I love my family!

What a family in Christ I have here in Peru! They are such a blessing, each one of them. If even one of them wasn’t here, our whole group dynamic would be drastically different! I am so thankful for each of them and that all of us would get to cross paths and live life together. How awesome is the community we find in our Savior!

All of the boys, Grant, Josh, Eoghan, and Patrick, they are wonderful brothers to all of us ladies. They take such good care of us and are truly servants. How refreshing it is to be surrounded by these godly young men!

And the ladies, all twelve of us, work together so splendidly, even though we are very different from one another. Again, it’s amazing to see how God binds us with a special bond that is found nowhere else.

And Jesse and Carly, our fabulous leaders, and Crystal, our wonderful Peruvian contact and co-leader, I can’t say enough about. Their leadership and their genuine hearts of service, sincere love for Christ, brings me such joy and peace every day. They provide a safe place for us to be honest and broken, give us godly wisdom, ears to listen, and wonderful yummy food to eat! 🙂 I can’t thank them enough for all that they do for our team. I am blessed to be under their authority.

Tomorrow we leave the busy city of Iquitos for the jungles of Requeña! And I couldn’t be more thrilled! I have certainly enjoyed our time here in the city and being able to sleep on matresses indoors and out of the elements and pesky bugs, but I am pumped about getting down and dirty in the mostly ‘a la naturál’ state. The simplicity of the lives of those in the villages is a breath of fresh air! And I can’t wait to just love on all of them, especially the children, who are so very precious. Soccer, caiman hunting, mosquito nets, hammocks, some peanut butter, God’s Word… sounds pretty swell to me! I’m excited to see what God is going to do next. He’s already done so much! He has healed my knee of the pain I had, my stomach sickness, and now my sunburn; and that’s just in me physically! The change in the hearts of the men and women of the prisons is completely of God. How my heart rejoiced in seeing their tears, their brokeness, their desire to call him their Father. The joy that lit up their faces when they danced and sang after finding redemption and forgiveness! How cool. Praise God!

On a slightly less serious note, our group had a quite interesting experience at the Zoo Saturday when we went with the local youth group we’ve been working with. After a long day of fun in the sun, playing soccer and volleyball, waterpolo-rugby in the river, chicken fighting, ninja in the amazon, and ultimate, along with other fun games of tug-o-war, etc, some of us went to go see the baby sloth Jesse was dying to see. It was in the bird exhibit, kind of like a walk through exhibit with all kinds of tropical birds flying around. Toucans sat feet from us on limbs of trees, and other little birds flitted around as we all piled into the little corner containing the much sought after sloth. He was a cute little thing, all nestled in the vines of the tree, but he soon lost his place at center stage. A black bird with a big horned red beak, the size of a small turkey, came running at us. Apparently, we had ticked it off by being a tad loud. It started attacking us if close enough, or chasing us then trying to bite/peck our legs to death. Jesse, Grant, and I were its main victims, and I appropriately screamed when I found it chasing after me and grabbing my croc. We eventually got out and were fine, and the bird was subdued. And how we laughed! The bird was not-really-affectionately called ‘Demon Bird,’ ‘Pitbull-Turkey,’ and probably a few other names. It was pretty hysterical in the aftermath of it all. Hopefully we won’t run into any of those in Requeña!

Anyways, I know this is a terribly long blog, and we are supposed to keep them short, but this will probably be my last blog for a while, as we will have little if any access to a computer while we are in the jungle for a few weeks.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement! Please continue to pray for health all around. I love you all!

ps.- Fam and Mike– I got UF football tickets!!!!!!! whoo hoo! and Julie too!!! and Emily!!! how awesome!!!! 😀

Kristen!