Day Three

¡Hola Famila y Amigos!
Today was a long, tiring, wonderful day in Peru. After breakfast, we went to the town of Teodoro Binder, where we ministered at Luz Del Mundo Iglesia (Light of the World Church).
Our program was as follows:
Introduction of the team
Spanish songs by the ladies of CEMY
Story from our team (We each have one- Marilyn gave hers this morning and I gave mine in the afternoon)
Another song
Craig's Rubik's cube presentation (He can solve a Cube in under a minute, so we have come up with a presentation about how our lives do not make sense, but God has a plan to solve them... This integrates Craig's unique talent while giving the niños something to watch)
Hot chocolate and rolls for the kids
Play with the kids

This is our program in every village we will visit, only the story changes. After we had given out the hot chocolate in Teodoro Binder, we got to play with the kids. We played lots of volleyball, catch, soccer, etc. I took over 150 pictures... once the children found out that they could see themselves on the camera, they all wanted me to take their pictures.

We went back to CEMY for a delicious lunch (They feed us well here). Today we had sliced boiled potatoes with chicken gravy, boiled egg, olives, and rice. After we had eaten all we could hold, a few of us took siestas on the pews at the church. (My mom...). Craig used the opportunity to build a relationship with one of the construction workers, and I tried to help him with some translation. Craig and I both feel like our Spanish has improved a lot since coming here.

We went to Aldea Infantil San Juan in the afternoon. This is the ophanage we visited last year. My mom and I were sad to see that most of our "friends" from last year were not there, however, this is a blessing as they have been adopted! One girl that my mom had befriended last year was still there, and was very glad to see us again. We gave our program again, then had gifts from the church for all of the children. They all received a pair of flip flops, wrapped and with their names on the packages. We also took them ice cream, cookies, and candy.

One little girl followed me around the whole time, hugging me and babbling in Spanish. I played "volleyball" with a circle of kids for a long time, and took a lot of pictures. This orphanage has several kids who are severely special needs, and I sat by their wheelchairs for a while, rambling in Spanish to them, telling them that Jesus loved them, that they were beautiful. One little boy just laughed and laughed and laughed the whole time.

We had quite the adventure tonight! Our group decided to go to a new restaurant tonight, for pizza. We loaded into the motocarros (Motorcars- motorcycle on the front, rickshaw-like passenger seat in back) and took off. My mom, Drake, and I were in one car. After we had been driving for a while, our driver turned around and rattled off something in Spanish that none of us understood. He drove a while longer, then it became apparent that he did not know where he was going. We told him the name of the restaurant, he had not heard of it. He stopped to ask someone for directions, and they told him how to get to two OTHER pizza places in the city-NOT the ones where our team was! Finally, we told him to take us back to the hotel. We were just dialing the cell phone number of one of our translators when Ricardo, the transportation director for our team walked in, rambled something in Spanish (Do you sense a pattern here?), and motioned for us to follow him. A few minutes later, we walked into the restaurant- just as the pizza arrived!

A couple of prayer requests:
-Ben (The Peruvian boy who is officially a member of our team, our good friend from last year) was sick today. He said he feels better now, but pray that he (and all of us) stay healthy for the rest of the time.
-Alysse, Doug and Marilyn's daughter, joins our team tomorrow. Pray that her flight from Lima to Pucallpa will go well, and that our team will embrace her with open arms
-continued nice weather. It has been unseasonably cool here (70's-ish...) for the last few days. It's not supposed to hold, but it would be amazing if it did.

Thank you for your prayers! We love you!