What's Next?

Well work team season is over, and the summer season is about to start here in Peru. So what comes next now that I have no international teams to work with? I am glad you asked! After talking with Billy Clark, my supervisor here in Peru, we decided that my next area of ministry would be down in Ica (about 4 hours south of the city of Lima in the middle of the desert). In Ica Scripture Union operates another home for abandoned children, and I am excited to go and work with Augusto and Nancy, the two house parents at Ica.

 In the desert just outside the city of Ica

Looking toward Ica from the desert

I am excited to go to Ica for a number of reasons. First off, I have spent less time in Ica than I have at any of the other boys' homes. I am really excited to build new relationships and to get to know the children and the staff. Second of all, these next two months are particularly exciting down in Ica. Read this report below that Scripture Union sent out a couple of months ago to find out why:

In May a group of volunteers from Telefonica, the Peruvian Telephone Company, asked Girasoles Ica to submit a socially relevant project to their first ever “Contest of Original Social Projects”.

Interestingly, Augusto, house parent to the boys already had an idea in mind; having the boys use recycled materials as instruments. The concept was eagerly accepted and once the telephone company signed on to help fund the project, Augusto and the boys began “band practice”. Old plastic buckets, tins, metal pipes, bottles, cardboard and wooden boxes would do just fine!

All 40 boys participated in the project led by Augusto – even down to the youngest, Sanchez, who is only 5 years old. The group successfully won the Ica area contest and went on to place among the top nine contestants nationwide, which qualified them for further funding and grants.

Thanks to the boys success and unprecedented corporate support, Girasoles Ica will now have a music teacher who will help them record “Pampachay” (Quechua for “overcoming difficulty”) a full length CD of their creative music! A first lot of 1000 CDs will be sold at S/10 each and the proceeds will be used to improve the boys’ educational experience in Ica.

I am excited to help out however I can with this big project that the boys in Ica have taken on. Below is a picture of the CD cover that they are producing during this month. It depicts a person out in a field with a large city in the background. It represents the lives of the boys in Ica--the difficulty that they have overcome is life out on the streets of the cities.