Kelly Dillon, Wendy Ball, and Ica!

Wow! What a blessing that for the second summer my dear friend Kelly Dillon came to visit us. God always uses Kelly in an incredible way and it was SUCH a blessing to have her come down. It was a short visit, but SO much was packed in. Kelly is an amazing Spanish speaker and more than that God just works through her in incredible ways. She arrived on Saturday morning. We went to the grocery store and went to the market to get some yummy breakfast foods. We had a fruit smoothie and Kelly ate some Peruvian fruits. She loves adventurous fruits! One of the fruits she picked out was cactus. I didn’t know that so that turned out to be a little dangerous. After catching up and a quick nap, we headed out to Huaral. Kelly graciously taught the adults in the Bible study on last minutes’ notice.

Kelly loves Peruvian fruit. She LOVES this fruit called grananilla which looks really gross in the inside but actually is delicious!

Huaral!

Just eating a little chinese food! Yum!

Kelly was so awesome and brought church planting books for us in Spanish.

Sunday we headed out to our normal Sunday Bible studies. It was a delight to have Kelly there and be a part of them. Then we headed back home because Kelly was going to teach our first Christian conference and start off T4T for us. Training for trainers. Wow, what a blessing. The way she taught the principles all backed up by tons of scriptures was AMAZING. God really showed me how I should be teaching by how she taught. She did not talk very much at all just let God’s Word do the talking for itself. She always lets God use her in that way, her words are few but when she does say something it is profound. We realized after about 4 hours and not even being halfway through that we would need to come back the next night to finish the conference. Everyone was learning so much, including myself.

Our first Christian T4T Conference.

She used the projector that Southmont donated to teach our new Christians some cool stuff from the Bible.

Monday – July 4th, we went to Real Felipe a Peruvian fort on US Independence’s day, kind of ironic. We went there to meet our friend Wendy Ball! She was in Peru visiting as well. We had a lot of fun touring the fort, taking funny pictures, hiding in the prison cell etc. It was good to see Wendy too! Then from there we headed to a beautiful lookout point and got to see the beautiful ocean! Wow, I had never been there before ,and it was gorgeous! Then we came back for the second part of the T4T. Wow, what an incredible night it was. Everyone shared their testimony. The majority of people did not leave till’ about 3:00 am. Some of us were still sharing our testimonies until 6:00 in the morning. It was a great night. God’s Spirit really moved for sure.

Hanging out with Wendy Ball and Karina!

Tuesday – Poor Kelly got up early to meet with John (one of our Peruvian Christians). Last year Kelly spoke with John and God worked through her and used her to be the turning point for John to decide to follow Christ. John was so excited that Kelly was coming and had been really looking forward to it. John talked to Kelly for several hours that morning. Then John and I made a Peruvian dish for Kelly to try. Then another lady that came to know Christ last year after Kelly got done explaining the gospel with her came by to get to see Kelly as well. It was so neat for me to what God did through Kelly last year and for me to get to see her follow up with those people again this year. Then we headed to the bus stop because we were going to go meet Kelly’s boyfriend and some other missionaries that live in Ica Peru. Bus stops in Peru are always an adventure; the bus that we were originally going to take did not have enough passengers so we had to wait about a 1 hour and ½ to get on the next one. It was a nice bus ride, only about 4 hours long, and I took medicine so I did not get car sick at all!

It was so neat to get to meet with some other missionaries in Peru. They are doing church planting as well. They have a wonderful family with 3 children who are actively involved in their ministry. It was so great to be around a family who is on mission together for the Lord. We went and visited an amazingly delicious chocolate factory and went to a neat little coffee shop to have brunch together. We also then went a place in Ica where there are these HUGE sand dunes. We wend sand boarding. I only did it like 3 times because I was terrified, but it was so fun to see everyone sand boarding and to experience the beautiful sun which we do not get hardly any of in Lima during the winter months. It was a great day filled with laughter, conversations, and fun. Then we headed back that same night back to Lima where sadly we had to say goodbye to Kelly and her boyfriend John because they were going to Bolivia.

Waiting for the bus to Ica!

The precious missionary kids in Ica!

Sandboarding! So much fun but SCARY!

I am so blessed that Kelly came to visit us. She always teaches me when I am around her, encourages me, and is just a great friend. I am so grateful that she has taken the time to come visit us 2 years in a row now. Although we did not have a ton of days together, we packed in a lot in those days, and had a fabulous time together. God is so GOOD!