Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Hanging out in Lima

Well, i'm sure most of you heard that we missed our flight back to Toronto. We are all staying in the Sheraton and well taken care of. Hotel, meals/accomadations are all paid for my Lan Airline. A taxi will be picking us up tonight at the hotel at 10 and our plane is leaving from Lima at 12:30. We will be arriving in Edmonton approw. 4:30 tomorrow. For the past two days, our team has either been hanging out in the hotel rooms or swimming/san tanning. It has been a very relaxed last two days and we are all looking forward to coming home, not so much looking forward to the cold, as we are basking and burning in the sun here. Thanks again for all your prayers and support. Please pray for a safe journey home and that all goes well with the flights.

Leah from team peru

Sunday, January 21, 2007

A Time to Say Goodbye

Today was a hard day for all of us on team Peru. The time has come to start saying our goodbyes to all of the friends that we have made here in Peru. We started out our day by going to church in Las Brisas for the last time. We were acknowledged by the congregation and had an opportunity to say thank you to everyone whom we have worked with. It has really started to hit home that we are actually leaving to come back to Canada tomorrow. We have been so blessed by all of the people we have gotten to know. We are really going to miss them. After church, we went over to Virgin de la Paz to say thank you to the people there. Rufina cried when she thanked us for the work that we have done...wow. These people have so little and yet they have given us so much. Then we walked back home and went out for lunch. After lunch we did more visiting to say goodbye. We went over to Cerropon where we helped with VBS and said goodbye to the kids. Then we went out to San Antonio for their church service and to say goodbye. I don't think that we really realized how we have touched these people's lives until today. We had communion in church today which was a really nice way to close out our time here. After San Antonio we came home and have been hanging out and packing all evening. It is hard to believe that our time here is almost over. In the morning we are going to the beach with our Peruvian friends and then we will have time to finish our packing before we go to the airport.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support. Please pray for a safe journey home and also pray that we wouldn't shed too many tears saying goodbye tomorrow. See you all soon!

Lindsay for Team Peru

Saturday, January 20, 2007

A Peruvian Getaway

Peru is an extremely diverse country, as we learnt these past few days. We took a (near vomitos) six hour bus ride into the Andes Mountains to Cajamarca. On the way we passed desert (full of garbage...AAAHH!), rice farms, cacti, mango trees, rich green farmland, beautiful mountain ranges with lots of mist, villages parked on the sides of cliffs, random houses in the middle of nowhere, and a lot more green than we are used to in Chiclayo. When looking at a picture of Peru, you would typically be seeing the dress and scenery of mountain villages and people. It was actually a little nippy up in the mountains when we arrived...And it was raining!

We stayed in rooms in a hostel (the water didn't turn off, our door didn't lock and the boys shower didn't have a shower head- hey, we're only young once) close to the "Inca baths" and Hot Springs. One could see the mist rising from our windows. We had a full day of shopping, touring around buildings dating back to the late 15oo's (some very interesting stories there) and finally eating...Guinea Pig!! It comes served on a plate with legs still on. Gross. Everyone else thought it tasted like chicken , but I(Elli) thought it was sick. Yes, everyone tried it.

It rained a lot in Cajamarca, but it was refreshing. We had the royal Inca spa treatment, complete with Jacuzzi baths and massages. It is sure tough work out here. We spent yesterday and this morning feeling quite relaxed.

The bus ride home was worse than the way up...It felt as though the brakes had somehow broke as we rattled down switchbacks... We all arrived safely back though!

It was our final youth group tonight, and (surprise, surprise) twin faucets (Lindsay and I) cried buckets. After Coco's moving and really amazing devotional, we went around the circle and shared how we appreciated one another. It was a night filled with a lot of love and blessing...And laughter! The New Swedish group from a Bible School over there came to youth group too, and at one point we were singing a song in three different languages. God is so amazing in pulling us all together to worship him. It was beautiful, even without much of a melody...or beat...or rhythm...

Please pray that we would have safe travels back home, as well as protection for the last two days. Pray for our dear friends at the church in Las Brisas. We love them so much and are really quite protective of them...We don't want to share! As well pray for the unreached people in Chiclayo. Thanks so much and see you soon!! (Unless we all "somehow" miss the flight)

Elli (TP) heehee

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is NOT on Fire!

Today started as another typical day in Peru. We got up and had breakfast and then headed out to our worksite. When we arrived, we saw that there was no longer a front wall to the house that we have been working on. We spent the large majority of the morning cleaning and stacking adobe bricks. The girls returned to our job of mixing and spreading mud, while the guys did more of the heavy lifting. It is amazing how much work can be accomplished in one day. We were working on the house from about 10:00 am until 2:00 pm. We were all pretty hot and tired when we came home for lunch, so Henrik told us to shower and rest. He and the other guys went back and finished the project, which means that the walls are up and the roof is on. It is such an amazing feeling to give a kind of new beginning to people in the midst of adversity. The afternoon was pretty laid back for us. We showered, slept, played cards and just hung out. It was nice after spending all morning out in the sun. When Henrik came home, we went out to do some shopping. We didn't end up coming home until about 9:00 to have supper, so now we are just going to debrief and then go to bed. We are leaving for Cajamarca (the mountains) in the morning, so we may not have internet access until we come back on Saturday around 6:00 pm. It will be a nice break after a lot of hard work. We probably get to go to some hot springs and do some sight seeing which will be fun.

Please pray for safe travels to and from Cajamarca (we are travelling by charter bus). Please pray for God's blessing over our last few days in Peru. Pray for all those whom we have met and built relationships. Pray that God would touch the lives of his people here in a very special way.

Thank you so much for all the support and encouragement over the past 20 days. It is hard to believe that we will be seeing many of you in 6 short days. Our time here is and has been such a blessing!

Lindsay for Team Peru

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Baptized Peruvian

Today was a good full day. We started the day off again by heading over to the worksite in the morning, Parker had stayed home this morning again but he's doing much better now and is probably good to go for tomorrow. We are almost finished; tomorrow will be our last day there. We were working for about an hour, until we as a team and henrik decided to go to the man's funeral. There were about 60 people who met at the house with the coffin, so we followed them down to the cemetary for the burial. It was a very interesting experience and very much different than funerals back at home. Being there with the people just really showed me (Leah) how important it is to have Jesus in the hard times. Most of these people don't really know Jesus as their Savior and it felt really hopeless today. They had a time of just gathering around the coffin and a time of a little music. A very short little uology/message. They close the coffin and then all the people follow for him to be buried. They bury the peolple above ground here, so they lifted the coffin and slid the coffin in a narrow cement stall thingie and they seal it. You can ask us later individually on the specific details although I was pretty specific here, but we all have different feelings about it. Ask us later. We are very much getting a true peruvian experience down here in all different ways.
After the funeral we headed back to the worksite and "worked." One or two people kinda had a water fight but then it started with lots of people and half the kids from the neighborhood joined in, so by the end all of us were soaked. Ah, the water feels so good on a hot day.
After lunch we went downtown again and started to do some of our shopping. Yeah, it was a great relaxing afternoon adn we finished the day off by watching "A Walk to Remember." Oh, how i love that movie so much, we all do and half of us were crying, yeah it's great movie, i recommend you to watch it if you haven't seen it.
Thanks for all your prayers, we are all having a blast down here in Peru and it's kinda hard to believe we have less than a week down here. Continue to pray for us that God would use us in powerful ways, health, and that we would be a blessing to the people we meet and give them words of hope and encouragement. C ya shortly!

Leah (Peru)

Monday, January 15, 2007

And then there were two...

The girls woke up to the doorbell ringing rather early this morning. Parker got food poisoning last night and spent it vomiting his stomach out. Lindsay stayed home sick as well (from dehydration though, not food poison). I (Elli) came home early from the work site too. That left Leah and Roonie...
When we arrived at the work site the door was locked and Jorge was sitting on the sidewalk curb. We learnt that the Dad to the family had died the night before. The whole family was at a relatives "watching over" the body. Hand in hand with the neighbours we walked up to the house (in what we affectionately call "Thief valley" ) to pay our respects.
It was definitely interesting. The coffin was up on a stand on the dirt floor with a white Jesus statue and a fake Bible. In Peru the family will "watch over" the body for about two days, crying at random and drinking. Although they weren't drinking when we were there, there was crying. From what we know of the Dad, he was an alcoholic who abandoned the family, only to come back once in a while to yell at the kids. It really wasn't a good situation. His five kids (from this woman at least) are still alive. They are really sweet and generous kids. It was hard for us to seem them putting on a happy face for us. There are actually a lot of things amiss with Peruvian funerals. Sadly, it is very surface-y and religious. I had a deep impression of hopelessness from being there.
According to Leah and Roonie, half of the roof was placed, which is good.
The afternoon was basically a write off for most of us, laying about trying to feel better. I can't say that we really do...
You can pray that we get some HEALTH. That would be lovely. As well, please pray for the family that has lost their Dad/husband/son. Pray that they would not turn off their hearts and become bitter. We hope that somehow they can get an impression of a better life, of a future hope for them. Thanks for reading!
Elli (Team Peru- no way)

Sunday, January 14, 2007

A day of Relax

Today was a very relaxing day. We had church this morning in Las Brisas. I always enjoy the service with lots and lots of singing. People come to worship with so much joy and thankfulness in them. The sermon wasn't translated for us like it has been in the past so I think it was a little harder to stay focused and I (Leah) was trying my best not to dose off, as we were all pretty hot sitting in the heat. It can be very humid, so that can drain our energy pretty quickly.
We went out for lunch, the same place where we went the first week. We all had various appetizers (avacado, creamy potato, empanatas (similar to a pizza pop with ham and cheese in the middle)) and we had chicken, pork chop and roast beef served with rice and potatoes.
We had a very relaxing afternoon either watching tv, sleeping or journalling. So yeah that was pretty much our day today.
Continue to pray for energy and that we'd be a blessing to all we meet. It's hard to believe we've only been here for 2 weeks, it feels so much longer than that.
Thank-you for all your prayers. Looking forward to seeing you all back at home.

Leah from team Peru