Paint is fun, paint thinner is not.

Yesterday morning (sunday) we arrived back to home sweet home in Lima from our trip North, 16 hours on a bus through the night passed surprisingly fast. We are back with a lot of memories of so many new faces and places still fresh in our minds, and I don't know how to tell you about it all... it's so weird how you can spend so long looking ahead to something, and then it's over in a flash of colour. We spent so long preparing, and we found when we got there a lot of the time we had no idea what was expected of us. But we did the best with what we had, and I read about Jesus feeding the 5,000 with a few loaves of bread and some fish, and asked Jesus to do that again. We spent a lot of time with kids that we will never see again, but we loved them for the short time we had, and I prayed that our tracks would overflow with abundance and that they would truely be God's wagon tracks of Psalm 65. And I know they are all out of my hands now, but I pray that God will still hold them, and I have faith God can multiply love, even only a day's-worth of facepaint and singing songs and sharing secrets with giggly little girls.

I couldn't finish my blog yesterday. My head feels too full, I read some of my journal entries from the last weeks, and our trip alone took up a thick chunk, I'm on my last pages now...
We took a bazillion pictures and Lisa is working on a slide show for her home-coming party. I'm finding more and more my thoughts are turning towards home, everyone's talking about it, something is changing as we look at our time left as a number, in days even. I don't want to think this way.. I think about seeing lakes and mountains and eating food from home again, seeing my family and friends from highschool, and not being with my team and this family that I spend almost every moment with here. I'm thinking about the summer and all the changes that I am coming home to... new city, new job, new brother, and university in September, plus all the stuff that I don't see coming. I have been thinking about camp a lot, being with campers again, and the friends I see only a few times a year. I was reminded of Charis camp a lot on our trip north because we did a lot of kid's programs, and there is one little village outside Trujillo called Chicamita that was probably my favourite... this is a picture of me and some girls who told me all their secrets and I told them mine:
We spent 4 days in Trujillo, where we already have some Peruvian family (the pastor's family relatives, and our friends Carlos and Gustavo Lopez). From the start we knew we had to be ready to do serve wherever we were asked, and if we weren't asked, we would pray. We were given air mattresses to sleep on in the church in Trujillo, definatly the most fancy beds of the whole trip. The first day we were able to get our hands dirty and do some odd jobs, which was greatly appreciated. I loved spending time in the big empty sanctuary singing with the choir of acoustics, and praying on the behalf of the church. This is the church that recently had all the computer equipment and instruments stolen. But in prayer and on sunday too our voices without microphones didn't sound empty at all, every noise we made in the church was heard by God and as we interceded on behalf of the life of the church (which has been struggling lately with a lot of changes) there was just such a peace on that place I don't know how to describe it. I am learning lots about prayer. . .
We also had some free time to visit Chan Chan, where we saw Inca palace ruins from the 9th century, went to the beach, and got a ride in Caballitos de Totoros (boats made of this grass stuff) and jammed with Gustavo.

I did so much face painting on this trip, and Lisa got recruited too. This is a picture from El Indio, and really rough village where we did a kids program. So many arms and faces and voices right in our faces asking for maripositas and estrellitas and corazons.... but we were happy to do it. This picture captured a really hecktic moment when me and Lisa just looked at eachother and laughed because there were like 25 kids surrounding us, out of 50 that were there that we gave balloons and little cards to and the whole shabang.

These two pictures are from a little town called Chatochico. We spent two days there originally to help build a big bathroom for the church, but we mostly ended up moving bricks and the men did all the work. But at least we paid for all the supplies and made ourselves useful by sanding down and repainting the whole front of the church, and I pain a nedew sign. It was a long day in the sun, and in the afternoon we did a kid's program in the park for all the kids we could round up. So many great pictures but I can only put a few here... This was a donkey town and if you look down the road there's only desert where the sidewalk ends. There were animals everywhere, this second picture is right across the street from the church with a bunch of the ninos, the pastor was so kind to us.

Here's a picture of us doing our drime at the church in Piura where we stayed most of the trip. We did our drime a lot, and even taught it to a youthgroup in Sullana. We were told that day that there would be a "lesson"... whatever that meant.., we didn't know if we were supposed to be taught something, or if we were teaching... it was pretty difficult to teach choreography in another language but they got most of it. This was sort of the way it was most of the time, we would never really be sure what would be expected of us, sometimes more than we were told and sometimes we'd be totally ready to do a program and then there would be other plans we weren't told about. This was on the last mother's day service we helped out with, and I also gave my testimony before the sermon.. Mother's day is a bigger deal here I think, it probably has something to do with how people never leave home until their married and their mom's always cook and clean... but anyway, people really seemed to appreciate the message of the drime, and it's awesome to see how easy it is for people to connect through the arts...

Ok so I think pictures speak better than words, especially since I use way too many.
But I was looking back at my old journal, which I started the day before the first day of Trek training.. check out what I wrote, words that eerily reflect a lot of these last months of my life, even the last weeks. Some are Jesus' words and some are not:

True spiritual maturity is tested in our relationships with others.

"Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

Jesus will do what is necessary to qualify and equip us for service.

"Not what I will, but what you will."

The importantce of being ready, or feeling ready, is an idea with a stronghold on our culture.
It is important that we are able to see the difference between these personal feelings that distract us and the desires of our hearts that guide us.
Those feelings align themselves easily with fears and insecurities, and they are dealt with only as we face them honestly and choose to rise above them.

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2

I am so thankful.

This is us in Colan, where we spent 3 days for our midterm retreat. Such an awesome time of rest and refreshment... and bbqs!
K so I really don't feel like even this gigantic blog holds half of what I want to tell you about Peru.. I think you and I will just have to talk soon........