Into the Woods...

As I write this, Danny is currently trekking through the ¨Forest of Rocks,¨ which is a large volcanic structure outside of Arequipa, located at about 13,000 feet. Right about now, he and the group from Wisconsin should be sitting down to have a sandwich lunch. I´m at home nursing a sinus infection, so oh well. Danny´s taking pictures of beautiful rock formations; I´m cuddling a Neti Pot.

It has been a blessing to get to know and work alongside this group. They have done really well this week, especially for all of the culture shock, travel exhaustion, etc. I have been very impressed at the maturity of the teenagers on the trip and how it seems like they are really using this experience to think critically about missions and what it means to leave your country (family, culture, favorite foods, etc.) to go spread the Gospel to another people group.

On Sunday, we all headed to Ciudad de Dios to present the dads with a special Father´s Day event. One difference between (certain) lower-class cultures in the U.S. and in Peru is the presence of dads. For example, amongst my 130 students in inner-city DC, only two actually had their dads at home with them. Here, about half of the poorest children live with their fathers and about 25% more at least know who their fathers are and see them periodically.

Only about four dads showed up for the event, but we also had a number of moms come as well, which was encouraging. We started with prayer and a welcome to the dads and then, the children performed a song that I had taught them last week. The (very simple) lyrics are: ¨Children, obey your parents as unto the Lord, because this is right.¨If I were a parent, I would like that song.

After that, a number of the students from Wisconsin performed a mime to music. The mime centered around the story of a girl who originally loved God, but who was distracted and pulled away from Him by other things (each of these played by one student)- i.e. a boyfriend, money, drunkenness, physical beauty. At the end, death comes to try to convince her that she should convince suicide -and she almost does - but God breaks through and saves her from her sin and self-destruction.

I wasn´t sure how many of the kids in attendance would get the symbolism of the mime, but when we asked them what it meant, they were like, 100 percent dead-on - including the 5-year-olds and younger children. We are hoping that the mime will have a strong effect on the adults in attendance and convince them of their need to have Christ in their lives.

Finally, we played a game with the kids and then the children served juice to their parents as a ¨thank you¨ to them.

All in all, a very successful event, and as soon as Danny is back with the camera, pictures will be uploaded too!