I'm on a boat!

Yesterday was day two. We didn't get back to the hotel until late, so I wasn't able to write a blog. I was exhausted. This morning I have a little spare time though to fill you in on how day two went for us!

We started the morning early and left around 8:30 (even though it was supposed to be 8 ((welcome to Peru)) and headed out to Rimac, where we are working. We arrived at the church and got organized and then started out prayer walking. We went around the neighborhood of the church. As we walked, we had little prayer guides to know how to be praying for the community. We stopped at a few different houses to pray for people specifically. One house we stopped at was a woman who had a sign on her door asking people of different religions to have the courtesy NOT to knock on her door. She was catholic, was not going to change, and was not going to even answer the door if we knocked. We walked down the block and prayed on the corner for God to draw her to Him. We also tried to find the house of a man who is now wheel-chair bound. He used to be a faithful church member until he got put in a wheel chair. We quickly figured out why when we had to walk almost 2 miles to a flight of stairs and then climb up 300 stairs (only to find out the rest of the path was locked.) On the way I spoke to a lady who was crazy, likely demonized, she was very very resistant to speak to me and kept pacing back and forth talking to herself. I quickly prayed for her and kept walking. Then I met a lady who asked me to pray for her. We also prayed at the back of the mormon church asking that God would break down the barriers of false doctrine and keep the people from believing the lies that are placed before them. Another interesting thing is that as we were prayer walking, the dogs in the area were very loud and violent. A few tried to bite a couple of the team members. They were only hostile to the ones praying. 

We got back to the church about three hours later and went to lunch. For those of you who know what it is, I had delicious lomo saltado! It was awesome. Then we loaded up and headed to the place that we're working. We sang some songs and did a skit where Clay, Chase and a translator had to dress up in fake beards (yes there are amazing pictures) and Clay was Jesus and Chase and the translator a disciple. The story was about Jesus calming the storm. That even the winds and the waves obey Him because He is Lord of all. We had about 150 kids today (and our most difficult craft) and the mothers had a first aid class and a quick bible lesson. When we finished with the crafts, we went back to the church to do a quick session with the compassion kids. There were about 75 of them. For the day we ended up with somewhere between 225, and 250. Since today is a holiday here,  (some saint) we are hoping and planning for a lot more kids! 

Continue praying for the children we meet. That we will not only speak about Jesus, but that His love would shine through our lives as we love and serve these kids and their families! I look forward to giving you another report tonight. 

63 hours and only 6 hours of sleep

Today was day one of our mission trip. Getting here has been difficult, so it is quite a blessing to finally be here. God had to cancel a flight, delay one and then fly us in and out of the same terminal to get us here! God has already been working (of course) and I truly believe great things are going to happen this week.  The chaos all started Tuesday night. I had looked in my travel bag of documents to make sure my passport was there and saw a blue passport book so I didn't look at it. Tuesday night I went to take it out to make some copies, and realized it was my EXPIRED passport. So after tearing the house apart looking for it, my parents and I finally deduced it must have been in a purse that got stolen right after I got back from Italy. So, I got a two hour nap and was up at 5 am with dad to head to New Orleans to the passport agency. I had made a last minute appointment at 10:30, but wanted to get there when the doors opened just in case they would let me in early. The flight was originally scheduled to leave at 12:40. They did let me in and I had my passport by 10:30. I got a text saying our flight was canceled and then another one saying they weren't going to let us take our supply trunks. So when I got to the airport our flight had been rescheduled to fly out at 6:30 and someone was on their way from hattiesburg with a lot of extra bags so we could switch all our bags over. After the long wait, the flight was delayed. We weren't sure at that point if we would make our flight in Miami, so everyone was praying that something would happen. Well, the unheard of happened. We flew into the exact same terminal we were flying out of in Miami, just two gates down. So we flew out at midnight headed to Lima. I don't sleep well on planes so I only got about 2 hours of sleep, (that's 6 in a span of 48 hours if you're counting) When we got to Lima, we got settled in and got another two hours of sleep and had to get up to go work. I was ready to see the kids. 

When we finally got to the kids, after eating lunch, meeting the pastor and touring the church, I was so excited. There were about 90 kids....and a few gang members. My fiance and his bother went to talk to the gang members, which was such a blessing because I think it helped protect us and our things. They are both very fit and big guys so they demand respect. The translator said the gang members were intimidated by Clay and Chase. However, we knew we still needed to be really careful. We played games, had snacks, a puppet show, a verse of the day, a Bible story and then a craft that reinforced the Bible story. The kids are precious. They were all really excited we were coming back tomorrow, so I'm sure we will have more kids tomorrow. 

I made a new friend today in particular. He is on my heart tonight. His name is Benito and he's 7. He has at least one older sister and a brother. His dad committed suicide, and his mom ran off. So Benito lives with his grandmother. He is precious. He immediately jumped in my arms as soon as he saw me. Benito doesn't know how to read yet, and his speech is sometimes difficult to understand. He asked me if I would adopt him. The women of the church said his home life is not good at all. Please pray for Benito and his family. 

I'm so excited to see how God is going to move the rest of this week. Please continue to pray for the kid, church members, the pastor and the team members. The devil has tried really hard to keep us from being here, and we believe that is a sign God is planning on using us to do a mighty work. I am thrilled to see what that will be! Thank you for your prayers!!! 

Til next time,

Melissa!