dos semanas mas

All the kids made pictures of Joseph and his coat of many colors! This is at the Quebrada....playa del amor!! We had a mud fight!

This was the jump where i hurt myself.....it hurt REALLY bad!! Somebody´s STUPID idea!

Sarah and I with our two favorite kids....Lains and Junior!

okay! sorry I have not posted in quite some time. We just get busy around here, and I don´t even think about updating!

Life has been CRAZY around here. Today, Sarah Jennings and Chris leave for good. Chris will be heading to Congreso in the jungle for a week and a half, and sarah is leaving to go back to the United States. Yesterday was the beginning of Many tears!!!! Our neighbour, Lita comes over every morning with her little daughter. Lita is 16 years old. Her and Chris have formed quite the relationship. She helps Chris with her clothes, cooking, and taking her to the market, while Chris gives her clean water, food and money! Although there is a language barrier, Chris has reached out to this young girl, and has blown her away with Christ´s love. Now watching them say goodbye is even difficult for me. On a better note, Crystal has returned here to Nauta after being in the jungle for two months. I enjoy having her here. She knows more scripture than I have ever seen, and everything reminds her of a Bible verse.

This weekend, Sarah and I are helping put together a program for about 100 kids. This a LARGE group, but we are so excited to help out. We put together a lesson for the kids. This is independence week, so the theme is going to be about freedom. We will be sharing Luke 9, when Jesus healed the demon possessed man, and set him free. Jesus then told this man to go share about what Christ had done for him. There are so many things that bind us in this life. It could be money, religion, alcahol, or drugs. The only things that can ever set us free from these things is the cross of Jesus. He is the only one that can break the chains that bind us. Hopefully everything will go well on Saturday.

Recently, I injured my foot. One night, a group of us were outside on our front porch, and we were taking a bunch of photos. Well, somebody decided it would be a wonderful idea to jump off the front porch, while somebody is taking a picture of us. As we were landing, my foot landed on something, and the front part of my foot got pushed up. I was limping for the rest of the night. When i woke up in the morning, I could not even walk on my foot. Needless to say, all the kids loved making fun of me. They would imitate me by hopping on one leg, and they would call me the crippled girl.

Continue praying for us these last two weeks. We still have many friends who have not yet accepted Christ. They are so interested, but none have actually taken the next step. We have one friend who is constantly struggling with the decision to accept Christ. We constantly tell him that you can not have the world and God. A choice has to be made. We pray he makes the RIGHT choice SOOOON!!

So, our time here is winding down. I don´t know how I am ever going to say bye to the children here and the new friends we have made. Yesterday was difficult for me, just watching others say goodbye, and i know soon it will be me and Sarah´s turn! We talk about how we are excited to go home and see our family and friends! But then we like to make jokes about losing our passports also!! We talk about the things we will miss, and the things we definitely WILL NOT miss. I will not miss hearing the roosters at 1 :00 A M, or hearing hello my beautiful love. I think those are the only english words peruvian men know! But all the good outweighs the bad. I will miss hearing the children say the verses outside on our porch. There is this boy junior, who is one of our favorites! And at night now, He likes for us to come sit with him on the porch. He will just lay in my lap, and I run my fingers through his hair until he is tired and wants to go to bed! Life has been good here. Please keep praying for us!!

Kelly

At Kel´s party with Carlos and Betsy and Kel´s new jewelry

The paint crew hard at work

Our Lion Masks at the new kids program

After going star gazing here one night....the view is amazing!!

Chilling with our friends in the plaza...like usual haha

First off, I must apologize for how much time has passed since our last update. At first we did not update because there really was not too much going on, but now we haven´t had anytime because we have been so busy. I wish the words I type could truly describe to you what an incredible time we are having. Hm...where to start.....Well last week the main church we do a lot of work with took a team into the jungle for a week because the pastor, his wife, and about 12 others left, we were asked to help out by taking over 2 of the 5 weekly services. The first service I spoke about love: Agape, Fileo, and Erros. I have been learning a lot about this, especially after reading 1 Corinthians recently. There were not too many people there because of the mission trip and also because right before the service it was raining very hard, but it still went very well and if anything I left the church extremely challenged by my own words. For the second service, our very own Kelly Brill got up and shared her testimony and I translated for her. She talked about how through a horrible sledding accident, God became very real to her and how life is so short that we shouldnt waste it on things of this world. We definitely had to practice a few times before and two of our friends Isai and Jorge helped me figure out words that could replace 4-wheeler and sled and other things that most Peruvians who have never seen snow wouldnt understand. It was awesome to see Kelly share and Isai´s father Pastor Bazalar, who is another local pastor would like her to come share in his church sometime as well.

Our kid program continues to go well and on Sundays we have started another kids program working with Pastor Bazalar about a 30 minutes walk away from where we live. In our weekly kids program the kids know all the songs, many of the stories, and an incredible amount of Bible verses from the memory verse program we have going on. But in the new location the kids hardly know anything, but it is so much fun teaching them. Last sunday we shared the story of Daniel and the Lion´s den and talked about God´s faithfulness to Daniel. We then made lion masks to help remember the story. Afterwards we just hung around a few hours and played volleyball, and the the first time won a little bit of money instead of losing like usual. By the way the betting here always very small amounts of money, like one sol or 2 soles which equals about 30 to 60 cents in American money. It is a huge cultural thing here, everyone does it. It is such a great way to build relationships with the people that live here, especially when there can be a language barrier.

In other news, 5 Americans from the Adventures in Missions team were sent from the jungle to Nauta on a fast boat to be tested for Malaria and Denghe fever. I met them at the port and took them to the hospital. All the tests came out negative and they were all told they had a bacterial infection and given antibiotics to treat it. 4 of them woke up feeling a little better, but one girl woke up with incredible pain which everyone thought to be appendicitus. While the 3 went back to the jungle, Molly, the team leader Jesse, and our house mom Chris left for Iquitos to treat her. While she was gone, we decided to get busy and do some physical labor and house work to surprise Chris when she returned. She has been meaning to paint our walls for a good while now. They were kind of a mixture of concrete and some green paint. So we all woke up early and began. Kelly and Sarah began washing the walls, which was the messiest part of all. I decided to take on the job of ¨mowing the lawn¨which in Peru translates to Machete time. Our backyard has been growing out of control, so I began chopping away using my machete ¨skills¨that I picked up last year in the jungle. After about an hour, about 13 neighborhood kids showed up , many with their own machetes to show me how it is really done. These kids have the most amazing work ethic, they didnt want anything, they just really love us and wanted to help. About three hours, many blisters, and a bit of sunburn later it was done. I went down the corner store and bought some cookies and coke and we all relaxed in the shade, it was so much fun, those kids are so precious. By that time, Kelly and Sarah finished wall washing. We took a break and met up with our new friend Patty who showed us a new swimming spot named Playa Del Amor, or translated The Beach of Love. After all the work it was relaxing to cool off and swim...no worries we did not find any romance on the beach..but we did have a lot of fun. We returned, prepared and had our kids program and then began painting away. We had two of our friends and old students from the institute helping us paint, it was actually successful...more paint ended up on the walls than on us. Sadly, Chris showed up in the middle of our surprise, but she definitely appreciated it. The doctors in Iquitos said that Molly had a urinary tract infection and not appendicitus and so she is now at our house recovering until the rest of her team arrives in Nauta today or tomorrow.

Last but not least, yesterday was a very special day. Little Kelly Brill turned 20 years old. We had a great day. We woke up to amazing chocolate chip pancakes which Chris has been planning for awhile because Kelly and I would always talk about how they are our favorite. We then went with some friends to this huge garden of all sorts of plants. Our one friends knew so much about the plants. There was cotton, coconuts, and lot of medicinal plants as well. We ended up overlooking water and had a nice view of Nauta. We came back and had a great lunch and then went and played so basketball. Kelly and I went and got some of Nauta´s best french fries and then we headed back to the house and had cake and ice cream. About 20 of our friends came to celebrate, it was an awesome time. Our friend Jorge and his mother knit Kelly a beautiful wall hanging that said PAZ...which is peace translated. Another friend Betsy made her some beautiful jewelry and our friend Cesar, the joker of the group finished with the best present, the Peruvian tradition to crack an egg on the birthday girl...which I think we all enjoyed much more than Kelly did. Anyways we are headed to Iquitos this weekend. It will be a nice break.

God continues to do awesome things. More and more people are interested in the gospel. I was just sharing last night with a friend who always seems so full of joy. He really opened up that he is absolutely empty inside and has even contemplated suicide. His best friend committed suicide last year and he is really struggling right now, from family problems to financial needs. He said he just wants a new life...to start over. That is exactly what we get in Christ...the old things pass away and God gives us a new life. Please continue to pray for the youth here. There is so much hopelessness and emptiness that only God can fill.

Congrats if you read this all. We miss you and love you so much.

Paz

oooo, life here in nauta!!

So, one night it was storming really hard, and i was home alone. I broke the rule and let the kids come in the house. We all had a good time, and I really got to practice my spanish since no one was home!! I just love these kids! All the Ninos!

These are some of our friends. We were in the plaza last night and Decided to get some pics!

This was after a big evangelical campaign that they had in the streets. All the kids came out, and this is our friend Isaig!

Sarah, Indra and me

So, I apologize that it has been so long since the blog has been updated. This past week, nothinggg happened!! It was a very relaxed week, and it was much needed. Sarah and I got plenty of rest in. We have been hanging out with our friends, doing the children´s program every week, and just LOVING life down here. God has truly been working down here, and Sarah continues to have AMAZING opportunities to share the gospel with our friends. I love it! I want to ask all of you to continue praying for the friends we have made down here, who do not know Christ.

Anyway, to change the subject, we have been on a water shortage. We have not received much rain here lately, so our water supply is very low. This means that when we bathe, we get one tiny tiny bucket to wash our hair and body . Just think how much water we use in America for our showers. I am so used to taking 15 minute showers, but here, I get one bucket. Sarah and I managed to get by today, with water to spare!!

Sarah and I experienced our first time of washing our clothes in buckets. Oh my, how difficult that was, but we managed to get through it. We were scrubbing, scrubbing, and scrubbing. The little girls here would put us to shame, they all work so hard.

We love each day that we are here, and we can see God working in many different ways. I can not believe that we have been here for a month, and we are half way through with our trip here in Nauta. We constantly talk of how difficult it will be to leave this life here, and the friends we have made! Please continue praying for us!!