Amazing Peru

This is the only pic I've been able to upload, connection problems. This is Ellie doing dishes in the alleyway of a soup kitchen in Peru! Peru is incredible. We are staying at a hostel in Lima, Peru. Our family has a whole room to ourselves, three bunkbeds worth! And our own bathroom. With a shower! Sheer luxury to

the people we visit everyday.

We have breakfast at 7:30 am, then Scott gives an awesome devotion to get everyone pumped for the day. Then we all pile on a bus to drive to Lomas and Chilpa, two villages right across the street from each other. It takes about an hour to get there. We go to the orphanage first where the children are all in school (the school is also within the orphanage territory). What's fun is that the kids all peek at us from the doorways and if the teacher isn't looking they make their escape and come running to us for hugs and "take photos". They're adorable, all in cute school uniforms.

We split into 3 groups. One group stays at the orphanage where they are working on building a new dining hall. (Craig, Sully and Drew Preston have been here both days, and Tucker today.) One group goes to a soup kitchen to help prepare the food for the day. Ellie, Tucker and I went there yesterday and helped serve. The third group goes on a prayer walk through the village. Ellie and I did that today. With an interpreter we go door to door and tell people who we are and ask them if we can pray for them about anything. It was awesome. We got to pray for some precious people and one man even stopped our group to ask us to pray for him.

We all meet back at the orphanage to eat lunch. Then we pile back on the bus and we all go back to the village where we did the prayer walk to have "VBS" for the kids. This is not your typical VBS. Yesterday there were probably 150 kids there and first we played with them, balls, bubbles, jump ropes, stickers, fingernail polish, taking pictures, carrying them around, figuring out childrens names, etc. During story time we sang some songs, told a Bible story (acted out by the Clement kids and others- we did Zaccheus yesterday and The Good Samaritain today). Then we do a craft (too crazy to describe, only we divide into many groups and sit in the middle of the dusty street to do the crafts). After that we play some more and then pile back on the bus once again for another hour long trip back to Lima and the hostel, where we eat, visit the corner store and get some sleep.

All 40 people on our team have been incredible. Everyone is helping and serving and laughing and loving these people. And the Peruvians love us right back! There is a lady from the village church who meets our bus each day and gives us all hugs and kisses. The children come out of the woodwork to come play (today there were at least 200). And they are so sweet! And so beautiful! I've picked out MANY to adopt :). The boys are having so much fun building the dining hall and playing with the kids and hanging out with the young people from the church. Ellie, of course, is still enjoying the princess roll, being the youngest on the trip. She loves the big girls and they let her talk and talk to them and sit with them on the bus. She's made lots of friends with the Peruvian children, too, and is much more outgoing with them then when we were in Mexico. Scott said tonite that it's hard to find Ellie in the gang of kids at VBS- she blends right in with them with her dark hair.

All is good, we're all healthy and happy. One young man on our trip was sick last nite, spent today recovering at the hostel and is better tonite. Will try for more pics tomorrow.