One Week!

Well, tomorrow we will have officially been in Peru for a whole week, but it has gone by so fast!

Sunday mornings the AFCers who are serving abroad usually go to Villa Maria to have a short Bible lesson and to play with all of the sweet kids. We had the pleasure of going with them this week, and we had so much fun singing and playing games with them!

Kyle G. looking around the neighborhood.

Shaley and Ariel in Villa Maria

When we left Villa Maria, we rushed over to the grocery store to pick up some last minute things for the big party. The party turned out to be a huge hit! There were over 100 people there. For entertainment, there was a dance competition, a soccer game, and some bounce houses for the kids.

Some of the guys playing soccer during the party

After the party, we all went to Pardo's, a restaurant chain here in Peru, where we had some of the most delicious chicken! It was Alicyn's birthday, and everyone got the waitors to come sing happy birthday to her while she wore an embarrassing birthday crown.

This morning we were supposed to take a bus tour of the city, but it drove away as we were walking up to it... haha we rescheduled for tomorrow morning. Since we didn't have anything else to do, we went shopping at the Inca market.

Most of the gang bought alpaca sweaters at the market. Kyle G. and Alicyn are sporting theirs here.

After the market, we ate lunch at La Lucha, a place known for sandwiches and shakes. The restaurant was crowded, so we went across the street to Parque Kennedy, named after the former U.S. president. This park was full of cats that are fed by a nearby church.

This lady was completely surrounded by cats.

Ariel and her new friend.

Right before we left the park, we ran into our new friend John that we met at the party yesterday. Most of the group went out to a coffee shop to hang out with him.

Jenny, Enoc, Kyle G., and John hanging out at the coffee shop

We're getting ready to have a team devotional with the serve abroaders, so there will be more to come later.


Chau,
The Few

We Made It!

Sorry we have taken so long to update our blog. There were some issues with our blog account, and we just fixed them. Apparently they knew that we were trying to log in from a different country, and they cut us off temporarily.

We arrived on Tuesday night and were greeted at the airport by the AFCers who are serving abroad here and a couple of the missionaries. They greeted us with lots of hugs and the favorite soda of Peru, Inca Cola. It was so great to see our friends who have been working here since January! Since it was so late when we got in, we went straight to bed to prepare for an early morning of work.

Wednesday morning we went to a part of Lima that most visitors don't get to see, Villa Maria. We took a bus to get there, which is an experience in itself (traffic is CRAZY here!). I think we were all a little shocked by how different Villa Maria looks than the rest of Lima. It's an incredibly poor area with lots of houses and small businesses crammed together on the hillside. Our goal for the morning was to visit a local school and help make it look a little nicer by picking up the trash and doing a little painting. The missionaries that took us there told us that the public schools in Peru are among some of the worst in the world. We were surprised to hear that because on the exterior, it seemed pretty decent. We were greeted by lots of Peruvian children who were really curious as to why we were there. Most of them had never seen Americans in their neighborhood. After a long morning of work, we had worked up an appetite, so we went to a favorite restaurant among the interns where most uf us had a stir fried dish that contained beef, french fries, and vegetables. After that, we went to the Yoakum house to have a time of praise followed by a game night.

The team in the school at Villa Maria

Alex and Shaley with some of the kids

We spent Thursday morning working at the new church building. We sanded, painted, and did a couple of other things to fix it up. We also walked around the neighborhood and passed out fliers for the big party the church is hosting on Sunday. The party is supposed to be the final step of all of the outreach efforts the mission team has been working on for the past several months, so it was really important for us to help get the word out. That night we went to the Fletcher house to entertain the kids while their parents went out for dinner. We had so much fun, but we would not have been able to do it without our friend Jackie Beth, who was in town for a visit before she went to Brazil.

The plan for Friday was to reach out to some of the church members by taking them homemade cookies. Alicyn, Kyle, and Lee Fletcher, one of the missionaries, wanted to go to a hospital to visit a lady whose father had been very sick for a while. It was quite an experience! The hospital was almost like something you would picture in WWII with a ton of beds all crammed together in one room. It was unlike any hospital in the states. That night, we went to some nice soccer fields and played an intense game with the missionaries. Afterwards we had a nice picnic by the beach, followed by a devotional and time of reflection.

Today was supposed to be all about the missionary kids. We had breakfast at a buffet and then took a trip to the zoo. Those kids are so much fun, and it was good to hang out with them and get to know them! Afterwards, the girls had a Bible study at the Thompson house with some of the Peruvian women. It was all in Spanish, so some of us had a hard time understanding, but it was great to learn that we share some of the same struggles as the Peruvians.

Awkward family photo...

David insisted on wearing a life jacket when we rode a boat in the zoo. It took us to Machu Picchu... sort of. It was a replica, but it's the closest we'll get to the real thing.


With love,
The Few



P.S.
Trenton got a haircut!

Gettin' Real Real Close!

We apologize in advance for the long post... we just have so much some major stuff going on that we would like to share with you! Lots of pictures, lots of info!


This past Sunday we started our Missions Retreat, which was established to help us relax from the stresses of school and to be focused on our upcoming journey! The retreat, which included all of the mission teams, actually started this past Sunday at the A&M church building. We started at 3 p.m. with a couple of hours of group time devoted to anything that needed to get done. Since we'll be hosting a three day kid's camp for all of the missionary kids during the Peruvian Missionary Summit we needed to complete our materials for the kids since we will be having them for most of the day . Luckily, we had the genius of Sara Davidson and Jenny Christian who are experts in the field of anything kids. They gave us great insight and practically spoon fed our plans and materials so that even we couldn't mess up the upcoming summit! After that, we went to the Sunday night chapel service and had dinner with the church elders and their wives. One awesome thing about the dinner was that the meal consisted of red beans, rice and tortillas. This helped us open our eyes since that is mainly what the rest of the world lives off of. After getting a blessing from the elders, we devoted a couple more hours to kid's camp prep and had a good night's rest for the next day. Monday morning, we gathered back at the church to start a mini camping trip to Bastrop State Park, which is about 80 miles away. With great spirit, we "hiked" with all of our gear, including tents, lawn chairs, and our team food, which Trent and David so greatly coordinated for the next three meals to our camping site. We were in the perfect spot since it made it seem like we were the only ones there and since it had recently rained, the burn ban had been lifted which meant campfires and smores for us! The rest of the day was filled with great bonding activities. There were games, such as "Dragon Tag" (Traci was definitely the best at this) and one where we had to keep a balloon up in air with only our breath. By far the most amazing and unforgettable part (although everything was pretty amazing) was late Monday night when our team sat by a campfire, surrounded by God's creation and under the stars and sang some of our favorite songs and shared our faith stories, or our Christian walk in our young adult lives. God really showed us His love and how truly blessed we are to have this team that night. On Tuesday morning, we had breakfast and packed up. Two of the teams (Thailand and yours truly), went to another state park not far away to go kayaking for a bit while the other two teams (Africa and Cambodia) stayed behind. The trip concluded with a stop at the famous Roadhouse Restaurant across from the state park. Here are some highlights, copyrights to Kelly Davidson and his awesome new camera!

Prep Time with the great Jenny Christian

Our team campsite. We're pretty sure everyone was a bit jealous that we had enough lawn chairs for each person.

Beautiful.

This picture will attempt to explain Dragon Tag. Think of the games "amoeba" and "capture the flag" mixed.

One of the two balloon games.

Aggies For Christ- Summer Missions '11

Alex and Enoc helping out with breakfast.

Part of the gang on our way to do some kayaking! Not pictured: David who was our driver, and Traci, who probably took the picture.

We're ready and pumped for South America!

At Bastop's famous Roadhouse Restaurant.

Trenton.


While mostly everyone left to go home, Alicyn and Enoc ended up staying in town. This was perfect since we actually still needed to pick up our passports with our new Brazilian visas. If you can recall, we went a couple of weeks ago to the Brazilian consulate to get the visas. After we left, we got a call telling us that they were done. Seeing as they only do visa pickups from noon to 1 p.m. on weekdays, we couldn't find an opportune time to go until now. When we went, the same nice lady who attended us remembered us and told us how she was actually worried about us since we had not picked up our passports! We were in and out in a flash. Here's a pic of Alicyn inside the Consulate with our Brazil-ready passports!

To the right of her is the Brazilian flag and to the left is President Dilma Vana Rousseff.

Since our plane departure is early early Tuesday morning, we've decided to leave from College Station after dinner on Monday evening and spend the night at the airport since we have to check in around 2 a.m. We are so blessed to finally be at the start of our missionary journey. Thank you all soooo soooo much for your prayers and support! Please tune in to see what God has in store for us and the people of Peru and Brazil.

With love,

The Few

18 Days and Counting!

It's so hard to believe that in just a few short weeks we will be leaving for South America! As May 24th draws closer, we've been hard at work on the final preparations for our trip.

Traci invited us into her home for dinner to give us a chance to ask any questions we had about our trip and to share some advice that she has learned over the past few years of going on trips like this. One of our biggest concerns was packing. We weren't all sure what exactly to pack, what sort of luggage would be best, and what the airline restrictions are for luggage, etc. We learned several handy packing tips from Traci, who we found out is a packing professional. She showed us pictures from previous trips where she magically packed all of her belongings into her hiking backpack like a perfect little bookshelf. After Traci answered several of our questions, we got to talk to Kyle Glaeser and Kyle Westbrook via Skype. The Kyles are two AFCers who are currently serving abroad in Lima for the semester, and they will be our guides during our stay there. They told us about some of the plans that they have for us while we're there and shared some interesting stories with us about their time in Peru. It was overall a very helpful and informative evening.

Macy and Trenton scheduled an appointment at Buetel, the student health clinic on campus, where they were informed of the possible health concerns we may encounter overseas. Macy and Trent got some recommended vaccinations and an oral medication to prevent against some common diseases for travelers in South America. As you can see from the looks on Trent's face, it wasn't the most fun experience, but I'm sure they both agree that getting a shot or two is better than being ill while we are away.

We recently purchased our plane tickets, and the next step was to get our visas for Brazil. Since today was a dead day at A&M, most of the team took a day trip down to the Brazilian consulate in Houston to get that taken care of. After eating a quick lunch together, we headed to the office in downtown Houston. We ran into a little issue with the payment (they are very particular about the type of payment they accept for visas), and we had to find a post office to purchase a money order. It actually turned into more of an adventure than an obstacle. It was a fun bonding experience before our trip, and now that we have visas, that makes the whole thing even more official.

We're all so excited for our trip, but we still have so much to do to be ready. Keep us in your prayers as we work on meeting our fundraising goal and as we continue preparing spiritually for this journey. Thanks for all your support!


The Few