The Last Couple of Days!

Tonight´s edition is a recap of the last 2 days b-c we didn´t get settled in until very late last night. I added a few people to the list for this email, so if you missed day 1 and want it, let me know and Í´ll resend it. I apologize for leaving out a few email addresses on the first night. Don, Greg says hello and asked me to ask you to email him and let him know if these emails are going on Ni River´s website or if they are being relayed through email.

Monday was quite a day. We spent the whole day with our sponsor children! If you have ever thought that sponsorship programs for poor children worldwide are scams, everyone on this trip can assure you that Compassion International is NOT a scam. Some of us were meeting our children for the first time and some of us were meeting them for the second time, but all of us were touched by the experience. There are a million stories I could tell at this point to let you know how important sponsorship is to these children and their families, but I want you to hear them firsthand. When we get back, ask someone you know on the trip about the day with the Compassion children, but be prepared to shed some tears or for the person telling you the story to shed some! It was very difficult to leave at the end of the day and we were emotionally exhausted on the ride back home. Every time I thought I had regained my composure, some other part of the day would come back into my head and I´d cry all over again.

We stopped off at our hostel in the main part of Lima to pick up our luggage and head down the coast to Chilca, site of Hogar de Ninos orphanage and Hannah´s Home. We had a few "quick" errands to run on the way, the first of which was to pick up 140 cases of tile from Ace Hardware to take down to Hannah´s Home. The stop at Ace tested all three rules of this trip: 1. Be flexible, 2. be patient, and 3. be on time. Our translators and Jeff, our trip leader, went inside to pick up the tile that had already been ordered. The rest of us sat patiently on the bus for 40 minutes and waited. By that time we were all out of the bus and wondering what was going on. The report we got was that our tile was in the back of the store and we were waiting for it to be brought out. After another 40 minutes, giddiness and exhaustion had set in. We had eaten lunch around 1:00 and it was pushing 8:00 at this point!! Another 30 or so minutes later, 100 cases of our tiles were brought out and we were informed that the other 40 cases had to be reordered. We spent another 30 or 40 minutes loading 100 cases of tile, bags of cement mix, grout, and 4 ladders into every available space on the bus. (Ask Travis why he had to go to dinner with black arms and legs.)Picture this...one tour bus with 16 people, all of their luggage, and all the building supplies crammed into it. We were a little worried that if we got a flat, everything would have to be unloaded and reloaded in order to change the tire!! We finally got to dinner after 9:00 and by that point, everyone was starting to gnaw on the seats of the bus. : ) By the time we drove down the coast, checked into Ola Grande, and unloaded all of the luggage, it was after midnight.

This morning we headed to Hannah´s Home and started several projects. We got a lot of the outer walls painted and the kitchen ceiling varnished and the Peruvians working for ChildReach tiled the kitchen. The original plan was that we´d pick up the rest of the tile when we go back through Lima for church tomorrow night, but Jeff found out today that it would be another 3 weeks before that comes in!! It´s too bad that we won´t get to see the tile finished, but we´ll stay busy on other projects for the rest of the week.

We also got to spend a few hours at Hogar de Ninos, the orphanage across the street from Hannah´s Home. It is impossible to describe with words the feeling that came over me when we walked over there during a "break" this morning and the kids came spilling out of the front gate. Someone must have told them that we were coming b-c as soon as we started across the street, kids came out into the road to meet us. Some of us first visited Hogar a couple of years ago, and a few of the same children were still there and recognized us. Little ones jumped right up into our arms and hugged and kissed us as if they had known us their whole lives. A lot of us were moved to tears and that turned out to be the longest bathroom break in history. ; ) The break was good for reenergizing us, though, b-c the sun was beating down mercilessly all afternoon. (It´s the END of summer here and the temp was well into the 90s today. People who tell you it´s not the heat, it´s the humidity, are just plain wrong!!) It made it a little easier to get the work done knowing that we´d be going back across the street at 3:30. We were dog-tired when we got there, but the kids did several dances for us and got all of us to join in, which pepped us right back up. Ed got a lot of footage of that and several people have offered him ransom for the tapes!

We headed back to Ola Grande for dinner and debriefing and planned our activities for the mini-VBS we are putting on in a village near Hogar de Ninos tomorrow. Jeff says we could have from 25- 250 kids tomorrow. Whew! Talk about being flexible! (There are 3 of us who are teachers on this trip and the thought of doing what amounts to lesson plans for up to 250 kids the night before the lesson makes our blood pressure go up. I suppose if we introduce a few children to Jesus that means we´ve made average yearly progress...) We´re praying for a good turnout and to speak to the hearts of those children.

Tomorrow may be a late night again, but I will try my best to get out an email after we get back from church. Thanks for your prayers and support!!


amy