Yes, I’m still alive…sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything! Let’s see where to begin…our last few days in Guatemala were wonderful, but there were a few very sad goodbyes. I was encouraged by that though, because hard goodbyes mean that real relationships were formed! The students in our English class threw us an amazing goodbye party complete with games, food, presents, and a huge thank you card. They even bought us ice cream!
Our other special goodbye came from all the American missionaries. They all came out to the bus stop to cheer us on and send us off. To Teri, Allen, Jen, Adele, Mike, Kasia, Lungi, and Leisl: THANK YOU so much for loving us and treating us like family during our time in Panajachel! We will miss you. God bless you, WE LOVE YOU GUYS!!!
Our travel to Nicaragua was pretty uneventful…just another long 2 day bus ride. We had to travel through El Salvador and Honduras to get there, unfortunately we didn’t get stamps in our passports for either of them.
It was fun being reunited with the B squad, and debrief was a great time to hear what all the other groups have been up to for the last month. We were blessed to get to stay at a beautiful campsite right on Lake Nicaragua. The beach was a great place to relax and decompress for a few days. Here are a few pictures of all our debrief fun.
Candice after knee surgery…remember the tumble off the waterfall 2 months ago????
There was a sandcastle building contest for all the teams. We decided to make…A YETI!
Worship on the beach…with an unexpected guest!
Just chillin…
We left Thursday morning and headed off to the AIRPORT!! We were all excited for our first plane trip together (up to this point we’ve only traveled by bus and van.) Our flight to Peru left around 3:30pm with a layover in Panama City. We arrived in Lima, Peru at 11:30pm. Praise the Lord everyone’s luggage arrived safe and sound and we made it through customs and immigration without any problems. Our AIM contacts in Peru are Bob and Becky Cooley. They met us at the airport, and by 12:45am we were on our way to the church (our home for 2 days) we got to the church at 2am, and were greeted with hugs, kisses, and open arms by about 10 people from the church. They were so gracious and welcoming and stayed until about 3am to make sure we all got settled in ok, and were back in the morning to have breakfast ready for us by 8am. This church is amazing and I am so excited that we get to work with them for a month.
I’ll be writing more about this later, but I have honestly never felt more loved by a group of people in my life. These people love Jesus so much, and it just spills over into the way they love us. They have the most amazing servant hearts.
God is doing some awesome things here in Lima, and we are so blessed to get to be a part of it. We talked to the Pastor Moises yesterday and he gave us some details about what we’ll be doing with our time here. I’m excited that there is at least some structure with a rough outline of “projects” so we’re not just starting from scratch like we have in our last 2 places. Our main project is going to be planting a church in an area called Lomo de Corvina. There is a piece of land here that has been donated by the city and will eventually be the physical site of a new church. During our time here we will be doing evangelism in that area as well as encouraging the Christians who are already there. Our goal is to get them connected with each other and form a church body. The leaders of the church we’re working with will be doing all the follow up and discipleship so the new believers will have a way to get connected and start growing right away. There is also the possibility that we will be able to begin construction on the church building. In addition we’ll be running several church services, doing VBS, going into the schools and preaching, and doing some sports ministry. Pastor Moises is so excited that we’re here, but he doesn’t want to be selfish with us, so he’s planning to “share the wealth” with a few other churches in the area as well. We’ll be traveling to a couple other churches, but I don’t have many details about that yet. As you can probably tell, we’re going to be very busy here! As far as our living situation goes, two people from the church have opened up their homes for our teams this month which is another huge blessing. Our team, Salt, 4 media team members and 2 translators are staying together in one house. That’s 18 people with 1 bathroom…need I say more! Team 61, Team L.O., and the other 3 translators are staying in another house across town. And in case you didn’t catch that, yes, we actually have 5 translators this month!!! WOOHOO!!! Bob Cooley did an awesome job of setting them up for us and it will be so beneficial to have them as part of our team. And last but not least, the church ladies have offered to cook for us! 3 meals a day ALL MONTH! What a blessing to not have to worry about shopping and cooking! So there’s a little run down of where we are and what we’re doing…Next…I’m sure you’re dying to hear about the race! (well at least I’m dying to tell you) So stay tuned…
