I am writing to you tonight with my heart smashed into at least a million little pieces. We left Hogar de Ninos for the last time tonight and I´ve spent a good part of the last 4 hours crying, reflecting, looking over photos,and crying some more. (yes, Mrs. Erndle, you were right...I am a crybaby! : ) Don´t think that this means we had a bad ending to the trip, though...we´ve done a lot in the past 2 days that I haven´t told you about yet.

We started Thursday morning at Hannah´s Home and almost finished all of the exterior painting. What we didn´t get finished at least got scraped and primed, so that set us up to finish on Friday. Jenn and Jenn (the Varnish Girls) and Tim finished up the ceiling in the kitchen and moved to another room. We have all been getting a little concerned about them breathing all those varnish fumes!! The kitchen is mostly tiled and primed so that was set for a Friday finish, too. Greg and Travis finished knocking down the concrete pillars and brick walls outside and have a lot of sore muscles to show for it.

At some point during the week, team members learned that Erika, John David, and Cynthia´s mom, Margarita, is sick with a brain tumor. They have apparently run a bill up at the local grocery store and are worried about it. Around midmorning, we knocked off work for a bit, had team members walk over to the grocery store to pay off the bill (which amounted to $35 American), and started down the street with many bags of staples for the family. We were quite a sight trudging down the little dirt road with sacks of beans, tuna, cooking oil, sugar, and corn. We got a lot of strange looks from the locals; I imagine it looked like some kind of weird procession. When we got to the house, Erika went to get her mom and she looked a little scared at first. Sylvia, one of our interpreters, explained to her that we had some groceries for her and her children and would like to come in and pray for her if it was ok. She invited us in and said that she was surprised to have visitors. It seems that many of the neighbors haven´t been very nice to her b-c she is prone to seizures and sometimes angry outbursts b-c of the tumor. She seemed very touched that we brought the groceries in and kept looking over at all the bags stacked in the corner. We asked her if we could pray with her and that was powerful...definitely a deeply spiritual experience. Before we left, the translators told her that her bill at the grocery store was paid and the look on her face was priceless. She broke into a huge grin and then started weeping and thanking us. At that point she really let her guard down and told us how worried she was and that she was facing a very risky surgery. We all were able to talk to her individually for just a couple of minutes before we left and I walked out of there feeling so blessed. Unless you have ever taken a trip like this you just cannot imagine how much we have and how much we take for granted in the United States.

In the afternoon, we went and picked up the Hogar de Ninos kids and held another VBS at a local village which, to be honest, could best be described as rows of shanties. As our bus pulled in, kids began running down the streets and families came out of their houses to see what was going on. We didn´t even need to go door to door...people just flocked to the bus as we got out. There were easily 200- 300 kids there and they were all so excited. Jeff told us that there had never been any sort of outreach program at that particular village so we were the pioneers. : ) It was a bit chaotic since there was no park or church in which to work, so we were out along the side of a giant sand dune. I wish you could´ve seen these kids´ faces when they were watching the Bible story and singing the songs! The highlight, however, were the orange relays at the end. Kids separate into teams and run down to an adult who has a bowl of oranges cut into segments. The kids reach into the bowl, grab a segment, down it, drop the skin, and run back to the line. We had enough oranges for each kid to get several segments and we could tell that many of them weren´t used to eating much fruit. You would´ve thought we were giving them candy!! When it was time to go, it was hard to pull away from the kids and get back on the bus. They wanted to have their pictures taken and chat with us for as long as we would stay. When I got on the bus, I realized that I had a huge grin on my face and the Hogar kids were so proud of themselves...they had helped their friends the Americanos run a VBS for some of their classmates!

Dinner on Thursday was quite interesting. We had our meals, then, because several of us had expressed an interest in sampling a particular traditional Peruvian dish (guinea pig), our hosts had grilled three of them for us to try. The presentation was a little unnerving...the head had been chopped off, but otherwise, everything else was there, including the little tail, feet, and claws. It looked sort of like a flying squirrel lying across the plate. I am proud to say that I did my part to clean one carcass and have the pictures to prove it. Of course you know what Í´m going to say...and, really, it DID taste like chicken.

This morning we finished up at Hannah´s Home. We got all of the exterior painted, the kitchen painted and tiled, ceiling varnished in another room, and a lot of debris from all over the grounds cleaned up. After lunch, we picked up the kids from Hogar and took them to Pucasana, a little fishing village near Chilca, for ice cream and a walk by the bay. Pucasana is very quaint. There are lots of little wooden boats in the bay, street vendors, cafes, and a few shops. There is also an inlet right next to the ice cream shop where waves come crashing through a small opening in the rocks, soaking those who happen to be standing on the walkway next to the rocks. The kids loved that...they stood there for a long time trying to get soaked with spray from the biggest waves. We walked up the street for a bit and many of the kids stopped to pick up shells. One of the most touching moments of the day occurred on the way back to the bus. Jose, who is 7, walked up to Greg and motioned for him to put his hands over his eyes. Greg did, and when he opened them, Jose gave him one of his shells that he had so carefully picked out.

Once we got back to the orphanage, we had a fiesta to celebrate 2 birthdays: Erika, the wife of the director, and Sonya, the cook. We danced and played games and everyone had such a good time. We also had canvas bags with gifts for every child. I wish I could adequately describe the experience of watching those children take out their gifts. I didn´t know if we would ever see some of them get to the bottom of the bag b-c they would take out one thing and go off to play with it, not even realizing that there were many more things for them. The most amazing part is that the children I watched open the bags were the most excited about the basic things...socks, underwear, and toothbrushes. Jose had a package of ten pairs of cotton socks in his bag. He was SO excited...he ran across the room to his friend Jesus and they both marveled over them. Jose was also tickled to death with his SpiderMan toothbrush.

It was 6:30 before we knew it and time to say goodbye. We all started to hug the kids and say goodbye and when they saw some of us (yes, me included) getting emotional, they realized that we would be going back to the U. S. That made some of them cry and that made us cry even more. I hugged all of them and told them I loved them but Jose kept coming back to me. We stood out by the bus and hugged until the last possible moment and he kept looking up at me with those big, sad brown eyes. Whenever I´d go to step on the bus he´d squeeze me tighter and I didn´t know how I was going to be able to go. Erika, one of the directors, came over and told him that I might be able to come back to visit him someday and he let go for a minute. I took the opening and got on the bus and then had a complete meltdown on the way back home. I don´t know when or how, but I have to get back down here to see those kids again.

I can´t fully explain the feelings I have had this week. I´ve felt the highest of highs, the lowest of lows, and complete wonder at some of the things I´ve witnessed. All of us on this team have agreed that the only way you can appreciate this experience is to take a trip like it yourself. You can hear all of our stories, see the pictures, the video, and the drawings that the children made for us, but none of it compares to the way you feel inside when you´re actually here in the middle of things. Please consider becoming involved in ChildReach Ministries, Compassion International, or mission teams at your church. You won´t be sorry.

Thank you for all of your support, prayers, donations, and fundraising efforts. We will be flying out of Lima tomorrow and arriving back in the U. S. a bit before midnight on Saturday. See you later! (Hasta luega) God Bless You! (Dios te bendiga)




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