My Birthday -- Training and Chifa!

So yes it has been more than a week since my birthday, but I have just now gotten around to downloading some of the pictures onto my computer. Anyways I have to start out by saying thanks to everyone who sent me emails, letters, candy, facebook messages, and phone calls on my birthday. It was a blessing and a great reminder of how many people that I have praying for me and thinking of me back home. Sometimes it is nice to know that I am not forgotten even though I am living so far away. I also have to give a special shout out to Tyler Tagami and Jon Bradbury for being the first two people to call me on my birthday...kind of. It was 11:00pm my time, but back in Michigan they were already celebrating! I guess they even had some sort of cake that evening.

My friends here were very gracious as well, and they made sure that I felt welcomed and cared for...even in the midst of a pretty busy day. After a nice brunch with my friend David to begin the day, we headed to the main offices of Scripture Union in Lima to begin setting up for a training session for SU volunteers in the schools. As I have already mentioned, I am currently working with the schools program down here which is centered around teaching Christian values and Biblical principles in schools all over the country. Most of the people who enter the classrooms are volunteers from a number of different local churches, and at the begining of each school year we host a training program for the volunteers who will be helping teach the classes. Thankfully the session went really well. We had two speakers--one who talked about the value of sharing the Bible with children and different strategies that we can use and another speaker who is a professional teacher who talked about the mechanics of organizing a lesson plan.

Training Volunteers to Work in Schools!

The training began around 4 in the afternoon and lasted until 9 in the evening, but the night was still young! After cleaning up from the training session, a bunch of the staff people and some of our volunteers invited me out to have Chifa (Peruvian Chinese food)...basically the only restaurant that you can find open until all hours of the night. It was great to spend time with old friends as well as to begin to make new friends. Thankfully I avoided the Peruvian tradition of having a raw egg smashed on top of my head to celebrate the day!

Birthday Chifa!

This coming week I will continue to work in the schools, but I also have the opportunity to work with Scripture Union and a local Presbyterian school to host a weekend retreat for juniors and seniors in high school. Please pray for the retreat that will be taking place this coming Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It is a private Christian school, but many of the students are not Christian. I am excited to have the opportunity to work with them and share how much God loves them! Pray for the organization of the retreat in the days leading up to the weekend. The theme for the weekend is about making wise decisions.

Thank you all once again for your prayers as well as your birthday well wishes! As always, please let me know if there is anything that I pray for you about! Have a great last week of April!