First month of village life

So my team and I have enjoyed a quick break here in Ica, Peru at the Huacachina Lake. We were able to meet up with another team that is serving closeby. We have had a wonderful, relaxing time here. One of the highlights was yesterday afternoon when we went on a sand buggy/sand boarding adventure! We were in this huge buggy and we went over the dunes at high speeds and then would stop on huge hills so that everyone could get out and either sandboard or the slightly more fun and maybe safer choice which was sand sledding, haha! I chose the latter but it was soooo fun and the board would go super fast. I have some sweet scrapes on my elbows and knees as proof. We also got to see the dessert sunset before heading back. The Lord's creation never ceases to amaze me. I never knew that there was dessert and large sand dunes in Peru. I always thought of Egypt when I thought of sand dunes and dessert. Needless to say it was beautiful. I will be posting pictures as soon as I get back to Lima in a month from this trip and from the village!

Now this is gonna be the hard part... trying to sum up an entire month in Santiage de Cochorvos. Let me just say first that the Lord is definitely working in this village and I think He still has big ways that he is going to use us in this coming month. We have met some great folks and we are looking foward to spending more time with them. The early parts of the trip were a little slow going as we spent the majority of our time trying to get to meet a many folks as we could and getting initial relationships in place. The town is not a highly populated town and especially during this time of the year as it is the rainy season and many families go to the coast to work for a bit and are in and out of the village. We met some sweet children early in our time and were able to spend quite a bit of time with them in the afternoons. And during the days we would often just walk through the streets and go into some stores or houses to spend time with sharing testimonies, scripture, and prayer. This continued to be a regular thing for the first few weeks. Some days were really awesome and other days were harder because we may not get to visit a lot with people if they were busy or even out of town.

We took a trip to one of the small villages about a 4 hour hike from our village to spend some time with them and encourage some folks there. Salomon has been there before and new of some families that he hoped to visit. We had a really great time there and shared with a number of families and encouraged the believers that were already in the village. We hiked quite a bit each day, which I really loved and stayed in tents for about 4 nights. There was only an outhouse and no showers, haha!

We headed back to Santiago expecting madness because there was to be a big carnival taking place for about four days. Soon after we settled back in the crowds began to file in and there was loud music and dancing in the street for basically four days straight. These people were nuts... I think the only reason they lasted was because there bodies were numb from all the alcohol they had been drinking. We spent most of this time praying and taking some time during all the madness to begin memorizing bible stories to share. Once the carnival was over we started our daily visiting up and began sharing stories as well. I am so excited about the beginning our storying in homes with people as I think the Lord is really going to use it. We are really hoping to get some sort of bible study going where we could share stories with a group of people but we are really gonna need to the Lord to guide us and to capture the hearts of the people. Please be in prayer for our visits with the people and that He would help us to continue learning the stories.

On another note... lanuage has been going well. I continue to learn by messing up and by just listening to the native speakes. It was hard to talk about spiritual things in the early parts as I had never really been used to speaking with that sort of vocabulary. That is another place that I would like to ask you continue to pray for me. That I will continue learning and begin bold and letting the Lord use me even when I am not sure of myself. And somethng else really cool is that I have been learning some quechua which is a language used by folks in various parts of the mountain... it is way different from spanish but the people love to teach us and so we always try to get involved. It is definitely an area of pride and interest for them and a huge part of their identity and history.

Oh man... so I don't know how great of a synopsis that was but I think I am going to leave it at that. I just want to let you all know that I am feeling your prayers as I go and I take each one of you with me. I pray for you all as well and I hope that the Lord continues to bless each one of you. Please continue to pray for me and my team as we go back to Santiago. We are looking foward to the Lord using us in awesome ways and changing our lives as well as lives of people in the village.

Mad love
I miss you all
Look foward to getting more to you in a month and I will post pictures as well!

I just finished the book called "The Shack" and I loved this quote and found it to relevant to life right now...

"You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you." --Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth