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Hotel Britania—our home for the next three weeks
“Wow” is the best word to describe the first few days of this trip. The team has already fallen in love with Peru. The welcome we received totally shocked us. We walked out of the airport to find the seminar committee of 20 or so pastors waiting to greet us with a huge banner even though it was almost midnight and our plane was an hour late. They are an amazing group of men. Many of the pastors are young (between 25 and 35). They have poured an incredible amount of energy into preparing for the seminar.
Lima, Peru as seen from our hotel. The city disappears into the fog most days—remember, its winter here
Considering that we have only been in Peru now for a few days, an incredible amount has already happened.
Thursday: The team got some extra rest after a long day of travel. In the evening we met with some of the young people who will be helping us as translators. They seem like a great group of young people. Some of them really have a vision for serving the Lord. We also got our first taste of Peruvian food. Totally delicious! I hope we all still fit in our airplane seats when we return.
Jacob is a magnet for kids!
Friday: In the morning we went to a Christian school for poor children. They have about 80 students between the ages of 2 and 13 (kids start school young here). We started with a large group with all the kids. We taught one of the Children’s Institute songs, Allison did a chalk talk and Daniel gave a demonstration on truthfulness. Afterwards the team broke up into four groups to teach truthfulness in individual classrooms. The team did an incredible job with this last minute assignment (we didn’t really have any details on it until the night before). Afterwards we went to the kids’ “soccer field” (a concrete area) and played with the kids for a while.
Jaimie loved being able to talk with the kids (she’s fluent in Spanish and boy are we glad to have her on the team!)
In the evening we taught a two-hour training for Sunday school teachers. This was also last minute, but it went well. Many of the people who attended will be helping us with the Children’s Institute. After the training we had a prayer time for the seminar. It is an amazing experience to hold the hands of someone from another country, who speaks a different language, and pray together to the same God.
The team with the entire school
Philip playing soccer with the boys
Tiffany practiced her Spanish on the kids and made friends
Darlene playing with girls from the school
The team girls
The team guys
(Pictures courtesy of Dominique Aguilar, Christina Dickson, Jacob Matchak, Philip Roth, and Elizabeth Watkins.)
