So these past 2 weeks have been an extreme blessing to me.
The reason I say this is because the Lord has given me an opportunity to serve
in a way that I know best. Soccer, youth, and team time.
Coming into these 2 weeks of ministry in Iquitos
was a bit nerve racking for me at first. I was just coming off of being
extremely ill (in my mind), our ministry days were going to be long, and we
were going to be spending purposeful time in our small 5 person teams for the
first time this trip. Our 5 leaders set a schedule up so we weren’t all running
away from what our ministry contacts had in mind for us.
And so the first obstacle to deal with was health. I have a
hard time in heat and I still was recovering from some sort of 24 hour bug. The
second thing was long ministry days. We would be on site from 10 am to 6pm
except 2 days where we would go to a evening church service and be back home by
10 pm. The third thing was forced team time. It may sound simple enough, but we
have been able to spend time with so many different people form our big squad
and have people that we are comfortable to go to when in need. We were now
going to be spending time with our small teams and trying to find a way to
invest in team members that will be our family for the rest of the year. And
the final obstacle was a schedule. I love having time for “random things that
come up”� and being bound by time. “Peru
wasn’t so why should we North Americans be?”�, was my thought.
So here’s how it all unfolded….
I volunteered to head up the youth program with Sarah. This
was so much fun as I was able to organize games, discussion topics, messages,
and work alongside others who have the same passion for young people. This led
into having daily games of soccer and outreach to young people who came to play
and stayed for our youth program. I was thankful for the structure of our days
and how it kept me organized and able to accommodate things such as “game time”�
when we invited kids from the streets and for the youth of the church. I was
able to spend time and prepare for a set objective which in turn became way
more productive than disorganized programs. The whole 2 weeks I was healthy
physically and able to join in the fun and games.
I was excited for our team time that we spent daily. We have
a lot of different people on my team and I knew we needed this time away from
others who we were comfortable with. We needed bonding time. And so we did just
that. We did some exploring, home visits, played with kids, studied the Bible,
and improvised activities such as coke bottle bowling.
I must say that Iquitos
ministry was a blessing to me. I enjoyed every minute of it. Our ten days there
made an eternal difference and I’m excited to hear what comes out of our
ministry there. Praise be to God for fun and being fancy free!!
