Hands of Praise

We flew back to Lima the morning of the 19th and then fended for ourselves till we left Saturday afternoon. Our flight had no delays going back to Lima and we were all quite relieved. Our host and some other individuals advocating for Deaf Education in Peru had gone to Brazil for a Conference, but we were still able to use his home and Dahlia’s mom was there waiting for us and stayed at the house with us until we left Saturday. It was nice to have that time to relax a bit, do

Today we went to Macchu Picchu! We were all sooo excited to finally be going to visit this amazing place! It was quite the trip though…we had to ride a van, a bus, a train, a bus again, then walk to actually get there. It was an absolutely gorgeous trip, but long nevertheless. But again, it was entirely worth it! Words really cannot express the amazing beauty and awe of the city of Macchu Picchu. It is an entire town that the Spaniards never found and therefore, was not in a

Our visit to the Sacred Valley of the Incas was breathtaking as well! It was a workout to climb at that altitude to the top of the mountain to overlook the entire valley, but boy was it worth it! And the drive there was AMAZING! We stopped multiple times along the way to take pictures of the beautiful Andes glaciers and mountainous regions we were driving through. I was so overwhelmed with the magnitude of God, I just wanted to stand there with that view for hours! At this po

While visiting some historical sites surrounding Cuzco, it was so amazing to see the remnants of the ruins and how precise the architecture was! The temple we visited that was still entirely intact had such amazing well placed architecture that it has continued to stand amidst the numerous earthquakes that have occurred over the centuries! It was quite breathtaking! We also got to visit this one archeological site that provided our entire group much laughs and humor. The name

Tuesday and Wednesday we toured a Cathedral, an Inca Temple, and some historical locations in Cuzco Valley as well as the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Our tour guide, Alex, was amazing and obviously enjoyed and valued his country and culture. He was fantastic and seemed to have as much enjoyment and awe in everything he was telling us as we expressed to him. (Check out the photo gallery for this trip to see a picture of Alex with the five of us while shopping in historic Cuzco

So, our time of working in Lima has ended, and today we flew to Cuzco to start the official cultural/touristy part of the trip. Our flight was scheduled to be only one hour, but due to a storm occurring in Cuzco, we got delayed 5 hours, to make the total time of the trip 6 hours. Not exactly as planned, but we knew God had a reason. On the positive side, we ended up landing in Arequippa, Peru, to refuel and wait it out a bit and they rolled stairs up to the doors of the plane

Today was absolutely amazing!!! We went to an international, inter-denominational English-speaking church and God did amazing things there!!! We received bulletins as we entered, and after we sat down, I read through it and realized that their structure had some similarities to my home church, New Life Community Church. Even from the moment we entered, the church felt very much like “home.” I even mentioned this to our director, Arlene, who was sitting next to me. Before the

We went to Beethoven School this morning and wow, what an amazing school! It has its own nicely spaced out compound and they are able to provide some great education there! Efata was the only school that compared to this one, and Efata was definitely a Christian School; but for being a government run, pilot program, I was quite impressed! God has definitely put the right people in place to make the decision to ensure that the deaf students are getting their needs fulfilled. I

We went to Dahlia and Homberto’s home this morning, but what an adventure it was! First, Dahlia is an amazing woman who works as Ernesto’s house-keeper and cooked, cleaned, did laundry, etc. while we were there. Homberto is deaf and is Dahlia’s son. He goes to school at Beethoven during the day, then Nisor in the afternoons. Anyway, we ended up in a traffic jam and our bus wasn’t moving. We sat there for almost 10 minutes until we got off to go to another street to try and ha

Today was really great, but a little bittersweet at the same time. We went to Efata Ministries in the morning and it was really awesome. It took us a while to get there by using three different types of transportation – taxis to the train station, a train, then moto-taxis to Efata. The moto-taxis were the most vicarious and interesting by far! Once we arrived, it was soo obvious that God was working there. It was pure joy to work with them, see the love that exuded from every

Today was a crazy, yet amazing day! In the morning we went to the school “Manos Mensajeras” (pictured below) and it was a really great experience! I was able to interact with the students more during the lessons and help them do the activities. I really enjoyed this morning and felt a lot more comfortable conversing using what Peruvian Sign Language(PSL) I had picked up, as well as what Spanish I knew. The rest of the day was very interesting and my Spanish was tested quite a

Today was really cool! It was actually sunny for part of the day, which was nice for a change as well. In the morning we went to the Pachacamac ruins in Lima. When we got to the top of the ruins where the temple of the sun god was, we had the most AMAZING view of the Pacific Ocean, lush fertilized land, and desert. It was breathtaking! Such a beautiful display of God’s handiwork, yet terribly sad that the location had been used by the Incas for human sacrifices. In the aftern

Today was awesome and a great learning experience! Satan continued to attack me all day, but I was glad I was able to be interacting with the schools and had other team-members who were very supportive. We went to two different schools and I discovered that my role here would also be at least partially connecting with individuals through the Spanish I did know. At the first school, the Lut Program, I was able to converse with some of the moms in Spanish since I still was not

Hello!!!! I'm back and am trying to organize my thoughts, experiences, etc. so I can coherently and concisely share what happened while I was in Peru. I have decided to do a day-by-day/grouping-of-days kind of posting that mirrors my journaling I did while I was in Peru. Here is just some overall info that will help you understand my madness... :) There were 2 parts to our trip - Saturday, July 6 (arrival) to Monday, July 15 (when we left for Cuzco), we were in Lima, Peru. Du

PERU!!! We arrived! After a 2-hour delay trying to take off, we arrived in Lima and made it to Ernesto’s house by 1 AM. It didn’t hit me that we were there until this morning while journaling and realizing how God was still working and active in my life even in the little things. It was so peaceful to be able to sit on the top concrete step at the top of the staircase in Ernesto’s home, have the early morning light streaming in the windows, and hear the birds chirping. Everyt

So today is the day...My journey to Peru begins this morning. I am picking up the other team member that lives in Stafford, Susan, and we are heading to NJ to join the rest of the team. Words can not describe the excitement, anticipation, and pure longing I have for whatever the Lord has planned for us/me in Peru. This trip is going to teach me so much and possibly be a pivotal point in my life! I have no idea what the Lord has planned for me in the future in regards to missi