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 afternoon, we were supposed to be able to interact with a sign language class at our host’s house, but the students didn’t come that evening. But God was awesome and allowed me to have such an amazing, enjoyable time conversing with one of the Sign Language teachers, Vanessa, and one of our team members, Kay. With a combination of American Sign Language, Peruvian Sign Language, and fingerspelling some Spanish words, we were able to understand each other. It wasn’t perfect and sometimes we needed to repeat info to make sure we got it right between each other, but it was really cool to have that opportunity to figure it out and be able to actually understand each other. It was such an amazing gift to have that time to just learn and figure it out. I finally felt like I had made a connection with someone and was useful.

After dinner, we were going to go out to a specific restaurant that had churros. Ernesto, our host, had left early and the group was going to meet him there. On the way to the restaurant, we got lost. We had been walking for a little while when it became really clear that we were not going in the right direction. We kept walking until we found a Starbucks, so our director decided to stop there to ask if we could use a phone to call Ernesto’s cellphone. As we entered the building where the entrance to the Starbucks was, there was a security desk. So we approached the desk to ask if they had a phone. As our director was trying to explain that we were lost and if we could use a phone, an awesome lady named Ana came up and asked us in English if we needed help. She was so kind and actually ended up calling Ernesto for us on her cellphone, and then proceeded to walk with us the entire way to the restaurant to meet Ernesto. It was quite humorous because when she was on the phone with Ernesto, she was so funny and emphasized that she had “7 Desperate Women” in front of her who were lost. We all cracked up laughing! For the remainder of the trip, that was a nickname that was assigned to us in a variety of situations. It was overall a pretty awesome day!

Here is a YouTube video I posted showing the different landscapes of Lima, and you can see more picures from my trip in the photo gallery!

#missions #deafministry #peru2013