Between in 7:00-8:00am -Three different people’s alarms go off. I didn’t set mine, usually my body wakes me up but not today. I couldn’t make myself get out of my sleeping bag, so I started to write a blog in my head. Definitely need to make sure I type it out before I forget.
8:30am – Brush teeth, wash face and put on some dirty clothes – really, really need to do some laundry but I want to do it as close to Saturday as possible make sure I enter Bolivia with as many clean clothes as I can.
9:00am – Breakfast at the church where three amazing women make us every meal. Yea for some instant coffee with milk and sugar!
10:00/10:30am – Meet up with some Peruvian young adults to play some basketball but when we get to the playing area, a nearby Collegio (what we would call high school) is having their physical education class. I talked to three girls who were watching the boys play soccer. In Laredo we were told the boys play soccer and the girls (and boys) play volleyball. We talked a little bit about who we are and why we are in Laredo and then they had to head back to school.
10:45am – We played b-ball (well I just watched and cheered today) and caught up on some journaling. I am writing down what we do in a calendar ever day so that when I get back home I can remember.
10:50am – Heard my name being called and looked up to see two of the girls from the school that I had been chatting with earlier. They asked me for my Facebook name.
12:00pm – Went to the market to get some fruit on the way to the house of a guy that we had been playing basketball with all month. He didn’t play today but the other Peruvians we were with told us that they wanted to show us his art. I was like, okay we’ll go see some drawings and a sculpture…that will be cool. Wow! This man has been gifted. His art is powerful. There was a picture on the wall that he said represented Peru. It was of a down trodden man sitting on top of a scorpion like horn that was filled with money. This was set in a desert where all the trees and animals were dead. One of the other youth we were with told me that it meant that Peru has all these natural resources but the people are still poor, a disparity between the rich and the poor. There was another wooden sculpture of a head that had metal bullets in it. He said it represented children in terrorism, kids who have to be child soldiers. The one that got me the most was a sculpture of this woman who was kneeling down and had no arms. Next to her was this dead baby and the look on this woman’s face was so filled with pain and anguish and despair. The artist said that the baby had been aborted and that the woman had no arms because she had no way to help her baby or herself. I am starting to tear up just thinking about it.
1:00pm – Lunch of rice, beans, and goat meat followed up by an orange
2:15-4:00pm – The pastor told us the first day we were here that this is siesta time usually but we have been doing different things during these hours depending on the day. Sometimes we worship in the park, sometimes we sit in the park and talk to people. Today we did our Team Time. This usually consists of our team talking about general areas of discussion and then having feedback, which is a time to call each other up and out by giving positive and constructive feedback. Then one person gets to pick what else we would like to do, for example one day we drew a picture and asked each other questions. Today we took some quiet time to do some blogging or take a nap. I needed to get working on some blogs about our time in Peru. Look for those coming soon.
4:00pm – Today we went to four homes of people who attend the church to pray over families. Our contacts told us the purpose was to help strengthen the people who go to the church, encourage them and share Jesus’ love with them. We were reminded that it doesn’t matter if we speak the language, that our actions can be just as powerful as our words. We visited a young couple who just had a baby and we stopped at a woman’s house and prayed over her, her daughter, and her grandchildren. The one guy in our two teams (we are with Team Qodesh this month) looked at me and said the Lord was telling him someone else should pray for this family and the way he knew who it was because the little girl sitting in the grandmothers lap, looked at me and grunted. I think that is so cool! I prayed, Holy Spirit give me the words and thankfully the Holy Spirit knows no language barriers. Our last stop was a family that is just characterized by love. The oldest son has been one of the youth who have walked us around, hung out with us, and shared his heart with us. The youngest son is just hilarious and fun and the mom always has a hug and smile for us. It felt so wonderful to be able to pray blessing over them.
7:00pm – Dinner of spaghetti and some mystery meat that was sort of like a cross between hotdog and Vienna sausage and coffee!
9:00pm – Hanging out with the youth, finishing up some blogs, having some team time.
After 10:00pm – Bedtime 🙂
