So, just to get you caught up to date… I’ve been In Peru for about three weeks now. When we left Chile we had about a 72 hour bus ride from Santiago to Cuzco, Peru. On that long and adventurous ride one of our buses broke down for 13 hours in the middle of the desert. So while we were stranded the only thing we could find to do was to climb one of the big sand hills. It definitely provided a great view once we reached the top. Meanwhile, the bus driver kept trying to fix the bus but he was unable to fix it. He had the other bus driver to walk back to try to get supplies or help and as you can imagine she came back empty handed. He continued trying to fix the bus but it just wouldn’t work. Eventually they were able to get another bus for us. As we continued on, every now and then we would drive by the coast line and get a glimpse of the Pacific. When we were driving more inland, it was all desert, desert, desert… got to love the desert! I’m pretty sure the reason why people see a mirage is because there is literally nothing out there so their minds have to create something to try to save their sanity. I know now that I don’t like the desert very much. I was about to go crazy! For example,when we were in the southern part of Peru, I woke up from sleeping and I looked outside. I saw what appeared to be the moon, but I looked around and everything was lit up like it was daytime. So I was obviously confused!
We eventually got to Cuzco. Here we had our debrief, which is a time when we have sessions about various things to find out where we are at spiritually, mentally, etc. We also have one-on-one time with our leaders, so that they can teach us and disciple us and also a time where we get to see the other teams and hear what they have been up to. Our debrief this time was at a hostile, for those of you who do not know what that is…a hostile is like a hotel except you rent out a bed and share a room with several other people. There are seven other guys on my squad, so I was able to share the room with just them. So far this was my favorite hostile. It’s called the Millhouse. It is three stories tall and has two courtyards and has a bar, where you could get Alpaca burgers(which was my favorite kind of burger now). We were also allowed to explore the city. I was able to explore some churches, which is one of my favorite things to do while traveling. I love to see the beautiful art and architecture.
After my exploring and once debrief was over we headed to our ministry host’s house on a bus. The bus took us along the outskirts of the city to the host’s house. We then met our host, Tim. When we had our first meting with Tim, he basically said that he was going to let the Lord do what he wants to do this month, and that’s what this month has looked like. Instead of finding work for us to do right away, he asks the Lord to guide us and we have a meeting every day at 9:30 to 12:00 just to talk about the Lord and the different ways we are seeing him. So after we eat at 12:00 each day, we go out and do some ministry. We first divide into groups. One time my group consisted of me, Joel, and Justus. Our job that day was to do some painting at the Josephine Orphanage. We painted the stairwell and the second floor and the doors. We also put up some fencing at our ministry host’s house. One day we went to a little village. out in the middle of nowhere up in the mountains. We worked with a church up there and brought a truck full of supplies and dirt for them. We helped to tile the floor of the church. and helped to move bricks around and somehow in the midst of all of this, I became the designated painter.
Another thing that we have done with our ministry host is watch some really good movies. One movie that we watched was The Shack, it was a great movie, it will definitely give you a different perspective of God and a better perspective of his love for us. We also watched a movie called Silence, this movie is about a missionary in Japan who goes missing and two other missionaries go to Japan to find him. This movie definitely stretched my perspective of grace. In addition, even when we are not doing ministry we are discipling one another. It has been a really good time.
On my next blog I will answer some of your questions. So please leave a comment here with your questions! Thank you again for all of your love and support.
