far. My group got to
talk to about 7 young people between the ages of 18-26. They were very open and
honest with us about their lives, their struggles, and their faith (of lack
thereof.)
One guy had just gotten back from the church retreat (see Candice’s
blog for details about the retreat) and was totally on fire for God. One of the
men was struggling with his wife because she wanted to raise their son
catholic, and he wanted to raise him evangelical. A young girl was struggling
with family abuse and trying to hold her family together. Another said that
he’s stayed away from church largely in part because of all the hypocrisy and division
he’s seen and experienced. And yet another young man told us that he knows he
needs God eventually, but he wants to have fun and enjoy life before he turns
to God and has to give it all up. He’s also scared that if he does commit to
God that he’s not going to be able to stick with the commitment and it won’t
take long before his life is right back where he started. He’s scared of
failing God. He would rather not try at all, then to try and fail. It was
incredible to hear all their different stories and just be able to sit and talk
and answer questions with them. I could relate so much to just about everything
they were saying…the triumphs and the struggles…
the questions and doubts mixed
with the desire for truth and hope. My heart was heavy for them and I just
wanted to give them hope. For the first time in a long time, I spoke with words
that were genuine and real, not just the canned answer of, “Jesus loves you and
that makes everything ok.” I had motivation and passion to share love with them
from my heart, not just because it was the next thing on the schedule for the
day. After our conversations we got to pray for them individually. They were
all very open and receptive to what we had to say. .I would love to go back and
do some follow up to see if any of them made it to the church service we
invited them to Sunday night.
Thursday morning was spent up at Lomo de Corvina. And when I
say “up” I mean UP! It’s a good 10 walk uphill to get to this little town, then
you have to climb a huge staircase that looks like it’s been built into the
side of a big sand dune. We go there 3-4 days a week to build relationships and
minister to the people there in whatever ways we can. Mostly we’re just getting
to know them and building trust. Eventually there will be church built, but
because we’ve run into some problems with local officials it doesn’t look like
we’ll actually get to be part of that while we’re here. So for now, we’re
trying to find the current and new believers and get them connected with each
other. Here’s a few pictures of Lomo.
A lot of time this week has also been spent this week
preparing dramas. Since we perform them at every school visit, many church
services, and now the outdoor youth events; we needed to have a few more
learned, practiced, and ready to go. It’s been a lot of fun being a part of the
drama team and the worship team here. I feel like I’m finally starting to find
my fit a little more within the team. I love it!
I’ll leave you with a few highlights of me and Kari
exploring Lima
on our days off last week.
Much Love!
