Update from Peru

Hey everybody!  A lot has happened here since our last update.  Our outreach has begun and is now in full swing.  We have already experienced some great moments as well as some harder ones.  As I said in our previous blog we spent the first leg of our trip in the jungle.  It started with a little port town called Nauta.  We had a good time there doing mini evangelical events in different neighborhoods and communities.  We also had the opportunity to bless the pastor that received us by helping him with some manual labor.  We built a small bridge over a ditch that leads into the church.  This was important because to enter the church required walking through a large wet and muddy section of ground which was not fun.  We also helped him machete a field which was both fun and difficult.  For those of you who have never mowed a lawn with a machete it is hard to explain.  There are several locals on our team and they had troubling working with us because they spent most of the time laughing at how poor gringos are with a machete.  It was a good experience though. 

After Nauta we spent 8 days on the river in a small community called Nueva York.  This was a great experience in many ways, but it was also extremely difficult at times.  It is hard to explain just how hot and uncomfortable the jungle can be, but nonetheless, it was an experience.  Our primary objective here was to dig a well so that the community would have clean drinking water.  This community, like many others, drinks straight from the river.  They also bathe in the river, wash clothes in the river, and use the river as a bathroom.  For obvious reasons the river is not a suitable source of drinking water.  It took three days to finish this project and in the end we had a fully funcioning well.  The rest of the time in this community was spent in evangelism.  We held several programs at differnt public events, did dramas for the two chruches in the community, and held a soccer tournament that we used to draw in people. One day while we were bathing in the river a bunch of us guys found a fun place to jump into the river.  We turned it into a competition and quickly we had thirty children standing there watching us.  They were shocked that adults were jumping into the river and playing the way that they do.  The first day they just stood there and watched but every other day the joined in with us and it was truly an amazing time.

A couple of days later while fishing one of our teammates caught a stingray.  Another one of our teammates saw an alligator come out of the water the day after that.  After returning to Iquitos Mindy and I were given an opportunity to finish the rest of our outreach with the river ministry team.  This team is lead by Julio and Yola Sinarhua, an amazing couple from Colombia.  After praying over this opportunity we decided to take this offer and we are now officialy part of the river ministry.  So far we have been on one river trip with this team and it went really well.  We took a group of nursing students from Casper Community College in Wyoming to six different villages on the river where we held medical clinics.  I got to translate for the team which really challenged my Spanish.  I was nervous to translate for a medical team but once I got the hang of it, it was very enjoyable.  This was not a Christian group that went with us but at the end of the trip three of the nursing students ended up accepting Christ.  It was really cool to be a part of this and we are really thankful for the situation God has put us in.  We are currently in Leticia, Columbia.  We have been here with Julio and Yola.  We are heading back to Iquitos tomorrow night in a three day boat ride on the Amazon River.  Please keep us in your prayers as we finish out the last 48 days of our school!