Tomorrow I will have been here two weeks and I just wanted to give everyone an update on the main events that have been happening.
The first day that I arrived at the community Sunday March 8th, Miguel the orphanage director came and found me. He came and talked to me about the school schedule which is now of course different but that is fine, that is definitely the Peruvian way, and I got to talk to him about how someone had provided money for all the cups and plates. He was geninuinely very happy. It was such a huge blessing that he came and found us to talk with us about this school year. He usually never seeks volunteers out to speak with them and he made a point to come and talk with us about the year. He spent about 20 or 30 minutes with us which is a huge time commitment for him.
The next day school kind of started. One of the staff just stuck me in a room to teach without any of my materials. I had no clue where I was supossed to be or anything. Just as I was asking if I could go and get my materials, I heard Miguel had called for me. I then got to go on a huge adventure and go with him and 2 other staff members and one of the girls from the community to buy uniforms and dishes for the community. It was definitely an amazingly interesting experience to be a part of. We went to the biggest clothing industry city in Peru. It was about a 2 to 3 hour drive from the community in Miguel´s car. We then went into a huge warehouse, where we bought about tons of uniforms for the kids. From there we proceeded to a huge kitchen store, kind of like a wholesale store for kitchen supplies. There Miguel ordered spoons for everyone, new pitchers to use for serving, we looked at plates and cups (which he ordered later because they did not have enough), steak knives, massive spoons for serving, a food scale, and containers to hold the new dishes in. It was such a neat experience that I got to be a part of because someone followed God´s lead and provided money for new items for the kitchen. It was so crazy to get to see I think the biggest wholesale retail place in Peru. There were just streets of things in bulk. On one street all the stores had all the party supplies that you could possibly ever need. Another street had clothes everywhere, then their was the kitchen supply place etc. It was absolutely insane! That took most of Monday
The rest of the week, I taught in all of the elementary school classes and a few of the high school classes when there was not a teacher present. Everything that people in Denton helped me do before hand worked out so great. The kids absolutely loved jeopardy. I am so grateful for Sara and Gayla translating all of my jeopardy questions. Thanks so much to everyone that cut out all of my laminated things and helped me get ready for this school year. Things were so much better because people in Denton helped me get prepared before hand. The only grade I really had trouble with was the smallest kids. The teacher was in the class with me, but did not control the kids at all. The were a few kids just running around the room and out the door over and over again. When I went to retrieve the kids, one little boy was taking a little potty break outside for the whole community to see. They also had a nasty tooth brush to which they proceeded to share with each other. Looking back that was quite a comical experience. I was given a schedule for the rest of that week which was really nice. I taught the kids about the Bible being the word of God and talked about who God was. The memory verse for that week was 2 Timothy 3:16. The kids are all excited about learning this verse for next weeks jeopardy game. They can get a 100 points if they learn the verse every week. It is funny how important points are too them since they do not receive anything for winning, but I am glad they like it. It is a fun way to learn. Deanne Harrup gave me individual chalkboards for them to use and they absolutely love using them. This has also been a great learning tool as well for them. I am excited to use all of the matching games and memory verses that Lori made for me as well. This year is going to be a year full of games to help them learn the Bible.
On Wednesday of that week there was an offical opening of the school. All of the government officials came and had a formal celebration on the soccer field. The government brought new clothes for the children and manipulatives for teaching. The communitie`s band played a few songs and then they officially cut the ribbon and broke a jar of wine for the school to open. A plaque was also presented that is on the wall of the school. This was I am sure a very exciting day for Miguel, the orphanage director, because now his school is a certified school and he can receive funding from the state which is very helpful when it comes to paying the bills.
Friday afternoon the 12th was a really special day for me. I went to find one of my friends at the community who is 19 and can speak English to come and watch a video from Louie Giglio that describes the love of Christ through showing pictures of the universe etc. I ended up inviting more people and actually found out that there were Spanish subtitles. Six teenagers actually ended up coming. They were really intrigued. They wanted to watch the other video by him that night. So we had another movie time after dinner, those teenagers ended up not being able to come, but about 30 other teenagers and children came. It was just really neat how God provided Spanish subtitles on a video for kids to learn about him. The 19 year old boy was super intrigued and the video really spoke to his heart the next day, I got to really go into depth with Him about the love of God.
Speaking of school celebrations on Saturday the 13th, we were told through the grapevine that we would have a teacher meeting on Saturday morning. We did have a teacher meeting, which was pretty hard to understand since it was all in Spanish, but then we had another huge celebration that I was not aware of. I was just in tshirt and jeans with my hair in a ponytail my normal attire for Peru and the States actually....when suddenly the government was coming back out there for another celebration. All of the teachers had to take a picture together for this school year, and I looked horrible. To make matters even more comical, I was talking to Mario another one of the teachers and he was saying something about TV. I thought he wanted me to go watch TV with him, I was so confused. Before I knew it there was a camera man in front of me and the director of the school asking me to do an interview for the news. It went pretty terrible, he actually asked me the questions in English, but I responded in my broken Spanish. I hope that never actually aired on TV. I am not really sure why I was chosen out of everyone else, but it sure made for a comical experience. After that, all the teachers had to go up to the front of the soccer field and dance in front of the kids. The neatest part about this day was that I had a lot of really quality time to talk with the teachers and get to know them. I feel like God has really given me the opportunity to connect with them and I will have a great year getting to work with them and show them the love of the Lord. That afternoon, I went to the Gandhi house and showed them the same Louie Giglio video. Not many even watched it, only about 3 really did, but one of those kids was one that really wants to learn about God. He has put his faith in Jesus already, but does not really know much and he is eager to learn. He could be a great leader for this community. We are going to start meeting once a week and studying the Bible together. Then I went outside of the community with the same 19 year old that I previously mentioned and I helped him apply for college in the United States. We dont know if that will work out, but we just tried since that is a dream of his and then we went to our favorite chicken sandwhich shack and sat down and talked about God for a really long time. It was such an awesome opportunity.
Sunday March 14th, Nancy and I went to church. This was quite an experience. We went with a family I had met the last time I was in Peru. It was really cool, except I hate to admit this but I was exhausted from the day before and kept falling asleep during the Spanish sermon. Our friend Liz from the community went with us. Before I got to church, I had a very comical moment when I totally tripped at the community. My foot got stuck in one of the wooden pallets, my shoe came off, and I just tumbled to the ground in slow motion. It was very comical for all that observed. Then if that were not bad enough on the way to church in a Peruvian bus, that was a sharp turn and I definitely fell on top of a man in the bus. It is always an adventure in Peru.
The Austin group was there on Sunday afternoon, and that was neat to see them and see some of our translator friends.
Monday March 15th - I talked with one of the teachers in the morning and did some things for the school, then i hung out the rest of the day in the craft rotation and helping with the smallest girls rotate around to their different stations. They were crazy. They would not listen to me at all and just ran around the room. That night we went into Mira Flores with the group, we had a really nice dinner with them. We stayed there for 2 days just buying different school supplies and things that we needed for this year. It takes a long time to buy things in Peru because everything is at a different shop. Peru does not have walmart. We had a really good time with our translator who took us all around Peru. We had the chance to witness to people here in Mira Flores as well so that was a really neat opportunity.
The group was here on Thursday and Friday as well. On Friday March 19th, I spent all day doing things with the group and then they left Friday afternoon. The group really encouraged us, so it was neat to have them here for this week, plus they had lots of neat things for the kids to do. After they left, I went to the different casas bringing the verses that I want the kids to learn for the week and hanging up the pictures of the Southmont group in each casa. It was really neat just to go in and hang out with the different casas. I spent most of the time in the older girl´s casa just talking with them.
I have been working on lesson plans today Saturday March 20th and plan on going back to the community now and going to more of the casas bringing their verse for the week for them to memorize and hanging up the rest of the pictures. God is so good and continually brings me opportunities to talk with different children and adults. There is so much opportunity here and I cant wait to see what God does. This is of course not all of the things that have happened over the past two weeks but just a highlight. I plan on keeping this updated on a more regular basis if you want to follow what is going on. Thanks for all of your support and most of all your prayers. I will post picture soon once I figure out how to do that.
