From Your Brothers In Peru!!!

Hola!

Well, it seems we've been slackin' in the blog area, so Josue(Josh) and I(David) are taking over.

We don't really know when we posted last, so we're gonna start with the weekend...

On Saturday, we hit up some ruins in the middle of nowhere. I'm not quite sure it's what we were expecting...I know I was thinking more grass and pyramid-style stuff as opposed to just dirt and rock, but never-the-less, it was alright. There was some crazy statue thing in a hole and that was definitely the ruin highlight. Well, that and the fact that we pretty much went in to every roped-off area with Mayor(Major). After the ruins, we went to the beach and all got sunburned. Nice. The water was too cold to go in but we had a pretty nice time walking around and got some pretty nice views of the culture. When we returned in the evening, we had a youth meeting with the young adults and teens from the corps. They tought us some fun games and we did the same for them. It was a great chance for fellowship and to get to know them even more. Their youth group is at least 20 strong and all of them participate in corps activities and evangilism regularly.

On Sunday, we had a meeting that started at 8 in the morning(nice). The CSM spoke and brought the fire. Even though we didn't understand anything he was saying, you could still feel the Holy Spirit and the power coming through. It was pretty amazing. Then we all went to Sunday school in groups and got a chance to spend time with the kids of each age group. It's been great to be able to get to know the kids and spend as much time with the youth as we have thus far...they've really embraced us and welcomed us. Even though the people here don't have a lot to give, they're offering us everything they do have. It's quite humbling and inspiring. God is doing amazing things in this country with the people. Never have I seen people so in love with the Lord as we have here. After sunday school, we split into pairs and ate with different people from the corps at their homes. They sure did know how to feed us well. We then had an open air and passed out a bunch of flyers to people in the area. That night at the Salvationist meeting, they had an attendance of almost 90 -- more than double any other meeting until that point. Mayor Montoya spoke and, again, you could feel the Holy Spirit in the room. At the end of the meeting he opened up the alter to people who felt led to go and it was great to see so many people just break in front of The Lord.

Monday began at 12 AM with the beginning of Mayor's birthday celebration. All of the young adults and teens from the corps came to the school at 11:30 on Sunday night and at midnight we started singing and setting off bottle rockets, one of which landed in a neighboring house, to start off Mayor's special day with a bang. We all sang and danced for about an hour and the party continued when we woke up later on that day. We spent the morning preparing for this coming weekend's campaigns and then went to a corps member's house for a party for Mayor. At Pepe's house, we all experienced something new because it seems he trains chickens for cock-fighting, which is a big thing down here. Definitely something that none of us had ever been a part of before. He put some boxing glove things on the birds and gave us a little exhibition, but no birds were harmed during that time... Mayor then came over and we ate...again...and partied it up for a couple of hours before returning to the corps where all of the corps members had a surprise party waiting for Mayor. These people really know how to party. We sang some praise choruses for the party and, again, ate and danced. It was a great day for everyone.

Yesterday, we went to Chiclayo and did some work projects with the corps there. We got up around 6 and headed downtown to board a bus for the 3-hour ride there...during all of which Josue had a baby kicking him in the side. Once we arrived with ten people from the youth group here in Trujillo, we got to work. We moved a bunch of rocks and dirt to build the foundation for a new floor before lunch and after we cleaned and painted the new chapel. We got a lot done to help out the people and corps officers there and it was nice to get our hands dirty and put our able bodies to good use. On the way home, we were defintely in need of team massage time and we embraced the opportunity to relax for a little while.

Today has been fairly eventful as well. We started the morning by going in full uniform to the Mayor's(of the town) office to meet with him and discuss issues within the town of Buenos Aires and to discuss how they are helping and can help the army here. Sadly, he wasn't there but was represented by the deputy Mayor. Afterwards, we had to go downtown to a drug store and get medicine because pretty much everyone on the team has caught a cold or "stomach issues" from the cold, damp air and food. We have a lady cooking for us here, so it's like we've been eating at the same restaurant for a week and half...not in a bad way though. We just returned from passing out flyers to the surrounding houses for this weekend's corps campaign. We passed out about 60 flyers and we're praying that there is a good turn-out for the corps this weekend.

Well, sorry about the length of the post, but that's what happens when you go a week without an update! We'll do our best to keep everyone posted more on the goings-on here.

Hope all is well at home and keep praying for us!

- Josue y David