Off to the Mountains!

(Sorry it's so long... it's good stuff, I promise!)

And we're off! My team is leaving today to go to our first village. It is called Huarochirí, and it is a village in the Lima state, but about 7 hours away from where I am staying right now. We will most likely be riding on a cambi, which is like a VW bus that has way too many people on it. I'm hoping I get to sit, since its a 7 hour long (hopefully) journey. Next week we are taking a 23 hour bus ride, so this one is just like a warm up I suppose. :-)

We have been preparing unspoken dramas, puppet plays, kids songs, and adult worship songs all week. I feel SOOO much more prepared than I was before the week began, but still have trouble with some of the words. God is so faithful though, and I can already see his provisions with language barriers coming through. (No, I'm definitely not where I want to be, but getting better and better each day.)

We performed at a very poor school yesterday, as well as a shanti-town orphanage. The school was fun because the littlest ones were right in front of me when we were singing and dancing, and I got to see their faces light up. It was great! Plus, most of the kids knew one of our Christian songs, which made me really happy. Our "line-up" shares the gospel pretty straightforwardly, which I'm really excited about. I wasn't too thrilled when I found out that I would "only" be performing in each village and not getting to spend a whole lot of time relationally with the people. But, if Christ's name is made known, we have done our jobs! The orphanage was amazing. It was SO run down and dirty, and the government doesn't support it at all, so its supported (I think) by this one man and a couple of churches here and there. The kids were so happy we came! There were two girls named Emerelda (about 11) and Estrella (about 5-6) that were so sweet. There were also about 9-10 boys. After we performed, we went and played futbol with them for like 1.5 hours- that was such a thrill for them, because they have to stay inside the orphanage building unless one of the ladies there is with them, so it was sort of like a very short vacation from normality for them. We came back after that and gave them Bibles, coloring books, necklaces, balls (thanks Dillard family!), and candy. (Some of the boys have Bibles from 1.5 years ago when Stephen brought another team in, and they carry them to school every day with them!) They were excited, but even more excited that we had come to visit them. A couple of boys came up to me at the end- I thought they asked me how long I was going to be in Peru, but apparently they asked me when I'm coming to visit them again. I said August, thinking they asked the former question, so we'll see how that turns out. I might just have to stop back by!

Other than that, my team and a Barnabus team (traveling encouragement and mediation) have just been hanging out. Its been really fun getting to know these people so well in such a ridiculously short amount of time.

I'll be back in Lima next weekend, so I'll update you then. PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS! Love you all! Vaya con Dios!