El Arca

Hello there! 

Our apologies that there have not been pictures posted yet… the internet is scarce, and when it is available, it normally is not strong enough to load our pictures! 

The second half of our trip has flown by! We arrived in Cusco early Friday afternoon and were picked up by Joshua, one of the sons of Bud and Laura, who run the orphanage, El Arca, in Cusco. We arrived at the orphanage to find many (40-50) small Peruvian children running around playing, doing laundry, and a few helping cook food. About 20 minutes after we arrived it was lunch time for the everyone. It was at that time where we got to watch the children all work together to pass out the food, it was very special to watch. Each child had his/her own name on the bottom of the bowl and the bowls were filled with food accordingly and then passed out to each child.  I walked around the orphanage in amazement at how efficient and orderly everything was. They had a system and schedule for everything, including a bell to distinguish different times of the day including: school, meals, chores and meeting times. Because they work so hard at keeping up a consistent schedule for the kids, volunteer hours go from 9am–4pm. 

The first day consisted mostly of playing with the kids since we didn’t arrive until early afternoon. There was another church group there, from North Carolina, as well who was putting on a vacation Bible school in the afternoons, so we were able to join in on the games, singing and dancing with them. After leaving the orphanage we went into the city to the plaza to grab dinner; the travel there and back would take most of the night.

Because of all the travel time to get into Cusco, we only got two days at the orphanage. Our second day we were able to buy 200 adobe bricks for the orphanage, pick them all up and transfer them into the backyard where they would be used to build a chicken coop. After transferring all of the bricks, our team met with Gabriella and Bilguie, two of the adopted daughters at the orphanage, who run the orphanage when Bud and Laura are gone. We learned their testimonies of arriving at the orphanage and how the Lord had provided for their lives. They also told us all about the story of how the orphanage started and we learned that they were in the process of building another orphanage in the jungle. There is much work to be done there, so unfortunately we did not get to meet Bud and Laura, the parents and starters of the orphanage, because they were both working at the orphanage in the jungle. After hearing their stories, we got to pray over them and give them some encouragement. 

Right before we left, we were able to pass out candy, toys and soccer balls to all of the children. After exchanging lots of hugs, we had to say good-bye for now. 

Overall though our time at the orphanage was short, it surely was impactful and very precious. We greatly appreciate all of your thoughts, prayers and those who gave financially. All of those things were a huge part of all that we were able to do and the gift of money we were able to give to the orphanage. 

Iquitos

Hola!

Sorry it has been so long since we updated, we were in the Amazon rainforest for the past 4 days and they do not have available service or internet there!

So much has happened since we last wrote, it is hard to know where to even start.  We left for the jungle on Monday afternoon; we rode a bus with the students for about an hour and a half to get to Nauta. From Nauta, we got on the peke-peke and headed up the river to the Aurora camp.

The peke peke ride took about an hour and a half, but it was there that we first began to connect with the students. Our Espanol on this team is not the most fluent, so we struggled to remember the phrases that we knew. But we showed pictures of family, asked questions and compared verses in Spanish and English.  The students were very well versed in scripture, which was so encouraging! A few of them also knew a good amount of English, which was a huge help! Upon arriving at Aurora, we spent the evening getting to know one another, and teaching each other cultural games. All of the power at the camp is kept on by a generator, so typically lights go out around 9pm when the generator is turned off, but we extended that every night because we were enjoying our time together. 

Mornings began with breakfast at 7:30am,  and contrary to popular belief, “Peruvian time” was not true for these students. They were always right on time and waiting for us to arrive each morning, probably because they were so ready to eat!  Tuesday morning one of the students named David shared a devotional for everyone, it was powerful and He had some extremely challenging thoughts and words of encouragement for the group, we followed his devotional with a few worship songs in Spanish.

Each day a few of us shared a story from the Bible. The goal in doing this was to teach them the story, and train them in how to retell the story to others.  The story would be told 2 times, then we would ask a student volunteer to come up and share that same story back to everyone. Often we would have the students act out the stories in the first time telling it, and they always were followed up with questions, and group discussion. Colin and Heather shared their Bible stories on Tuesday after worship, and then three of the students shared their testimonies. Hearing these testimonies of God’s goodness and His divine call on their lives was incredible.  The students had such a passion and hunger for the Lord and it was clear that God had a great purpose in calling them. We were so blessed hearing them share! 

Lunch on Tuesday was fish. You would think that fish would not be one of the things that was new and unique for all of us. However… this fish was quite different, it looked like it had just jumped out of the water and onto our plate (minus the fried crumbs on top).  We all paused to watch the students eat it, because we weren’t sure how to even start. It was delicious, but looking at it made it a little difficult to eat. Rebecca did the best job at cleaning her fish completely!

Soccer is a huge sport for the Peruvians. So Tuesday afternoon we gave the students soccer balls that we had brought. We split up into four teams and played a tournament on a small field near the camp.  The field was small and rough, with holes and not much space, I remember thinking, “these kids would LOVE the soccer fields in the states”. It made me realize yet again that these students are thankful for everything they have and things don’t need to be perfect in order to have a good time. We had a blast playing, and they definitely saw how unskilled the white Americans were:) Playing in the heat was the only real challenge, as the sun was beating down and extremely hot. As we were riding back to the camp, it started to downpour, it felt amazing to get cooled off!  We could see the rain coming down the river from a mile away, and almost got caught in the rain while riding back on the peke peke. 

Tuesday evening Anny shared with the students and showed them part of the Jesus film. We had downloaded the audio Bible and The Jesus film onto micro SD cards that could fit into the student’s phones and they could easily access and then share with others. Our prayer is that this makes it much easier for the students to hear the Bible in their language and share the good news with those around them. 

Wednesday morning Rebecca shared a devotional on spending time seeking the Lord. Followed by a time for the students to go off by themselves and seek the Lord. After coming back together, a few of them shared what the Lord had taught them and one of the students sang a song he had wrote during his time. Later that morning Ben shared his parable of the sower and the seeds. Our goal during this time was to allow the indigenous students to talk and share their thoughts. There were five indigenous students and in the large group they were the ones who would keep quiet and just listen. So Ben had each of the indigenous students come up and retell the parable. That was very powerful to hear them retell it and for the rest of the students to hear them share. 

After lunch on Wednesday the students taught us a few more of their favorite cultural games and we taught them “duck duck goose”, they seemed to enjoy it, even if they didn’t quite understand what a goose was :)

Dinner was great, but a combination of things we had never had all together. It included fried rice, a fried egg and spaghetti, all together as the same dish. After dinner we had some time to play a few games and have fun just hanging out. Then Matthias shared a parable about forgiveness.  We had a ministry time praying for the students after the talk and were able to extend an invitation to receive Christ. We were blessed by that time together as a group.  Afterwards we had our celebration since it was our last night together. We had popcorn, and gave them chocolate that we had brought from the States. Our last night with the students was perfect. Everyone seemed to feel comfortable and the Lord’s presence was there. We are praying that those who did not know Christ would continue to be drawn to Him and seek Him. 

Thursday morning we got up, had breakfast and headed on our way back to Iquitos. It was mostly another travel day. We said our goodbyes to the students and stopped at a hotel for the night to shower and get a little rest. We got to try some Peruvian food for lunch and dinner at two different restaurants that Anny recommended and that was delicious! Our favorite thing is their fresh fruit made into an ice drink, we love it! 

Last night we said goodbye to Iquitos and flew to Lima for a brief layover. This morning we are off for the second portion of our trip, working at the orphanage, El Arca, in Cusco.

Pictures and more details to come once we arrive in Cusco (if the internet co-operates)! 

Arrived safely!

MSP airport about to head through security and begin the journey! 

Hello there!

We arrived safely to the Iquitos airport around 8:30am this morning. All traveling went great, everything was smooth and fairly quick, praise God!  It was about a full 24 hours of traveling, including sleeping on the airport floor overnight to wait for our 6:00am flight to Iquitos. That being said we were pretty tired and lacking a little sleep when we arrived but everyone was doing great! As we were about to land and I was watching out the window, it finally felt real that we were in Peru. The beauty of the green and lush trees, the amazon river winding every which way and the tin roof houses were a breathtaking sight as we entered the country.
Anny was there to meet us right as we exited the airport with all of our luggage.  We jumped into a couple of taxis and headed to a hotel for the rest of the morning. The ride to the hotel definitely ressurred us that we were no longer in Minnesota.  There were vehicles and people everywhere, fruit stands, and motor cars at every corner.  We are already enjoying the cultural change and learning to figure out how to get around when no one in our group speaks Spanish fluently.
After having breakfast at the hotel, we settled into a very unexpected luxurious hotel for some rest as we waited the arrival of the students that will be joining us. Anny informed us that plans changed a little bit, and will continue to change as the culture is naturally very laid back and flexible. We didnt mind that at all because it meant we got some nap time, which was much needed and gave us a little time to re-energize!
It is around 1:15pm now and we are meeting Anny and the students at 2:00pm to get on the "Peki Peki" (a large motored canoe type raft with a roof). We will be traveling on the Peki Peki down the Amazon river to the river community of Aurora, which is where we will be staying for about 4 days.

Thank you for your prayers! The trip is going great so far and we feel blessed! We are looking forward to meeting the students. Please pray that the Lord leads and guides us, giving us words to speak and his heart to love and serve them.



That's all for now! We will update again soon!

Blessings!

Peru... Here we come!

The countdown is on... only 4 more days until our team boards the plane and heads to Lima, Peru!!  From there we will fly to Iquitos and begin our ministry with the young Tribal leaders. Our main goal there is to share the Gospel by spending quality time with the people, and telling a variety of Bible stories so that they can bring those stories back to their families and communities. We have been told that the way they learn largely comes from storytelling. Following Iquitos, we will be heading to Cusco to help at one of the orphanages. We are so excited about this opportunity and praying that the Lord gives us His eyes to see the people, His heart to love them, His hands to serve them in whatever capacity we can, and to open our hearts and minds for anything else He has planned.  We are expecting big things and trust that the Lord has a great plan in bringing us here at this time.

Please pray with us for safe travels, team unity, grace, NEW eyes, joy, peace and love to be spread to all we encounter, and most of all God to be made known and glorified. May His will be done in and through this team! We look forward to sharing this adventure with all of you! 

Thank you for being a part of this trip with us, for supporting and praying for us. We could not do it without you! 

Here is the team:

Ben, Matthias, Colin, Rebecca, Heather 

We will try to keep this blog updated on a daily basis once we arrive in country. However, we don't know how much internet will be available, so just know that we will post whenever we get the chance! 

Blessings to you all!