We made it!

Just a quick post to let you all know that we made it to Lima. After a delay and spending an extra 30 minutes in the air because the Lima airport was too busy, we are finally at our hotel. A solid 4 hours of sleep and we will be on our way back to the airport to fly out to Pucallpa.

Four years goes fast

It has been almost four years since I arrived for the first time in Peru. After watching a video shown in my church of the community of La Merced de Neshuya, I was captivated. The people, the language, the poverty. There was no doubt in my mind that I needed to find my way to this small Amazon village. What I didn't know or understand then was that God was going to use this place and these people to transform and shape me, to bless me and to teach me about His plan for the world and His plan for my life- as a follower of Christ, a teacher, and a friend. It's difficult to fully express how these things have happened, so much of it is caught up in my heart and mind and I struggle to outwardly convey what I want all of you to know, but I do know that one trip in 2005 sparked a call to serve others, not only oversees, but within my daily life. Talents, skills and passions that I had only begun to explore were brought to light and have continued to be grown and developed me during the past four years. It has only been the beginning to a beautifully difficult and revealing journey.

This trip will be my fourth trip to La Merced with Blackhawk Church, partnering with Food for the Hungry, an international development and relief NGO. Sometimes when I think about returning, I wonder if I'm being selfish, because I have close friends and amazing experiences awaiting me when we land. I'm excited to be reunited the FH staff and the people of the community. I have no idea if I will be helping or changing the world by returning. I am certain that this trip will refresh my soul and change my heart and so yes, selfishly, I await the realities, lessons, challenges, blessings and renewel that will come from God in the next few weeks. I am who I was created to be when I am in La Merced. There is no crap, no games, no hiding, nothing fake- ITS JUST ME. I thrist for that kind of freedom in my life here in Madison and I already pray I can learn to bring it back to this place, so I can also be fully me, fully confident and fully dependant on a God who provides and gives grace more than I can comprehend. May we all be able to share this prayer.

Along with that, I confess that I am scared. Not to travel or lead or translate in Spanish, but at the possibility of this being my last trip to La Merced. While that is not my plan for the future, as we wind down this community to community partnership it is a reality. As La Merced grows in their community leadership and long range sustainable planning for water and food, we must rejoice that goals set seven years ago are being met and that small cycles of hungry, disease, and poverty are being slowed down and lives changed. Praise God! But my messed up heart finds its way back to sadness and fear over saying goodbyes that could be final ones. If you know me well, you know that normal goodbyes can make me sad, so I ask you think of me and that I may have a peace and joy in knowing this little village will be taken care of and that my experiences and relationships have been of unsurmountable value.

So with that, I'm ready to go. We have planned and fund raised and asked God to go before us, and we are ready. Please follow us in the two weeks to come, we thank you for your continued support, thoughts and prayers.

Dios te bendiga,
laura

Ready or not, here I come!

As I look back on this summer, I am completely blown away by how fast it has gone by. It seems like it was not that long ago that our team was meeting for the first time, and now we are only a few short days away from traveling to La Merced. I am getting very excited for this trip, but also a little nervous. I have never been immersed in a culture different from my own which will be a learning experience and I am excited to see God's work on a more global scale.
As most of you know, I am a team leader for a high school youth group called Young Life. I have been involved with Young Life for the past 7 years. During the summers I have volunteered at Young Life camps around the nation which has been an amazing growing and serving experience. This summer will be a different experience serving on a mission trip and I am not sure what God will use me for yet, but I cannot wait to find out. I am looking forward to meeting the people of La Merced, serving in their community, and building relationships with them.

There is a small country on the west side of South America that holds a special place in my heart. I've only been in it for two weeks, but something about it has captured me and made me desire to go back. One reason may be that I only got a small glimpse of the relationship between the village of Blackhawk and La Merced, for there was striking in Peru at the time when I went down making us change our plans and spend most of our time in Lima. Through all this I learned of the sovereignty of God. All that we had planned failed, yet our trip could not have been more perfectly planned. I think that the most exciting part of that trip was how my perception of God changed into one, that though was nowhere near accurate, was closer than what it had been. This time, only one week away, I can only pray that my perceptions will change again.

Bittersweet Goodbyes

As our day of departure creeps up fast I’m finding myself in a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions about the impending trip. Coming off of both a backpacking trip and local missions trip with high school students, I’m physically exhausted. Additionally, I’ve found it difficult to find time to spiritually process everything that took place. Thinking ahead to this trip, I’m filled with bittersweet anticipation. Along with the excitement of seeing the people there, there comes a heaviness with the thought of saying goodbye for good. As Food for the Hungry’s relationship with La Merced draws to a close it is unlikely that I will ever go back. How do you look a 12 year-old boy that you’ve grown to love and care for in the eye with tears streaming down his face that you’ll never see him again? While he will go on to live and grow, it is a death of sorts.  He will no longer be a part of my life besides in my prayers. I’ve been struggling to figure out how to prepare myself for it, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t. I’ll never be ready, no one ever is. If you pray for one thing for me on this trip, please let it be this.  

"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken." (Psalm 62:5-7)

How I Landed Here

It’s been 4 years since I first ventured into the Peruvian Amazon for the first time. Having gone on mission trips to both Honduras and Mexico, I had begun to develop a heart for missions work in Latin America. After watching a video of a Blackhawk team that went to Peru, I knew I had to go. That trip in many ways was the beginning of an adventure God is still taking me on. Among the things that greatly impacted me were: seeing adolescent males in a culture saturated in machismo leaving our week long camp with tears streaming down their faces while they said goodbye, the unbelievable generosity and gratefulness of those who are significantly less materially blessed, meeting the boy I sponsor (an incredible story but too long for this post). My heart was torn open to the social injustices of our world, thankfully never to be closed. I returned again in 2007, excited to deepen the relationships I had formed two years prior. As soon as we landed in Lima it was clear that God’s plan was different. But once again He blew me away. Due to strikes in Pucallpa (the city we fly into to get to La Merced), we were unable to go to La Merced as planned. We spent the first week working in various communities throughout the slums of Lima. Fortunately, the strikes ended and we were able to cancel our trip to Machu Picchu and make it to La Merced for a few days. (Again, much more to this story.) It was on this trip that I really began to realize the crazy ways in which God works and learned that if I surrender my life, He’ll undoubtedly blow my mind. Throughout the past two years God has been literally pushing me (at times against my own selfish desires) into youth ministry. Two years ago, I’d never thought of a future in youth ministry, and now I find myself in the midst of a yearlong internship with the high school ministry at Blackhawk, but I wouldn’t change any of it. It’s unclear where God is taking me with all of this but I’m confident of one thing, it’ll be a wild ride but ultimately more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. Thinking about this trip and all the roadblocks we’ve hit in preparing and the unknowns ahead, it would be natural to be fearful of what is to come. But because of my confidence in God’s faithfulness, instead of anxiousness and fear, I’m simply excited for the ways in which God is going to pull through and knock us off our feet. He always does.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

Perspective

I’ve been pretty stressed over the last few days.

I’ve been worried about the number of things I want to get done before I leave on this trip.
I’ve been frustrated because my son wasn’t eating the food that was on his plate.
I’ve been upset about a slow internet connection.
I’ve been annoyed because of the many cars on the road when I was already running late.
I’ve been discouraged with the clutter lying around my house.

As I reflect on the tension I feel, I realize a common thread.

I am not stressed because of scarcity; I am stressed because of abundance.

From one perspective, the people of La Merced have much less than we do. They are a poor village. They live a simple life. They live in scarcity.

From another perspective, the people of La Merced have much more than we do. American stress if foreign to them. They aren’t stressed by running late because they are more interested in relationships than routines. They aren’t stressed by clutter, because they not only have less, they are content with less. Their belongings may be scarce, but their existence is abundant.

So, as I look towards leaving in a week, I am excited. I am not only excited for what I will give, but what I will gain. I am excited for a new perspective.

Steph

Count Down...Sound off, look for the whole team to share their background

Over the course of the next week you will hear from several people from our team to give you a bit of an overview of who we are. So a bit of background on me and my family. I’m joined on this trip by my wife Steph she is the children’s pastor at Blackhawk. We will be leaving our 2 ½ year old with my family in the Twin Cities while we are gone. We did a similar trip to Honduras about 7 years ago, and have wanted to do another trip ever since. This is a summer of transitions for us as well, I'm going back to school as soon as we get back, so as we are leaving for Peru I'm leaving my company of almost a decade! Between Steph’s children’s ministry experience and my Spanish we should be in a good place on this trip. We are specifically excited to see the water wells that our church is sponsoring throughout Peru and bring some of the exciting news back to Madison on the progress FH is making bringing clean water to remote areas of Peru. We are also excited to build some relationships with the community of La Merced. We'd love you to pray for us, specifically for focus on the trip and relationships in La Merced while there is so much going on in our lives. Safe travel, and more importantly open hearts and minds to change should something go not as planned.