Land of the Unexpected - 2/26/08

Wow! What an incredible day! From the trip to the shantytown in Ventanilla (with the 600+ kids) to the last stop for supper at McDonalds at 12:00 am, it was challenging as well as lots of fun.

Hi, this is Angela here, reporting on our third full day. Peru is a land of the unexpected, as we are finding out by the hour. You never quite know how many times plans may change in the day. I’ll try to just touch the highlights of our Tuesday.

We left this morning around nine and headed out for Ventanilla, an enormous shanty town on the outskirts of Lima. We were forewarned at the beginning of our hour bus drive that the kids had already been waiting for two hours. By the time we arrived, they were overjoyed to see us and let out a big cheer. We divided the kids up by placing colored bandannas around their neck. Somehow, we ended up only having two translators for the entire group, so we had some interesting challenges. Our four different stations included Scripture memory, a Bible story, learning hygiene, and a game station. Those kids had enough energy to wear us out completely! When we finished our program, many children just stayed around to interact with us.

I think the biggest hit was when you took their picture, especially if you were in it with them or let them see it on your digital screen. By the time we pulled out at 2, I was tired, but thoroughly enjoyed my time. Even though I had studied the shantytowns previously, it was nothing compared to seeing them. The biggest thing for me was seeing the hundreds of kids. Yes, they were poverty stricken, but knowing there are deeper issues of abandonment, abuse, hunger, and rejection, issues that will affect them the rest of their life, was what tugged at my heart.

When we arrived back at the hotel, we just had time to scramble into clean clothes, grab our supplies for tonight, and head out for our next destination. Of course there were challenges tonight, too, but it was so much fun to see all the kids again and get to know them better despite the language barrier. I was on the station for crafts one and because we were learning about respecting our authorities, we made parachutes. The kids had so much fun putting them together and then, of course, playing with them the rest of the night. Daniel and Elizabeth told the skydiving story, which thoroughly amused the children, (especially when Daniel purposefully dropped the raw eggs on the stage)!

Just to keep in mind: two of our team-mates are struggling with sickness. Keep them in your prayers! I’d better close so we can get to bed! Our first assignment is to be on the bus at 7:15am!

Angela, for the team

"Desperate times call for desperate measures!" The explanation we received of what on earth the guys were doing in this picture.