Mission Peru

Hola mis amigos!! I want to start by thanking you all for your amazing support, encouragement, and prayers for our team! We have had an amazing trip so far and there is still a few days left. Man time flies! This has been an amazing trip of new experiences, friendships, and seeing God work in amazing ways. I know a lot of people have already touched on this already but I am going to do it again anyway; joy. Everybody here is just full of it and it is incredibly inspirational! I think that for the first time in my life I am beginning to understand what true joy really looks like, the joy that comes from God. It has been so easy for me in my life to find my joy in so many other things, coming to God as a last resort. Throughout the duration of the trip from the time Rich and Lisa said it was in their contract for short term missions to “choose joy” till now, God has been working in my heart to help me to understand the joy that can only come from Him. Today that message was magnified again as I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to meet my compassion child, Jose. To say that it was amazing would be an understatement. To be honest I wasn’t entirely sure how the day was going to go or what it would look like, but God came through again and everything went smoothly. We started off by sitting down in a large, mostly vacant, food court to exchange gifts and to talk. I got to learn about Jose and what he likes to do, what grade he is in, his family, what he wants to do after high school, and so much more while also sharing the same things about myself to him and his mother. After that I had the opportunity to take him shopping and get him a few of his favourite shirts as well as a new pair of dress shoes for his school uniform. Although this may seem fairly insignificant, he was having a blast and was very thankful for these gifts. You have heard it said that “I was blessed more by them then they were by me”, well its true. To see the joy on his face and the gratitude that he had impacted me in a big way, and I was so glad that I was able to use just a small portion of all that God has given me to bless Jose in such a big way. After shopping we went to get lunch and talk some more. After filling up on fried chicken from Popeyes the highlight of the day came as we got to game so hard at an arcade in the mall. It was so much fun playing a variety of different games with him from shooting basketballs to shooting aliens. Then it came to the part of the day where we had to say goodbye, and it was harder then I had expected it to be after only spending one day with him. I now have a new motivation to keep in contact with him, pray for him daily and to be as joyful as he was. Overall it was an absolutely amazing experience that I will never forget. I would appreciate your prayers as the trip comes to an end, that God would just continue to work in my heart and allow me to continue to experience the joy that can only come from Him.