Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Last Few Days ... by Emily

Well, we have had an eventful last few days. The day that we left for Conima we met at 4am to go hiking up a mountain in Huancane. The hike was hard, but I did not have any asthma trouble (Praise the Lord!). We all made it to the top in time to see the sun rise. It was a beautiful site to see the sun rise over Lake Titicaca from up where we were. We prayed over the town and enjoyed the view until it just got too cold! After hiking back down and having worship, we packed up and cleaned the hostel for our move to Conima.

The drive was gorgeous. We stopped to take pictures at John Grady´s favorite spot since we chose the scenic route to Conima. When we got to the house, we unloaded and got everything set up for the next six weeks. Jeremy S, Alison, and Jeremy L ended up being stuck in Huancane for the night because they could not find a bus out to Conima. The next day we were all together again and started building relationships with the people. We have had a lot of fun playing with the kids and visiting with some of the adults. A lady named Sofia sits out in the plaza every afternoon to knit, and she has offered to teach me how to knit this week. I´m looking forward to doing that with her. Hopefully, I can tell my first story to her. She is actually the neice of the owner of the house we are staying in, and she owns a store right next to the house that we have been doing a lot of our shopping at.

Yesterday, we had a picnic out by the lake, and two of the little boys that we have been playing with followed us out there. They thought they were hiding really well while we ate, but we could see them the whole time. :) Once we finished eating our PB&J sandwiches, some of us skipped rocks with the kids (after they came out of hiding) and the rest of us tried to work on our stories. The lake is beautiful here, and it was so peaceful to just sit and listen to the waves.

Our team is bonding really well. Keep praying for that unity because without it, anything that we do this summer will crumble.

One of the challenges here is that, besides the kids, everyone here seems so much older than us. During worship today, Sara shared the verse in 1 Timothy about not letting others look down on you because you are young, and how even young people can be used for God´s work for His kingdom. It was very encouraging.

Tomorrow we start our first official "work week". Pray that God will clearly reveal to us what He wants us to do and, of course, continue to pray for my Spanish skills and for the rest of my team´s Spanish as well.

Today has been our clothes washing day. While we are having most of our things washed for us, we are saving some things for us to wash on our own. Later today, Kelsey and I are making chicken and dumplings. We are eating very well here, and we are having lots of fun learning new recipes. The rest of the day we will be working on our stories.

Happy Fathers´ Day to all you dads out there! Know that you are loved. Many of us are going to attempt to use a calling card and a pay phone later today to call our dads, but I´m not sure if it will work.

Thanks for the prayers and the encouragement. From this point on, I hope to write a post about every other day unless there is internet trouble.

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