God has so much more work to do in my stubborn heart for sure. So finally at 10 that night we headed off in a taxi to the bus station to leave for a mountain town up North. This town is 8 hours away, and we were going to meet a peruvian friend there to traing her to start a house church. Let the road trip begin!
It was so beautiful! Definitely so different than where we live in the sand hills of Lima. Anyway, the friend we were going to see normally gets online everyday, but it just so happened that she had not gotten online any this week and did not know we were coming. She also did not have a cell phone, so we had no clue where to find her. We did not have her address or anything. God had some other plans for us first. I love when I just get to walk in God's will, I never doubted when we could not get a hold of our friend that God had something else for us. I was also pretty confident that we would find her at some point or another. So the adventure began! We saw a hostal on her facebook page that she worked at. The taxi took us to the hostal that had the closest Kechuan name to the name we had for where whe supposeively worked. No one had heard of her. We tried calling the cell phone of one of her friends....no answer. Little did we know at the time, that was a hostal that she had worked at in Lima....not in this mountain town. Then we just started asking random people in the street if they knew her. One guy actually did, he described her perfectly to us. He said she was probaby working at one of the mining schools teaching English. Off we went to go check out the schools!
First stop...hostal no go. Second stop....school no go. When we asked the faculty in the school, they had never heard of her. They gave us a name of a man that knows a lot of English teachers, but we decided to go to the other school and then maybe go back and visit him. While we were walking to the next school. We saw a GRINGO! I was sure he was from Europe because we normally never find Americans. I started talking him to spanish. He was not responding. Then, I started yelling hello to him in English and he turned around.
Turns out he is a Christian MISSIONARY! What a blessing, and he is from Texas. He then proceeded to take us to his English teacher's house to see if we could find out any connection where our friend might be teaching English. He gave us the name of 2 mining schools. The guy earlier had said the same thing about these mining schools, but we had not fully understood everything he had said. We got to share the good news of Jesus with the English teacher and then were quickly on our way. We also got the information of this missionary so that we can set up our friend with him and his wife to do work together!
The roof of the English teacher's house! Beautiful!
Small afternoon snack :)
This is the beautiflul mining community where the second school was at. This is a private community. They would not less us in for like 20 minutes. Finally, someone confirmed that she worked there and the secretary of the school gave us permission to enter. The cool part about this too was we had spent a lot of time in this one taxi while we were waiting for permission to enter and we got to share the gospel with him! Our hopes were getting high. Then after entering the office after a phone call was made, we realized she really did not work there. They had been mistaken. It was a beautiful school, probably the most pretty and organized one I have seen in Peru. It was a Catholic school. I felt the Lord leading me to share the good news of Jesus with the secretary, but I chickened out. As I left, I decided I had to go back in share the gospel. She seemed very appreciative to hear it and another office worker heard it as well. Pray that these seeds would fall on fertile soil. We also had the opportunity to share the gospel with the security guards of this gated community.
One of the coolest parts of the day was about to come. Nancy decided she would go inside this little shack store to get a snack. I was in a horry and ready to leave, but God had other plans! I'm so glad his plans are so much better than mine. We met the coolest lady, Ivon.
She was precious! She is a single mother of a 13 yr old and a 3 yr old. She works at this little store, and works at a hotel. She is such a hard worker and seems to try her best to provide for her kids by working all the time. She talked to us a lot about God and about how it is not about church or other things but that He is the only way. I shared the plan of salvation with her and talked about the grace of Jesus and how it is only through faith in Him. I asked her if she had given her life to him. She said no but realized that was what was missing. I don't know why I had such a strong connection with her, but she is honestly one of my favorite people I have ever met in Peru. I plan on keeping in contact with her! Pray for her salvation. She gave us the address to the next mining school.
We had to go 30 minutes outside of town to get to the next mining school. We ended up in a beautiful place that looked like the scenery of the "Sound of Music." Nancy and Amanda bursted out together in The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music. The school was actually on vacation for 2 weeks and she did not work there. Well, at least it was one more person that we got to share the gospel with. We were exhausted after traveling all night. By now, it was about 2 in the afternoon. We went back to the hotel room we were renting for the day to keep our back packs in and took about a 2 hour nap. We got up to go to check out more English institutes at the plaza. We also went back to the internet to see if by a chance she had written us. I just decided to try again to call her friend. She answered!!!! She told us the address where our friend was. We showed up at her rented room and she was there! What a miracle!!! I can not show pictures or say her name for privacy reasons, but it was such a sweet reunion. She is one of my best friends in Peru, and she definitely needed encouragement. We were able to come at just the perfect time. We all went out to eat a lunch/ dinner at a wonderful restaurant by the plaza.
Nancy and Amanda tried cuy (guinea pig). We had a great time catching up for a couple of hours. We had a a great time joking with the waitor as well and ended up getting the opportunity to share the gospel with him and giving him a Bible. We also told him to stay in contact with our friend because she was going to start a Bible study in the city. She had to go teach English for an hour an a half. She took us and showed us the place where she teaches. After that Nancy, Amanda, and I made our way to the souvenir market. Of course, we had to stop and share the gospel with some people along the way. I had the opportunity to talk to a homeless person, he was very closed to the gospel, but it was obvious that he wanted someone to talk to. At the same time, Nancy was able to talk to another homeless lady that could not walk but had to crawl to get around. Seeing the conditions of these people really makes me realize how blessed I am. Then we got a chance to look around a cute market!
I had the opportunity to meet 2 super cute kids and play the hand game with them. Then I got to share with them about Jesus. Then their family came by later and told them to tell me bye. I got to talk with the adults about Jesus as well. It was such a neat opportunity. Then we we went and met up with our friend after her English class. I got to sit down with her and explain the house church curriculum and show her the different english materials we had brought her. It was such a special time to see a new believer so serious about things of the Lord. We had an opportunity to pray over her, and then it was time to head back to Lima! Sorry, this post has been so long. It seems like we were there so much longer than 24 hours, so much happened. This trip was great for so many reasons. It was a faith walk. We got to tell people literally all over the city about the good news of Jesus. We got to encourage a good friend to stay strong and keep on keeping on through the strength of Jesus. We got to train our good friend to start a house church there. Lastly, we got to see God's beautiful creation! I just talked with my friend today through chat and she had her first Bible study with 2 girls! She just found out today that she got the job she was training for, and she is staying strong even though she is all alone in a town she did not grow up in. She has already called Ivon to try and meet with her about Bible study. Also, she has already gone and bought Bibles for Bible study and took one to the homeless man I had talked to. God is doing amazing things in her life, and I can't wait to see what He continues to do through her in this mountain town that so desperatly needs to hear the good news of Jesus. To God be all the glory for the great things he did this day!
It was so beautiful! Definitely so different than where we live in the sand hills of Lima. Anyway, the friend we were going to see normally gets online everyday, but it just so happened that she had not gotten online any this week and did not know we were coming. She also did not have a cell phone, so we had no clue where to find her. We did not have her address or anything. God had some other plans for us first. I love when I just get to walk in God's will, I never doubted when we could not get a hold of our friend that God had something else for us. I was also pretty confident that we would find her at some point or another. So the adventure began! We saw a hostal on her facebook page that she worked at. The taxi took us to the hostal that had the closest Kechuan name to the name we had for where whe supposeively worked. No one had heard of her. We tried calling the cell phone of one of her friends....no answer. Little did we know at the time, that was a hostal that she had worked at in Lima....not in this mountain town. Then we just started asking random people in the street if they knew her. One guy actually did, he described her perfectly to us. He said she was probaby working at one of the mining schools teaching English. Off we went to go check out the schools!
First stop...hostal no go. Second stop....school no go. When we asked the faculty in the school, they had never heard of her. They gave us a name of a man that knows a lot of English teachers, but we decided to go to the other school and then maybe go back and visit him. While we were walking to the next school. We saw a GRINGO! I was sure he was from Europe because we normally never find Americans. I started talking him to spanish. He was not responding. Then, I started yelling hello to him in English and he turned around.
Turns out he is a Christian MISSIONARY! What a blessing, and he is from Texas. He then proceeded to take us to his English teacher's house to see if we could find out any connection where our friend might be teaching English. He gave us the name of 2 mining schools. The guy earlier had said the same thing about these mining schools, but we had not fully understood everything he had said. We got to share the good news of Jesus with the English teacher and then were quickly on our way. We also got the information of this missionary so that we can set up our friend with him and his wife to do work together!
The roof of the English teacher's house! Beautiful!
Small afternoon snack :)
This is the beautiflul mining community where the second school was at. This is a private community. They would not less us in for like 20 minutes. Finally, someone confirmed that she worked there and the secretary of the school gave us permission to enter. The cool part about this too was we had spent a lot of time in this one taxi while we were waiting for permission to enter and we got to share the gospel with him! Our hopes were getting high. Then after entering the office after a phone call was made, we realized she really did not work there. They had been mistaken. It was a beautiful school, probably the most pretty and organized one I have seen in Peru. It was a Catholic school. I felt the Lord leading me to share the good news of Jesus with the secretary, but I chickened out. As I left, I decided I had to go back in share the gospel. She seemed very appreciative to hear it and another office worker heard it as well. Pray that these seeds would fall on fertile soil. We also had the opportunity to share the gospel with the security guards of this gated community.
One of the coolest parts of the day was about to come. Nancy decided she would go inside this little shack store to get a snack. I was in a horry and ready to leave, but God had other plans! I'm so glad his plans are so much better than mine. We met the coolest lady, Ivon.
She was precious! She is a single mother of a 13 yr old and a 3 yr old. She works at this little store, and works at a hotel. She is such a hard worker and seems to try her best to provide for her kids by working all the time. She talked to us a lot about God and about how it is not about church or other things but that He is the only way. I shared the plan of salvation with her and talked about the grace of Jesus and how it is only through faith in Him. I asked her if she had given her life to him. She said no but realized that was what was missing. I don't know why I had such a strong connection with her, but she is honestly one of my favorite people I have ever met in Peru. I plan on keeping in contact with her! Pray for her salvation. She gave us the address to the next mining school.
We had to go 30 minutes outside of town to get to the next mining school. We ended up in a beautiful place that looked like the scenery of the "Sound of Music." Nancy and Amanda bursted out together in The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music. The school was actually on vacation for 2 weeks and she did not work there. Well, at least it was one more person that we got to share the gospel with. We were exhausted after traveling all night. By now, it was about 2 in the afternoon. We went back to the hotel room we were renting for the day to keep our back packs in and took about a 2 hour nap. We got up to go to check out more English institutes at the plaza. We also went back to the internet to see if by a chance she had written us. I just decided to try again to call her friend. She answered!!!! She told us the address where our friend was. We showed up at her rented room and she was there! What a miracle!!! I can not show pictures or say her name for privacy reasons, but it was such a sweet reunion. She is one of my best friends in Peru, and she definitely needed encouragement. We were able to come at just the perfect time. We all went out to eat a lunch/ dinner at a wonderful restaurant by the plaza.
Nancy and Amanda tried cuy (guinea pig). We had a great time catching up for a couple of hours. We had a a great time joking with the waitor as well and ended up getting the opportunity to share the gospel with him and giving him a Bible. We also told him to stay in contact with our friend because she was going to start a Bible study in the city. She had to go teach English for an hour an a half. She took us and showed us the place where she teaches. After that Nancy, Amanda, and I made our way to the souvenir market. Of course, we had to stop and share the gospel with some people along the way. I had the opportunity to talk to a homeless person, he was very closed to the gospel, but it was obvious that he wanted someone to talk to. At the same time, Nancy was able to talk to another homeless lady that could not walk but had to crawl to get around. Seeing the conditions of these people really makes me realize how blessed I am. Then we got a chance to look around a cute market!
I had the opportunity to meet 2 super cute kids and play the hand game with them. Then I got to share with them about Jesus. Then their family came by later and told them to tell me bye. I got to talk with the adults about Jesus as well. It was such a neat opportunity. Then we we went and met up with our friend after her English class. I got to sit down with her and explain the house church curriculum and show her the different english materials we had brought her. It was such a special time to see a new believer so serious about things of the Lord. We had an opportunity to pray over her, and then it was time to head back to Lima! Sorry, this post has been so long. It seems like we were there so much longer than 24 hours, so much happened. This trip was great for so many reasons. It was a faith walk. We got to tell people literally all over the city about the good news of Jesus. We got to encourage a good friend to stay strong and keep on keeping on through the strength of Jesus. We got to train our good friend to start a house church there. Lastly, we got to see God's beautiful creation! I just talked with my friend today through chat and she had her first Bible study with 2 girls! She just found out today that she got the job she was training for, and she is staying strong even though she is all alone in a town she did not grow up in. She has already called Ivon to try and meet with her about Bible study. Also, she has already gone and bought Bibles for Bible study and took one to the homeless man I had talked to. God is doing amazing things in her life, and I can't wait to see what He continues to do through her in this mountain town that so desperatly needs to hear the good news of Jesus. To God be all the glory for the great things he did this day!
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