Peru2009 Continued....Day 4b

After returning to Hannah's after the Parade we had our lunch and then back to work!!! I got to work on digging another hole for a water pump. During this service project I had the blessing of getting to know Anessa & Ashton! I had such a great time taking turns digging this hole with them and getting to hear their stories. Up until this day I really hadn't got to spend much time with any one to talk to them so it seemed like this day I was talking, sharing my story and hearing others stories all day long....I have to record one more thing from the afternoon that I know is significant to my whole life story.... I had taken a load of dirt to dump it and when I was returning to the dig site, two teens, Ashton & Caleb were chatting & I over heard them. It sounded like they were discussing how hard the work we were doing has been, one said to the other, " Well, it is for Jesus, so we will just keep working on it!" That moment blessed my heart so much, Once again gives me hope for the future generation!  What a great day so far... and we still have the evening ahead of us....!!!

No VBS today... Wednesday night Church... our day's second adventure as if the Parade was not enough! We attended Wednesday evening church services.... I don't know what City we were in, BUT... I do know that I KNOW, GOD was teaching me the same thing in Peru as He had back home. I thought I might fall out of my chair when the guest speaker who was a woman got up and spoke about 'Retrobution'. What was so incredibly awesome about this was that she used the story of Zacchaeus from Luke chapter 19:8-9. This was the same story God had led me to use for our VBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God continued to pour out His confirmations of His work in my life as the woman continued speaking she moved on to talk about how as aged adults we should be teaching the younger generation how to do good things so they can serve and glorify God. She said that the young ones, Nenos are their future!!! God has also been teaching me this and stirring in my heart to invest in the young women in my life as charged to the aged women in Titus 2:3-5.  WOW... as I recount this day and look at all the events and see in my journal where I note the following statement: "these last two days God has allowed me to get to know the teens on our team & they are EACH so precious!!!!!" God once again confirms this is part of His calling on my life.... INVEST IN THE NEXT GENERATION.........

                        

I am SO thankful God called me to this trip with all of these people! God bless them, may their cup run over, & over & over!!!! Glory to God in the Highest! Amen!

Peru2009 Continued.... Day 4a

Today’s morning quiet time led me to Psalm 94 and verses 1-7 spoke so loud to me it is PACKED with praised to God and encouragement! God allowed me to share this with two others on the team and give back to this team. It was awesome to encourage others! These people have blessed me so much by watching their love for one another. Through the actions of others on the team this week God has brought to my mind a few scriptures:

1Corinthians 8:3 "But if any man love God, the same is known of him."
John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
This team is really living out these scriptures and it is so incredibly refreshing! Can we live like this every day of our lives? I pray so.

My service opportunity today was helping inventory all the donations our team brought over and not sooner did we get started it was time to get into our ChildReach Team shirts and head to the City's Flag Day Parade! What an awesome privilege and humbling experience. It was so awesome to see our team carrying the American Flag in a parade on foreign soul. The Mayor was very pleased with our presence in the Parade and stated that the Americans were there to help them and we should all help each other. To end he asked us to give our President Obama his best greetings! I thought that was so cool, I felt like we made history that day! I am sure there was a news article in Peru somewhere about that event!!!!

What God thinks of me

As I continue to make my meditation toward God each morning, renewing my relationship with Him and listening for His still small voice my spirit is inspired with words of Truth from the Holy Scriptures.


At times through my life I have had thoughts about myself such as, I am a hypocrite, a liar, fat, ugly, stupid, mean, can not do anything right, keep falling backward, continually make the wrong choice, lazy.... on and on the list goes. I heard someone say one or more of these things about themselves and I immediately thought... God does not think that about you! That made me come the Word, and the Word says the following about God's thoughts toward me:

First of all - He loves me & you -Rom.5: [8] "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Second- His thoughts are good -Jer.29: [11] "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end."

Third- We will have times of weakness but His power is always toward us - 2Cor.13: [4] "For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you." (I have the power...do I believe that?)

Fourth - He thinks of us and loves us as His Child - 1John.3 [2] "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."


That being said He knows what we shall be....What we shall be is what He thinks about us, so no matter what we think of ourselves, if we could just believe what God thinks of us!

Lord Help us to believe what you say is true for those that have chosen to believe on the name of Jesus and are now the sons of God! (Gal.3:[26] "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.")

In Jesus Name
Amen
Phil.4:[8] “ Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

Today's Thoughts continued..

Yesterday morning this thought came to me and really has blown my mind... God sent Jesus to Earth to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:[10] "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.") Jesus suffered and died, was buried & rose again the third day, according to the scriptures (I Corinthians 15:1-4)

Jesus returned to sit at the right hand of God. When Jesus left the Earth we inherited the ministry of preaching the Gospel to the ends of the Earth.... Mark 16: [15] "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."

God has trusted us to carry the same message that He sent His Son here to die for!!!! I am again reminded of just how valuable God views us, even when we do not see ourselves as valuable! God has trusted us to proclaim His message, how often do I choose to proclaim my message and not His?

Today's Thoughts

Constantly I find my self going up and down this mental/emotional rollercoaster of being very confident of my relationship with Christ and no wavering of my God & that He is real and really working all over all the time. Then I find myself wondering if God is real and wandering away from my Jesus… not talking to Him & not reading the Word, then God allows something to come across my path that causes me to KNOW He is who He says He is!

This morning I found myself in that doubting phase again, and believing I have no self worth. God gently reminded me of the value that He placed on my life and the lives of EVERY human in existence, past, present, & future IS so high that it cost God the life of His only Son. That makes EVERYONE’S worth of VERY HIGH PRICE! Can you believe that God values you SO much!

The next time I start to doubt my worth for any reason in this world or the worth of ANY other human being, I must remember the HIGH price that God has already paid for the WORLD.

John.3 [16] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

1John.4 [11] “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”

Peru Day 3 Broken!

This day started out on the edge. I was EXTREMELY tired & had a difficult time getting out of bed. One of my eyes was irritated, red & watering.
As I went through my individual devotional on this morning God reminded me that He is THE promise keeper! I needed to be patient on seeing what it is that He brought me here to see. The revelation of this brought to memory a few scriptures,
Revelation 1:8 "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."
&;
Philippians 1:6 "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:"

Isaiah 54:1-3 Has been my promise, God will give me so much my house will be bursting!
Isa 54:1 "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD."
Isa 54:2 "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;"
Isa 54:3 "For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited."

Philippians 4:13 Reminds me that the God who gave us Christ will use the power of Christ to give me the physical and emotional strength to carry out His work that He began!
Php 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

I broke inside with the flooding back of all that God has said to this morning. On this trip up until this day I have felt like God was being silent.
NOT ANY MORE!
Today my service project was helping dig a hole for rubble, we like to make believe it's the "Swimming Pool!" Thanks Beth... Ha ha ha!
I worked with Dakota, Dawn, Anessa, Eli Beth, Fernando, Richard & Max the resident dog did his fair share of work too! As we dug God brought to my mind the
parable of the "Sower & the Seed"(Luke 8) The ground we

was soft & easy to move on the surface and as we got down about 3 or so feet it got hard and rocky, that made me think about the sinners heart & how some have to plant the seed, others water and it is God that gets the increase. First the ground must be broken & pliable for that seed to be planted!
I had a great time watching Eli & Max dig the hole, Eli used his laser pointer on where ever he wanted Max to dig and Max sure worked up a thirst diggin!!! Good times!
That was the morning, after lunch the VBS team prepared supplies and practiced our skit for the Lost & Found Puppy.
This second day of VBS was much more orderly than the first day, all praise to God! Experience is a great teacher! I was able to spend more time with the kids & little Nerida stole my heart!

As we colored with the children she ran to her Casa (home) & she with her friend Gabriela returned with gifts for me! That nearly broke my heart!!! Nerida gave me a bracelet of her own & Gabriella a sun jewelery charm. Nerida never left my side the whole time she was stuck to me like glue! I was LOVING IT!  The whole experience was terribly humbling for me because I know so many times I neglect to give of what I have when I can easily go out and replace my things. These girls live in villages where the floors of their hut type homes don't even have floors. You can get a small glimpse from these three photos of their living conditions.

These children don't have the resources that I do and they are giving me gifts that are more than likely very precious to them!  As we played together I asked Nerida if she had Jesus Christ in her heart and she told me YES! She asked me if I had children and wanted to know when I was coming back to see her! Without even considering asking the Lord if that would be something He desired for me to do, I immediately told her I would be back in 12 months! I want to keep my word, I pray I have not made a promise that I can not keep...(Proverbs 3:5-6)
I had continually asked this precious girl her name over and over, my darn mind just could not contain it, she asked if I had a pen so I gave her my Sharpie PERMANENT marker pen, not knowing what she was about to do....
She wrote her name on my arm, so I would not forget her! That was so incredible. Our time together was so short and the kids were mobbing all of the team as we tried to collect everything &  get on the bus, I hugged Nerida SO tight and absolutely broke into tears like I was leaving my heart behind, I buried my head into the back of the seat in front of me on the bus & wept all the way back to our hotel. I pray I never forget this first full experience of VBS. Thank you Lord for your kisses. I have no children of my own but has saw fit to bless me so richly in way just like this! Nerida's name remained on my arm for the entire trip and even for a week or so after I returned home, this just might make a great TAT some day!!! Oh yeah! Not on my arm of coarse.....!

In Peru2009 Day2

What a sight!!! As I begin my day sitting on top of our Hostil talking to God having my quite time at 6:3o in the morning! Staring out over the Ocean!!!!!! The crashing waves are SO powerful. I don't even know what to think as I take it all in. There are no words to describe what it is like to sit here listening to the crashing thundering waves as they roll in over and over and over again. I close my eyes and talk to my Lord asking Him to give me His eyes today and the power He displays as the waves crash and the sound penetrates my spirit, I am overwhelmed at God's power and how creation obeys Him because it is God that commands the waves to keep rolling in and the sun to rise every day!!!!! If you could only see it and hear what I can hear as I sit here with eyes closed and ears open....
Maybe this video will give you a small glimpse! (was really windy)





Amy H. our team leader had prepared daily devotions for us to use during our quiet time this week, however those were in her checked bag that had not made it to Lima yet!!! Amy did share with the team that our theme for the weekly devotions was "Give Me Your Eyes Lord". I found some interesting nuggets in my completion of reading the book of Luke this morning!! Check it out... Two things stand out to me: In

Luk 24:22 Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulcher; The disciples were astonished at the women... our team of 25 is made up of 16 women, so I found this interesting! I was also reminded of this verse:
Mat 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. We are here to do good work and glorify God! We came here to serve and meet the physical and spiritual need! It is so exciting for me to hear from God in this way, I know it may sound small or insignificant to a lot of people but I can't get enough of this kind of time with the Lord!!! The other scripture in Luke that was so loud was:
Luk 24:30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and broke, and gave to them.
Luk 24:31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. Even though our devotionals didn't make it to Lima...OUR GOD MADE IT!!!! That was SO AWESOME to me that in my regular daily reading God was already on top of the theme that He had laid on our leaders heart to bring us to His throne this week!!! To me that is AWESOME!!!! Only my God can explain that!!!! ONLY HIM!!!!!
So many times God replays that same act in our lives right in front of our eyes and we don't even see that it is Him until he does something that can only be explained by Him just as He did here in this scripture, Jesus re-enacted the act of the last supper and THEN THEIR EYES WERE OPENED and they knew it was JESUS!
So often we lose sight that Jesus is ALWAYS with us working mightily - we just aren't always SEEING Him!

Now it's 7:30, time to meet the team on the beach for praise time!!!!

When I thought things could not be more breath taking!!!! This was my favorite time every morning!!!! I miss this the most... standing on the Ocean shore every morning at 7:30 with 24 strangers that are now a part of my heart, praising and worshiping the same God, the creator of Heaven and Earth...
No words are adequate to describe this time we shared as a team and individuals before the Lord our God.... you had to be there and I hope everyone gets the chance to praise and worship God in this same way at least once in their lifetime... YOU WILL NEVER BE THE SAME! HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD!!!!


To give you a visual this is how our days look:
??? Personal quiet time/devotional with Jesus
7:30 - Team meet on the beach for Praise to God
8:00 - Breakfast 8:45 - Get on the bus and head to Hannah's for our service opportunities - Opportunity to trust God for our travels DAILY... - Arrive at Hannah's and begin working
12:00- Lunch
1:00 - Back to work
2:00 - VBS Skit practice
2:30 - VBS team get on bus and head to village
5/5:30-VBS team head back to Hannah's to pick up remaining team members and head back to Hola Grande
6:30 - Dinner
7:30 - Team meeting - Time to share how we seen God that day or Barnabas time

At breakfast every morning we received our service assignments and the first day I was on the paint crew and VBS team!!! Yippy... I love painting and I can't wait to see how God puts the VBS together. The first thing I was assigned to do when we got to Hannah's was to look for some things we could use in the VBS and make sure that someone picked up and prepared the oranges for our VBS game!
So off we go on the bus! The bus had to make a daily stop at a check point off the highway. It is something like we would see here in the states for big rigs, reminds me of a weigh station.





This was our first opportunity to TRUST God today! Again I see a pattern here... Even in preparing for this trip months ago, God continues to say TRUST ME!
From what I understand this check point has been put into place for "our protection." They said there have been a lot of accidents and people getting hurt so they want to make sure the bus and passengers are safe.
We sat there for about 15 minutes while and waited for the bus driver and translators to get move us through what I like to call "The Inspection"
Amy H. gets on the bus and tells us that we should pray, it's not looking good!
Just as we were finishing prayer Mike gets on the bus and says, "We're good to go!" God that was AWESOME! We plugged an iPod into Jerri's radio and Praised God for His Mighty work!!!! Later we learned that the problem was the bus license.
What a morning! What will the rest of the day bring?!?!?!

Once we got to Hannah's we all met in a room to recieve our service instructions from the man Dave. The painting would take place across the street at Hogar De Ninos, but first I had the task of looking for VBS supplies!! What a blessing! God is our provider...
Phil.4
[19] But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
there were tons of crayons and activity sheets in the store room and we used some bed sheets for costumes!!! Only one thing was missing... gifts to give the children... our improvised plan was that we would give them double gifts on day 2 of the VBS since we would be in the same village again and we SHOULD... get our bags from the airline in time for day 2!!!.
In the midst of all the re-planning and preparation I was reminded of this scripture that Jesus gave the disciples when He sent them out:
Luke.9
[1] Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.
[2] And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.
[3] And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece.

God was reminding me that His Word is what is most important in this mission!
Isa.55
[11] So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

and the matterial things in our suit cases were all merely blessings and comforts. What do we really NEED???...
Luke 10:
[38] Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.
[39] And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.[40] But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.
[41] And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:
[42] But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
That sure gives me something to chew on for the day...

Off to paint at Hogar!!!!
This was lesson number 1 for me! There was about 5 or 6 of us on the paint team and we had one ladder between us... we all finished painting the bottom and..... yep you probably already know what I am about to say... 6 people, one ladder... not good for making progress... We should have split the work, one or two take turns up top with the ladder and the others continue to work at the bottom, and switch teams every so often... duh... Oh well.. NEXT time I get the chance to do something like this I will be ready!!!
It worked out ok anyway because about the time we were all stareing at each other thinking about how do we resolve this one... the marching practice bagan. Hogar's school is in a parade every year in celebrating their flag day. Our team was invited to be a part of the parade with the children!!!
Fifteen members of our team had to get in shape for the parade, this is serious!!! Turns out this is for the Mayor!!!
While those of us on the painting team that were not in the parade were painting from the ladder we could see the team practicing in the courtyard! The children were supposed to be in class but they kept coming out to watch the americans. In and out of the class rooms they would go. Sometimes trying to help us paint too! It was a fun time!












Before we knew it lunch time was upon us! Delicious Ham sandwiches or Peanut Butter and Jelly with chips and cookies... the lemon cookies were my fave!!!! Water to drink OR... delicious soda from the mini mart across the street. Nothing like our Mini Marts around the states.
The teens couldn't get enough of the Inka Kola, my personal favorite was the Orange soda! They recycle as much as they can here so we also took the bottles back to the store every day too!





Right after lunch the VBS team gathered and we had skit practice! Our VBS theme is LOST AND FOUND! Based out of Luke chapter 19, the story of Zacchaeus. The title for today's skit is "Lost and Found" our memory verse is:
Pss.119
[11] Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Our activity was supposed to be a word search but that was in our suit cases that weren't there yet!

It was really cool to watch God put the characters together! One of my challenges for the VBS was not knowing who was going to be on the team every day... I'm a planner!!! I like to know who is doing what, when and where at all times!!! God continually reminds me that HE is in controll...not me!
The only thing I knew for sure in preparing for this trip was that we would go to the same village two days and I needed to have two skits and two activites(one for each day).
It was so exciting being streched in this way... I had NO control over anything... so I did what I do best....DELEGATE!!! Amy Delany and Dawn were my saving grace for VBS... I leaned on them for everything and they were AWESOME!!! Amy helped in deciding who would play which characters and Dawn was my sounding board for every idea I had... she is so wise!!! Thank you sister!!!!
This experince has been so freeing in knowing that GOD has this under control and I have had so much fun as I lean on the Lord and Trust Him!!!!
Ok, so the skit was about a boy who lost his dog and Jesus came and found the dog..Chuco.. for him!! The lesson was for the kids to learn to hide God's Word in their hearts, and that also was a lead in for day two's skit and memory verse. (read the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19, then you will see).
Practice was great fun....but still...no gifts to give away....
About 2:00 I was gathering our supplies for VBS and found Linda who was looking for the yarn that had come in the three suitcases that we did get of our bags. I asked her what she was thinking about doing with it... she wanted to use it to play a game with the children. She said she had been thinking back to her childhood during the day trying to think of something we could do with the children.... This was so cool... God totally used the oldest member of our team to bring this to light!!! God you are so awesome!!!
We made a ton of strings that we were able to play with the kids AND those were our gifts we gave them to keep!!!! SO FUN!!!! This got me so pumped up for VBS!!!! I couldn't wait to see what God would do once we got there!!
Phil.4
[19] But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

God continues to remind us that HE and HE ALONE is our provider!!!


Here we are!!! VBS day 1... First we found a table for Mike to set up the sound for our music then we split up into groups to go through the village and invite the children and adults to VBS! We said, "Esquela Biblica dies minutos" (Bible School in ten minutes, I could be wrong on how many minutes dies is...hee hee)I latched onto Christina, one of our translators and I bet I asked her to repeta (repeat) a hundred times... dang short term memory! That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Christina is a jewel! I really got attached to her after our time at VBS this day.
We kinda just walked through the village looking for people and invited them to VBS. It was so much fun!



This little girl was the first child I got to meet at this village and guess what her name is???? Carolina!!!! That's the same as me, just in Spanish!!!! How fun is that!!!! Sweet little kisses from Jesus...

After we gathered the people from the village we had some singing and then the chaos begins... Each member of the VBS team passed out the activiy coloring sheets to their groups.... and then.... I was the only one with crayons!!!! Oh dear... I got mobbed!!! Lesson numero uno... dont' be the only one holding the bag of crayons!!! It was crazy... the kids were asking me for Marroon (roll your r's).... OK.. so in english we would think what they were asking for would be a dark red.... NOPE not in Peru... they wanted BROWN... everyone wanted brown...there was no more brown... I was so confused... we had learned in Spanish class that brown was Cafe...So if you ever go to Peru... remember Marroon is brown when it comes to VBS and crayons!!! lol
I finally gave up and handed the crayons to Christina because I could not understand what they were asking me...
Ok so finally I sat down with a group of children and colored with them. I think coloring is totally a universal thing!!! Everyone loves it!

We colored in our groups for about 15-20 minutes and then we had another song, Now it was time for the Skit!!! 'Lost And Found' our memory verse for this day was :
Pss.119
[11] Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

CHUCHO!!!!
Oh thank you Jesus for finding my lost puppy!!!!
(Above,Left:Eli playes Jesus, Right:Caleb playes little boy)
As Dawn(photo below) does the review/invitation with the children about the skit she relates to them that just like Chucho was lost and Jesus came to find Chucho, Jesus also comes to find us because the Bible says that we are lost too!




























GAME TIME!!! ORANGE RELAY


After the skit we lined the children up into 4 lines for the Orang Relay!
This game is my MOST favorite!!!! I love it... first because the kids get something to eat and second because the little Nenos(children) are so cute!!!!
They had to run up to the person holding the bag and eat the orange wedge then drop the peel on the ground and run back to the end of the line. The first line to run out of oranges wins!!!

That was it... VBS day 1 was over. We all got onto the big bus and headed back to Hogar De Hanna to collect the ramaining team members.
WOW... what a whirlwind... everything happend so fast I could hardly take it in... the only thing I could remember was how much I wanted to communicate and couldnt! I really want to learn Spanish...


Once we got back to Hola Grande we cleaned up, had dinner then our team meeting. The resounding comments were how God provided all our NEED...the team worked together and shared all we had to help one another and that the things in our luggage that did show up today while we were working... Praise Jesus.. those items are comforts and added blessings.

AWESOME SECOND DAY!!!!! Day three to come... Yes.. all of this took place in one day... every day was long but totally AWESOME... Can't wait to do this again...