During the week after Easter, I was blessed with the opportunity to speak to the congregation at First Presbyterian about my calling to work with Scripture Union in Peru.
Through the Chancel Chat for children and a conversation sermon with our pastor during both the contemporary and traditional services, I was able to share about how I was called to this work and what I am doing to get to Peru. It was great to share about my future and answer many questions my congregation had, in addition to hear and see all the support and joy that they have for what I am doing!
Here’s a video of what I talked about during the first service.
(Thanks to my brother Randy for recording this video, since I was busy sharing!)
While in Kusi, we spent one of our days at the local pool. Everybody loaded up in a bus with swim gear, sunscreen, soccer balls and of course, lunch (which no surprise was rice, potatoes and chicken) to enjoy the beautiful sunny day at the pool.
Here’s a video of the boys going down (and back up) the slide.
After not being too satisfied with the videos I had recorded on my little Canon point-and-shoot camera, I decided to upgrade my video recording capabilities and buy the new Flip MinoHD to record short videos from various trips – most specifically, all the adorable and hilarious things the Girasoles do. Thanks to Amazon.com and their quick shipping, I was able to take my new camera with me over the holidays and record.
Here are three of my favorite videos, two from Ica and the third from Kusi.
After a long day of adventures, these boys from Girasoles Ica were exhausted and ended up falling asleep at the dinner table. Those that didn’t wake up on their own, were carried to bed by Julio, the educator of the home. Notice the boy seen at 23 seconds into the clip that is asleep and still eating!
Anything with Sanchez makes my top ten, and as you can see in this video, he is quite a busy and energetic kid. If he stops running around for just 2 minutes, he quickly falls asleep (as seen by the previous video). Here you can see Sanchez being silly and sharing a little love with Billy while Pampachay practices in the background.
And finally, Kusi. One of the things we brought down to play with the boys was the game, Rummikub. We first introduced this game to the boys in Ica when we were there in June, but I think the meaning and rules of the game were lost on many of the boys. Nevertheless, it was included in our suitcases for Kusi. Maybe instructions were more clear this time, or they just understood better. In this video, Eloy, Cococho and Eli are playing together. Cococho (in the blue shirt) somewhat understood, Eloy (in orange) was getting the hang of it, but Eli (in the blue Southlake sweatshirt), was an expert! If this was chess, he would be in candidate master territory.
