Can life get any better??

If its possible to hit a point in life when you are mentally, physically, and emotionally drained… I hit that point today. The past 4 days were filled with laughter, food, a few tears, tons of pictures, hiking, and a lot of youth. There is so much more that happened but I’ll just start with that for now.
On Friday afternoon we all piled into a bus and headed to a children’s hospital. We walked in and stood before about 15 little precious faces with various sicknesses and problems. We led worship, acted out the story of David and Goliath, made some crowns, played some games, and handed out food. Each face showed pain and suffering and just the attention they got brightened their faces to a smile. There was one little boy in a stroller that clinched my heart. Sarah helped him make his crown and we fed him his cupcake and juice. One of the nurses told us a little about some of the children and when she came to this little boy, the words she said made me love that little boy even more. They had just recently brought him to that hospital after they found him in a dumpster nearby. He was only one year old but looked old enough to be 3 or 4. Just the thought that someone had not wanted him and just dumped him off to die if no one found him made me realize how lucky I am to have the family I have. I have parents who love me and there were probably times when I was growing up that they wanted to dump me to, but they didn’t. They chose to love me and give me a chance at life and to love the God who made me. That little boy didn’t get that chance.
Saturday morning we woke up early and got ready for our monthly church breakfast. Buns, jam, ham, cheese, and coffee filled the table as people walked in as they pleased. We walked around the table making sure that there was always enough plates at the table for those who showed up which meant doing dishes 2 or 3 times within that hour and a half.
After we ate, we split up and had woman/men devotions. Our main passage was Matthew 25:14-30. Following that were some major points:
What is the highest priority in your life? ( Mark 12:29-31 )
How can I put God first in my life? ( Matthew 6:32-34 )
What are the things that are keeping God from being first in my life? ( Proverbs 3:5-6; Luke 12:34 )
What are some benefits of living with right priorities? ( Psalms 127:1-4 )
Even though the whole devotion was in Spanish, it really made me think and made me see what is really high on my priority list.
The youth stayed around all day and Lidia came over and taught us how to make Perogies and Cake de Calabazas. We all took turns rolling out the Perogies and stirring in the ingredients. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed singing Spanish worship songs as we worked. Things like this bond us together more and more with the family here and the whole church in general.
Saturday night/afternoon around 4, we headed to a Christian concert in a very shady part of town. I have never been to a Christian concert where you had to hold on to someone’s hand to make sure people didn’t cut in line and you had to keep your ticket out of sight so no one stole it. We arrived at the stadium at about 6 and stood in line until about 7:15 and the concert was supposed to start at 7 but then again its Peru and things never start on time. The concert was very good and Jesus Adrian Romero is a very good singer. I enjoyed his music even though I didn’t understand much of it. Kevin sat beside me and was translating most of it for me. About 25 to 30 went with us total. We enjoyed it all.
Sunday morning we all stumbled out of bed after a long night and got ready for church. We were to give our drime in front of church and we hadn’t even scouted out our tiny space. We managed to look things through and walk through some of the steps without giving it all away to the people already there.
I have to say that we did good!! We had Jano record it and things looked good. We saw some with tears, some with looks on their faces as if they had been touched, and some didn’t have much to say. They all congratulated us on our job well done and that was enough to cover for how nervous I felt before we preformed.
This morning we woke up at 6 and got ready to meet some more youth and head to the foot hills of the Andes Mountains. We rode 3 different buses for a total of about 2 hours and then hiked for an hour and stopped for a picnic. It was absolutely breathtaking. Words can’t describe the things I saw. I have so many pictures to prove how it looked… but when it comes to words… there aren’t any to share. There was a huge waterfall and while I stood in front of it… I just couldn’t imagine any better place to be. I was in Peru, standing in the Andes Mountains, standing in front of a waterfall, and singing worship songs. How could it get any better? This was the life. This was were I was meant to be. This place at that very moment.
I’m sitting on my bed right now wondering what I’m going to do when I go home. We are down to less then 10 weeks left for this whole TREK experience. I try to think about what its going to be like to go home… and it doesn’t come. I cant even imagine going home at this moment. This is my life, my home, and this is where I’m meant to be. I thank God for this place and for the people he has set in my life. And I know that when the time comes to head back to the life I’ve grown up in… the long to be there will come. I just cant believe that God chose me to serve him in this place, serve to these amazing people, and that God chose me to be his hands and feet at this moment!!

My life is a charade

Two months from today I will be heading back to Canada to finish this part of my life. In 2 months this place in Peru will only be a memory. In 2 months my TREK experience will be over and the people will all just be people I have grown to love and people I have spent a great season of life with. In 2 months I will return to my life as I know it in Indiana and look back on this and remember the memories I have made.
I know that people say that you aren’t supposed to look for the things ahead… that you are supposed to live every moment like it was your last… and that’s what I’m doing. I am living this season, my life, the best as I can. I know that the start of this may have sounded like I am longing to be home… but really and honestly… I’m not. Yes I miss home, and yes I miss my friends and families, but they can wait. This place is where God has sent me and this is where I want to be at this moment.
I look back on the past month and a half and I smile at the memories I have made here in Peru. The gym, charades, my family, and my new growth in love with Jesus. Those take over all the homesickness I may feel. Those memories make me smile and I think of the ones yet to come.
I know I probably have mentioned it before, but every morning we go with Otto and workout at a near by gym. At first, we hated it. We didn’t like waking up early, didn’t like to get all sweaty, and we just didn’t like the fact that we were going to do things to our bodies that would make us sore. Our options have changed. We still hate getting up early but its became easier. We are in bed by 10:30 every night and we learned to take small naps during the day. We don’t mind the sweat anymore… we just learned to take it when Hector pinches our sweaty body and move on. And the soreness… we have grown used to it. We no longer feel the pain of stretching muscles… and we just suck it up.
Charades!!! Who would’ve ever dreamed my life would become one. I personally hate the game, but when you are a gringo, you have to love it or else you wont survive in this Peruvian world. Everything you try to explain, everything you do, you are using your hands. You make the shape, you make sounds, you basically play charades every minute of everyday. Its been quite the experience. At home, I took advantage of knowing what everyone said, here…you guess and hope you are right.
The family here has been a blessing. I love each and everyone of them and I enjoy living in the same house as Jano and his family. We are learning their way of life and their way of doing things. Some come as a surprise but others, we grew up with to. They seem to have some good laughs at us as well. One incident I remember specify is one of the fist days here, we were eating lunch and we didn’t have a table in reach so we just sat on the floor with our plates in our lap. When Jano walked through the courtyard, he looked at us like we were green in the face. And the food on our plates had already been a laughing fit earlier because it was something they hadn’t ever seen… so this just added to the image in our minds of the way they seen us. We laughed about that one for awhile.
The past couple of days have been the best days spiritually that I have had in awhile. I did my devotions like I normally do, but the past couple ones have really touched my heart. On Monday, I read about King Saul and how he disobeyed God when he went into battle ( 1 Samuel 15 ). God gave him strict orders to destroy everything and leave nothing there. But Saul decides to take some of the best and offer them up to God as a sacrifice. It just really hit me how much God really wants our obedience. Yea… Saul offered sacrifices, but that wasn’t what God wanted! He just simply wanted Saul to obey. People say that I gave up a lot coming here… and I have., but that’s not what it is about. I came here because I had to follow God’s voice. I had to obey him. And when I obeyed his call in coming here… I had to make sacrifices.
I have learned a lot of other things in the last couple days of my ‘spiritually high’… but it would take way to long. You will just have to ask about those!!!
Six and a half weeks in Lima Peru and it has become my home. There is nothing I would change about it, that I would trade for, and nothing I am not grateful for. I love it here and I am so grateful for the opportunity to experience this season of life in this country… here and now!!

God's gas

Today started out on the worst side. I woke up nauseous and not in the best mood. I slept till about 10 and then headed to Spanish class. From here things went up hill!
Dates are an amazing thing. Especially when its with friends you love. Laura and I went out on a date this afternoon. We walked for awhile till we got to a ice cream place Greg had shown us earlier. We sat and talked about how we were doing physically, spiritually, and how we were doing homesick wise while we ate amazing ice cream. It was so nice to have a one-on-one girl talk.
Tonight was Greg’s last night here with us so he wanted to take us out for something special. We went to a nice restaurant called ‘The Jump of the Monk’ but in Spanish. We walked out by the ocean and took pictures on a huge rock where the waves were crashing behind us.
We headed inside and had some drinks, apple pie, and pancakes and ice cream. Super good!! We had a great time talking with Greg and spending the last night with him.
Where the restaurant was, there weren’t many taxies so one of the waiters offered to drive us to a place where we could find one. We all piled into a small van and started out. I don’t think the lady knew exactly what she was doing because the windshield wipers kept turning on and it was making funny noises. We started up this sharp hill and the van dies. We ran out of gas. We all start panicking because behind us is a curve, where at any minute someone could come fling around it, and we were in the middle of the road. Greg offers to drive and he gets in. He starts to back up and realizes that we have gas. So he punches the gas and we start driving. And I have to say that Greg makes a pretty good Peruvian driver! We make it to the gas station and we thank God for the gas that we didn’t think was there.
We walk out by the road to catch a taxi and we see one who has its rear windshield wipers on but it doesn’t have a blade, so it looks like a stubbly little tail on the back of this taxi. We laughed until we were nearly crying.
We finally got into 2 different taxies. Sarah, Breanne, Roxy, and I in one and Dave, Laura, and Greg in the other. My taxi took off first and we were just enjoying the ride and talking about the night. I asked Sarah to roll up the window and she said she couldn’t because there wasn’t a handle. The driver understands what is going on and hands Sarah the handle from the dash. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I burst into another fit of laughter. All of the sudden honking when off, which isn’t abnormal, but we looked over and its Greg’s taxi coming up beside us. We waved and took pictures. On their taxi there was a New York Yankee sticker on the windshield, blue neon lights all over, and sounded like a motorcycle. Pretty hard core. We raced each other the whole way. I don’t think our taxi driver was as into the racing as the other one was. He was laughing the whole way and was flashing lights at us. And he was pretty stocked about me being a Yankee fan also. I made a new friend!!
We made it home safely and had tons of fun. All in all… today was one of the best days of my life. So fun and relaxed. Just plain out amazing.

Isn't it amazing...

"The God on the mountain is still God in the valley. When things go wrong, he'll make them right. And the God in the good times, is still God in the bad times. The God of the day is still God in the night"
Isn’t it amazing that when you are on a mission for God, the Devil is in your path more then ever. He finds ways to make you think that he is in control and that you are helpless and that you are not needed or wanted where you are. He throws things at you and expects you to drop dead and give up. Isn’t it also amazing that at the same time, the Lord is with you more then ever?
I have experienced both of these realities. When I look back at the events that shook me, they looked like enormous mountains blocking my view of God, but in reality, they were small pebbles in the ocean.
I love having a lot of memories of everything I do in my life. Everywhere I go, my camera is there with me. I truly believe in ‘A picture is worth 1000 words’. Six weeks into this trip, my camera breaks. It was like my oxygen was cut off, my source of life… my everything. I would leave in 3 weeks for Lima Peru and I wouldn’t have the most important item with me… I thought.
My family means the world to me, and when things happen when I am out of reach, it feels like the world is crashing down on me. From week one into TREK until I got to Peru, 12 different couples from home had ended or hit a wall. Most in which I was related to somehow. When your hit with that force, you tend to doubt the reason you are where you are. I did, but not only did I doubt it, I thought about backing out of it and turning home to see if I could help.
A month into being into Peru, I find out that my mother has to have surgery. That’s the worst feeling… not being home for my mother when she is in pain. She is there for me, I want to be there for her.
Through it all, I am so glad that I am here. Being away from home like this makes me see how much I need my family and how much I love them. But more then that, I began to see how much my Heavenly Father loves me. He has pulled me closer each day. He has whispered to me over and over about how he won’t put me through things that I can’t handle. Through the valleys and the over the mountains, he will be there. TREK has taught me so much when it comes to trusting God and giving my all to him. He knows what is going to happen. He is there holding your hand. He sees the whole picture.