Lima Debrief

...Sam...

First off, if I repeat anything previously posted on this blog, I apologize but Im really enjoying not using computers or being connected at all. Today will be our first full day in Lima, where we will debrief for a long time before exploring the city. As far as the city itself, I find it really interesting, but overwhelmingly polluted. Its a stark contrast to the largely unspoiled rainforest we enjoyed up until yesterday.

Since weºll be spending much, if not all, of our debriefing time today reflecting on our experiance in the jungle, I thought Iºd share with you a few things that Im sure I will bring up in our discussions today. First, I think we did a great job this year. I think the major accomplishments we made in the physical task of building the park last year freed us to spend more time concentrating on relationships with our friends in the town this year. We worked hard and made some serious progress on the park, but there wasnt the same pressure to carve a park out of nothing, as there was last year. In place of the physical activity that took much of my time last year, I was able to spend even more time interacting with people. It was a unique experience to be invited into many homes and to form friendships not only with the kids, but with their moms as well. I cant even count the number of times when a mom would be looking at our activities somewhat apprehensively, but when we interacted with her and asked her about her life, she suddenly became a new friend, interested and involved in our efforts.

Im being told to wrap it up because we need to start our team debrief, but I wanted to share one last thing. This should be special for Matteo Braund if heºs reading this. One of our favorite boys in the town, Klieson, is now 12 and growing up fast. He really impressed me this year because he is taking a huge leadership role among the boys. Klieson was a great help in organizing his peers for activities, and in the closing ceremony he gave an impressive speech to a big crowd. Its hard to explain how proud this made me, seeing him go from a semi quiet kid hanging out with us last year, to being a obvious example of a future leader. I hope that our time together has encouraged him to take these steps, and I also hope that our friendship and the example of our team will help him to grow in a positive direction.

Well I hope these scattered thoughts make sense. Gotta go, hope everyone is doing well.

PS Molly and I say hi to her family! And also... Hi mom!

...Sam Ziegler...

My First Hair Cut...and his

Yesterday we were appproached by one of the women of the town who wanted us to cut her sons hair. It was the first time that he had had his hair cut, and he is about 4 years old. We found out that a child´s first hair cut is a big deal in their culture, and to have one of their ¨gringo¨ friends would be an honor.
Since I was the only one on the team that had cut hair (I´ve buzzed Cameron´s and my own, but this would be a sissors cut). I told them I was willing. What we found out was that generally this was almost an event and would include some gifts. The family came over to the FH house and I went to work. With about 20-30 people watching the presure was on both of us. He was not a huge fan of the attention and kept looking down, and appeared to be quite tired, but we powered through. You can let me know what you think.

He was not all that excited until after the hair cut I brought out a new hat for him to wear and show off/cover up his new hair cut. (for my fellow Minnesotans, dont be too harsh on me it was a Packers hat).
What a great experience that was, I was able to meet his dad later. This was a great experience, and made a special connection with my new friend Luis Mario.

Mighty to Save

If you´re anything like my mom you probably want to know every single detail of everything we did today, but that gets boring to write. (I love you mom!) So here is a quick summary of the day. This morning Kirk, Heather, and Sam worked at the park in La Merced, planting thousands upon thousands of plants. (Ok that´s an exaggeration but really, it was a lot and from what I hear, they rocked it!) The rest of us went to San Andreas, another smaller village about 15 minutes away, depending on road conditions. We did a our Kids Club with them and then went on a home visit to Jack and Mary Mlsna´s sponsored boy Jerson. (Jack - He seems to be healthy and doing really well!) In the afternoon we did our second Kids Club with the children in La Merced. At dinner, David, one of our translators, bought a rooster (yes still alive and squaking) for dinner on friday. He tied it up and through it in the back of our car to take home. Not something we are very accustomed to but entertaining none-the-less.

Now for the good stuff... After kids club I was walking with a 10 year old girl named Estefita. I´ve connected with her and her brother Glauber, 13 years old, better than most other children the past few days. We were talking and she started explaining why she wasn´t at the Kids Club yesterday. She said her father had gotten drunk and wouldn´t let them leave. Glauber was there because he had been able to escape. As we got closer to her house she looked up at me and told me that she didn´t want her dad to see the music sticks that we had made and hid it behind her notebook. I had difficulty understanding her explanation but it seemed as though he didn´t like them spending time with us and going to Kids Club. This was a difficult thing to hear, as it is whenever you hear of abuse. Unfortunately there is nothing that we can do but pray. This is still something that is in the forefront of my mind and a difficult thing to process and understand but I take comfort in knowing the power of prayer and God´s faithfulness.

We read the letters from some of you earlier this evening. Thanks for all of the encouragement! Speaking on behalf of the team, it was much need and appreciated! As I was reading mine, one verse that gave me particular comfort after this conversation with Estefita earlier today was this-



The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.

- Zephaniah 3-17

Dios es amor

Hey guys. I cannot begin to describe the blessings of the past few days. Yesterday I was sick for most of the day while the rest of the team worked very hard outside clearing a field to make a volleyball court. I started to feel better in the afternoon which was great because I got to play some ultimate frisbee with the kids (or as we call it in Peru, frisbee futbol). The ride home was very interesting...a mix of the men pushing our car and van out of the mud during a rainstorm in the Amazon, one of our translators, David, leading us in a worship singing party between getting stuck in the mud, and the boy mudwrestling in the road. It was a blessing to lift up songs of worship to our Lord while in the midst of a somewhat stressful, yet entertaining situation.

Today we all had a great time working on planting some trees (with LOTS of help from the little ones) and painting the in community park. It was fantastic to see how much work we accomplished in 3 hours and the joy it brought to the kids to help dig holes and plant trees. The kids were so eager to help that everytime I would start a job, a handful of kids would come in to join! It was such a blessing for me to be outside helping because yesterday I was sick for most of the day (don´t worry Mom, I´m fine!). Later in the afternoon we had some activities for the children which was energizing, fun, and joyous to see the children embracing the Bible story and loving the crafts. Each day I am becoming more in love with the communtiy of La Merced and the people here. I am stoked to see what the rest of the week brings and cannot wait to report back to all of you!

Dios es amor (God is love),
Heather

Which of these things doesn´t belong?