Needs for our Cusco boys

I want to thank so many of you for your continued emails and messages asking how you can support the recovery efforts for our boys in Cusco. As I have mentioned before, we are very thankful for one large donation from an individual that is going to cover all of the reconstruction expenses. We hope to find a new piece of land near Urubamba to begin reconstruction as soon as possible.

Apart from the construction, though, there are many other needs that we have for these boys. Unfortunately, when our home collapsed, many things were destroyed or carried away by the flood. Sadly, there was also some looting that took place. We were able get a lot of furniture out of the house before it collapsed, but because most of our furniture is wood much of it was badly water damaged. We have now come up with a list of needs for our 42 abandoned boys in Cusco. In response to so many of you who have asked, here it is:

Our most immediate needs are the following:

• We have decided to move the boys back to Cusco's Sacred Valley as soon as possible (within the next week or two). In order to do so, we will be renting a building in Urubamba as a provisional place where they can live while their new home is being built. We do not yet know what the final monthly rent will be. It will most likely be somewhere between $350 and $530 per month. We anticipate needing the building for 12 months.
• We need approximately $250 to cover the cost of an emergency trip to Cusco that Hector, the house father, had to make.
• The boys come back from summer vacation and begin school in March. They all need shoes and uniforms before they return to their classes. The uniforms cost approximately $70 per boy (including shoes). In addition to that, we would ideally also be able to supply the kids with backpacks and basic school supplies (approximately $45 per boy).

Other needs include the following:

• In the kitchen/dining room virtually everything was lost. We need a new refrigerator and a new blender. We also need new plates, bowls, cups, mugs, forks, spoons, knives, and kitchen utensils.
• Basically all of our electronic equipment was also lost or stolen. We need a new TV, DVD player, computer, stereo, and large speakers.
• Tables, desks, and chairs for the dining room and study room.
• The boys left most of their belongings at the home, and virtually everything has been lost. They lost all of their clothing except the small amount that they traveled with (sizes 7 to 16). Many of the mattresses were destroyed. We need new bunk beds, sheets, blankets, and towels. We also need new dressers for the boys' clothes.
• We have also lost most of the boys' school supplies--backpacks, books, dictionaries, etc.
• Hector and Maritza, our house parents in Cusco, have also lost virtually everything. They lost the couches in their living room, their refrigerator, beds and mattresses, stove, wardrobe, hand tools, etc.

If you are interested in helping support our home in Cusco, then please send me an email (bgreenman@latinamericamission.org), or give be a phone call (248.677.5252). We anticipate other unforseen costs and needs as we work through this difficult situation, but we know that God will continue to provide for these children. I still find myself in awe to think about how he protected them from being at the home during the time of the flooding.

As always, even more important than any monetary donation are your prayers. Pray that the boys would see how God is always protecting them and watching over them. Pray that they would be able to make the adjustment from their old home, to their provisional accommodations, and then to their newly constructed home. Lastly, please pray for the house parents and all of the Scripture Union staff in Cusco. Pray that God would comfort them as they deal with the loss of their belongings, and pray that God would give them strength and wisdom as they provide moral support for the boys at the home.

Thank you all for all of your prayers and support!

A Big Prayer Request and a Huge Praise

This past week has presented us at Scripture Union with some difficult problems, and I appreciate your prayers for wisdom in decisions that are going to have to be made in the coming months. You may or may not have heard anything about the flooding in the Sacred Valley in the past week. CNN has been following it because the record flooding has taken out a significant part of the train line to Machu Picchu leaving 2500 tourists stranded in Aguas Calientes. Below is a link to a news story covering the flooding followed by pictures of the flooding:

More than 23,000 left homeless by torrential rains in Cusco, Peru

Pictures of the flooding in Urubamba near our boys' home

Anyways, the floods have been incredibly violent, and they have completely washed our boys' home away. There is basically nothing left of the building. The good news is that for months and months Hector (the house father for Cusco) has been saving money from his budget because he really felt like God had placed on his heart to take all of the 42 boys plus more volunteers and staff workers on vacation to one of our other campsites just south of Lima on the Pacific Ocean. Most of the children had never before seen the ocean, and Hector really wanted to see it. The vacation was originally planned for the first two weeks of January, but at the last minute a situation came up that forced them to change it to the last two weeks of January. Praise God for his timing. I know  that it was Him that put this vacation on Hector's heart, and He is taking care of the boys. The water arrived at our boys' home in a flash flood in the middle of the night that almost immediately covered over the bottom level of all of the boys bunk beds. Eventually it rose to the top level of the bunk beds too. The building is made out of the traditional mud adobe bricks, and it has now been washed away. I can't imagine the tragedy that would have happened had the boys not been on vacation. Praise God for his protection over our kids!

A few days ago Billy Clark (my boss) had a meeting with the person who donated all of the money for the construction of the boys' home in Cusco. As you can imagine Billy was not looking forward to telling this man that his entire investment in this boys' home had just been washed away. How did the man react? His words to Billy were, "Well, it's just money. We will have to rebuild--this time with cement and bricks instead of adobes." He has agreed to donate the complete amount to rebuild the home. Praise God for his provision!

Please join me in praying for the situation at the boys' home. It is a difficult situation, but what an awesome testimony to these boys of how God's hand is protecting them! Pray for wisdom as we begin to plan for the work team season in Cusco. Pray for everyone who is involved in deciding how and where to reconstruct our home. Most importantly pray for the lives of these boys who are temporarily without a home (they are currently staying at our campsite on the ocean where they came for a vacation). Also join me in praising God for his faithfulness, his provision, and his protection!

I'm Still Here

Hello friends! I realize that it has been far too long since my last blog update, but things have been quite crazy around here. After completing my two month stay in Cusco with workteams, my family came down to visit for a couple of weeks. It was great to see them all. My mom, dad, brother, and sister came to visit, and we had a blast. Almost immediately after my family left, I was back on the road with more work groups. It is different than my first few months with work teams though. During the height of the summer, we had a number of volunteer interns/translators to help host the different teams that come to partner with Scripture Union. Now all of them have gone back home, and I am one of the only people left to host the remaining teams. We have less teams at a time in Peru during September and October, but it means that I have to travel with them rather than remain stationary at one site. From the beginning of August through the first week in November, my travel schedule looks like this: Cusco - Lima - Kawai - Kusi - Lima - Cusco - Lima - Cusco - Kusi - Cusco - Lima - Kusi - Cusco - Lima - Kusi - Cusco - Lima - Kusi - Lima! It is quite a bit of plane rides and bus trips, but I enjoy doing it. It is great to be with a group for the duration of their time here in Peru. Even as I write this post I am on a bus from Lima to Kusi (8 or 9 hour ride) with a group from Scotland.

Over the next few weeks I will try to update my posts a little bit more often as well as fill you all in on some stories, experiences, and pictures from my last couple of months here in Peru. For now I will leave you with a few prayer requests.

--For my health and the general health of the teams. For the most part I have been pretty healthy since I have arrived here in Peru, other than the fact that I seem to have a minor cold every other week. A cold is not a huge problem, but sometimes it makes doing my job a little bit more difficult when trying to be upbeat with the groups that come through here.

--For the work teams during these next few months. Many of the people on my next couple of work teams are not church groups, and only a handful of the members are Christians. Pray that God would work in their lives as the see the ministry here in Peru and as they see faith in action.

Thanks for reading. Once I get to a better internet connection, I will work on posting new photos!

Even the Tough Times are Worth It!

As I am sitting here ready to write a new post I have to be honest. This week has been one of my more difficult weeks since I have been in Peru. There have been a lot of late nights, and a lot of early mornings.

The week started as usual. I was with a Scottish group all day on Monday at the boys' home, and they were getting ready to fly back to Lima on Tuesday morning. I called the bus driver on Monday night to confirm the transport from the group's hotel to the airport, but he informed me that there was going to be a "strike" on Tuesday. A strike here in Peru is quite a bit different than what our idea of a strike is back home. Basically, when a group of people is in disagreement with any government decision or policy, they will go on strike; this means that they will march in protest, but it also means that they will often block the roads. The idea is that if the roads are blocked, then Peru's economy comes to a standstill, and hopefully the government will start to pay attention. Anyways, my bus driver informed me that the public transport staff was going to strike for a day because they are in disagreement with a new law that increases fines for traffic violations.

The group's original plan was to leave Tuesday morning around 8:30 to make their flight on time. My bus driver told me that we would probably beat the road blocks if we left earlier in the morning--around 5:00. With no other option, I had to ask the group to wake up extra early in an effort to beat the road blocks. Everything was set until about 4:30 then next morning. I received a call from the driver telling me that he couldn't make it to our hotel because people had already started striking and blocking the roads. At that point, there was no more that we could do. The group was going to have to miss their flight back to Lima. The Scripture Union office worked hard to rebook the flights for another day, but the earliest that the flights could be changed to was Thursday. The group was now going to have two extra days here in the Sacred Valley.

Really, from the perspective of the group, there wasn't much of a problem. They would have two more days here in Cusco, and a couple less days at their second stop--Kusi. For me, the delay brought a couple of complications. Originally I was going to have one group leaving Tuesday and a new group arriving on Wednesday. Because of the plane delay, the new group was going to overlap for one night with the other group. We did not have hotel spaces booked for that many people, so I had to rush around Urubamba looking for extra rooms. In the end, I was trying to juggle between two different groups who were staying in three different hotels.

Going to pick the new group up on Wednesday was also an adventure. Normally I take a public vehicle from Urubamba to Cusco when I go to the airport to pick up a group. Because of the strike that was going on, there were no public transport vehicles running. The trek was quite an adventure. I ended up riding in the trunk of a station wagon with two other men. It was a cramped, but uneventful ride thankfully.

On Thursday the group that got delayed finally left, and it was back to the normal routine--or so I thought! One of the ladies from the new group arrived quite sick. She hadn't eaten for a number of days, and she was incredibly weak. On Friday we decided that she was going to need to go back to Cusco to get checked out at a hospital. We left on Friday morning expecting to be at the hospital for 3-6 hours, but when all was said and done she was kept in the hospital for just over 24 hours, and she was diagnosed with Typhoid Fever--a bacterial disease caused by a certain strain of salmonella that is usually a result of drinking contaminated water. It was a nice hospital, and there was an extra bed in the hospital room, so I just stayed the night there, but I was woken up every 30 minutes or so when the nurses came in to check on the lady from the work team. Thankfully the hospital was very nice, and the lady is feeling much, much better now that she has medicine to treat the illness.

This week back in Michigan was our church's Kids' Kamp that the children's ministry puts on every year. I grew up going to this camp, and I loved it so much that when I was too old to be a camper I began working there as a volunteer. To this day, some of my best friends are the families that are involved in Kids Kamp. I found myself feeling a little bit homesick and missing friends and family back home. It was a long and exhausting week, and I think that all of the business wore my immune system pretty thin. I came down with a fever and nausea last night. I won't go into the details, but I was fairly unwell. It must have been just a 24 hour flu or something because thankfully I was feeling much better by this afternoon.

It has been a difficult week, and I appreciate all of your prayers. But as I was feeling down today, God reminded me exactly why it is that I am here in Peru. After taking the morning off to recuperate from my sickness, I made it back to the Girasoles home in the afternoon. Today we celebrated all of the boys who had birthdays during the months of June and July. There were games, songs, dancing, and lots of cake. They even made a pinata! I got the see the joy on the boys' faces as we celebrated their lives and as we reminded them that they are important and loved by God. I left the home today feeling tired but refreshed at the same time. When I signed up for this job, I knew that it wasn't always going to be easy, but I know that even in the midst of the more difficult times IT IS WORTH IT. God has me here for a reason, and he has a plan for the lives of the kids at each one of our Girasoles homes.

Just for Fun

Well, things are still going well here in Cusco and the Sacred Valley. For this post, I just wanted to share a small list of fun, random, happy, or just plain funny things that have happened over the last month. Here we go!

--To start off, I want to give you an idea of the scenery here in the Sacred Valley. I see views like this on a daily basis. What a great reminder of how powerful and mighty our God is!

The Sacred Valley

--Hector, the house father at Cusco, invited me to climb a small mountain that sits right next to the casa girasoles with him and some other guys. It is by no means an incredibly tall mountain, but it is not small either. Thankfully, Hector and the boys are good guides because there were some pretty steep passes. Everyone climbed up and down quite safely, except for the fact that it was almost impossible to avoid all of the spines and sharp leaves of the plants that grow there.

The Mountain Climbing Crew

--A few weeks ago, Kate Bruder and I traveled from Urubamba to Cusco (about and hour and a half drive) in a station wagon called a collectivo where you pay just for your seat, and the car leaves the station when it is full. Well, about half of the way through the trip we were coming close to a police checkpoint when the driver suddenly slammed on the breaks, parked behind the truck, got out of the car, and had another man who was riding in the trunk of the station wagon get behind the wheel. Our original driver proceeded to nonchalantly walk past the police checkpoint where we picked him up and continued onto Cusco...a little shady if you ask me!

--Kate and I happened to be in Cusco during the week of Inti Raymi, the Festival of the Sun. They celebrate during the week because it is their winter solstice (our summer solstice). Even though we weren't there for the biggest festivals, we still managed to accidentally run into about 10 different parades. I kind of lost count. They were all separate local parades with their own patron saints, dancers, bands, men in costumes. Gorilla costumes seemed to be a favorite.

Little Boy in Gorilla Costume for the Parade

Another Parade

--That same week, Kate and I ran across a fireworks show that was about to get underway here in Urubamba. I am not sure what it was celebrating, but it involved men wearing a cardboard form of a bull on their backs that were covered in different fuses for fireworks, and once they were lit, the men ran like mad people through the crowd shooting fireworks everywhere and at everyone. The evening culminated with a big tower of fireworks that was lit off--again with many of the sparklers and fire landing in the crowd. It was quite a site to see, and I have to say that half of the excitement of it all was the adrenaline high that you get, knowing that you might get hit by something! I dubbed it firework roulette. :-)

--I have enjoyed attending church in Urubamba with Hector and the boys during my time here. Last Sunday was particularly interesting because the elementary school children did a very hilarious skit about Abraham and Isaac. Some really good up and coming actors in that church.

--The same night as the funny skit in the church, there was a big parade/celebration in the main square of Urubamba.

--I am enjoying hosting quite a large number of Scottish groups this year. I have picked up a whole new vocabulary.

--I discovered that as a resident of Peru, I am entitled to take the local train to Machu Picchu. The cheapest tourist class train costs approximately $80 round trip. As a resident, I can do it for less than $7!

--Today I took advantage of the local train, and I accompanied the work team as far as Aguas Calientes (the town at the base of Machu Picchu) for their work day. Because I didn't actually enter the ruins, I had some spare time on my hands while the group toured around. I decided to test myself and see if I could climb up the path from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu. By bus, the cost is $7 each way. Walking it is free! The only issue is that it is quite a hike. You begin at Aguas Calientes (6,700 feet), and then proceed to walk down the valley for about 20 minutes to an elevation of about 6,500 feet. After crossing a bridge that goes over the Urubamba River, all that's left is a long uphill hike...probably thousands of stone stairs, although it seemed like millions. Arriving at Machu Picchu at the end of the hike, your final elevation is about 7,900 feet. It is like walking down the stairs of a 13 story building, and then up the stairs of a 94 story building in the middle of the jungle! It definitely felt good to finish.

The Path Up to Machu Picchu

Looking Down from about Half-way Up

--The town of Aguas Calientes literally means "hot waters," due to the fact that there are natural hot springs that you can enter into. I had my first experience with them today, and it was a blast hanging out there with the group after a long hike. We will just ignore the fact that the water was quite yellow and so cloudy that you couldn't see the bottom.

--Tonight after boarding the work team onto their train, I had a few hours before my train left. I killed time walking around the town, and I ran into another parade that was followed by a huge dance/music/comedy/magician performance. Are you starting to notice the pattern with the parades and celebrations here in Peru?

--Lastly, as I was waiting to board the 9:20pm local train to go back to the hotel tonight, I was approached by one of the staff people at the train station. He asked me if I was traveling alone, and when I said yes, he asked me to follow him. He then proceeded to board me on the front seat of the 8:55pm Vistadome because they had a few empty seats (a tourist train that comes complete with panoramic views, music shows and dancing, and food service...not to mention more leg room and more comfortable seats). Usually this train costs people $70 - $80 one way. I paid just over $3!

Well, it is getting late, and that is all I can think of for now. Don't forget that you can subscribe to get my new blog posts sent directly to your email inbox by clicking here or typing your email address into the box near the top, right corner of this page. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

God is Faithful!

Well, I am still here working with the different groups and work teams that come to support the boys' home here in the Sacred Valley of Cusco. I am really enjoying my time with the teams as well as my time to get to know they kids, the workers, and the house family here in Cusco. I arrived last year for just over a week to translate with some of the work teams, but other than that short time, I am just now having the opportunity to deepen relationships and get to know everyone out here.

Last year when I arrived at the Girasoles home here in Cusco, there was a whole lot going on all at once. This is Scripture Union Peru's newest home for abandoned kids. It was opened near the end of March 2008. Hector and Maritza are the house parents for Girasoles Cusco, and at the time that the home opened in March, Maritza was 6 months pregnant. Just a few weeks after the opening of the home in Cusco, she had some major complications with her pregnancy, and she gave birth to baby Marcelo almost a full 3 months premature. Life all of the sudden became very difficult for Hector and his family. In the midst of trying to open a new boys' home, the family was now trying to take care of a new premature baby in a hospital about an hour and a half away from the home.

I know very little about medicine, but ask my sister Mandy. She knows her stuff, and I am sure the she can confirm these facts. Some of the very last organs to develop inside the mother's womb are the lungs, so when a baby is born premature, getting him enough oxygen is a very high priority. This issue was compounded by the fact that the city of Cusco is one of the highest altitude cities of its size in the world, and because the air is thinner, oxygen is even more scarce (elevation of nearly 12,000 feet). I am told that none of the doctors in the hospital expected the baby to live for any long period of time, but they did everything that they could and kept the baby in an enriched oxygen environment for a number of weeks.

Hector's worries did not end with the opening of the new boys' home and with the health of his newborn son. During childbirth, his wife Maritza slipped into a coma due to the problems that surrounded her pregnancy. At one point, the doctors did not know if she was going to live either. For more than a month, Hector and his 3 year old son, Adam, were continually driving back and forth between the boys' home in the Sacred Valley and the hospital in Cusco to visit Maritza and Marcelo.

As I have gotten to know Hector better during this year, I have learned even more about the struggles that the family faced during this time. It was a very dark and difficult period for the family, but Hector has told me how much this situation has taught him to fully rely on God. There was really nothing else that he could do but to trust that God knew what he was doing, and put Maritza and baby Marcelo into God's hands. Thankfully the story ends well. During the time of difficulty friends from all over Scripture Union showed their support. Other house parents and volunteers from some of our other boys' homes stepped up, traveled to Cusco, and helped out taking care of the boys and running the home. A work party that happened to be visiting the home bought the family a small, poratble oxygen tank that made transport to and from the hospital in Cusco much less risky for Marcelo.

THANKS TO GOD, after 15 days in a coma Maritza woke up and quickly came back to good health. Also, Marcelo pulled through after many long, trying nights at the hospital. When I left the home in August, there were 17 boys living at the home. Today that number has more than doubled, reaching the cap of 42 boys at the home here. What a testament to the great work that God has accomplished here in Peru. Hector and his family found themselves trying to begin a new ministry, and they were being attacked in full force by the flaming arrows of the evil one. God is stronger, and he will ALWAYS triumph! Hector remained faithful, and during the times of weakness the body of Christ was there to lift him up in prayer and in providing for his needs.

Healthy baby Marcelo (about 1 year and 3 months old)

God has a purpose, and even in the midst of great trials He is able to work everything for the good of those who love him. The story isn't always one that ends as happily as this one did, but we can rest in the fact that God IS faithful, and He has a purpose and a plan that is more far reaching than we could ever imagine!

The Creator God

As promised, I have another blog entry for you today. This isn't so much an update on my life here as it is an interesting story that I wanted to pass on to all of you. It actually goes way back to the time if the Incan empire before the time of the Spanish conquistadores came to colonize Peru.

To give you a little bit of background about the Inca culture in Peru, it had a very strict organization. The Inka--the emperor--was the only completely free being in the entire civilization. They expanded their civilizations rapidly, annexing smaller indian tribes into the Incan empire. They also imposed their language, Quechua, as the universal language for all of their subjects. The Inka's government regulated almost every aspect of the peoples' lives. There was no personal property, but people were given liscences to use the land. Occupations were predetermined based on the family line and the region where the person lived. No one was allowed to move without the permission of the government, and the government even regulated who one could or could not marry. It is said that the government was so well organized, and the land was so fruitful that it was one of the only ancient civilizations where starvation and poverty was virtually nonexistant. They also are one of the few civilizations that did not employ the use of slave labor.

According to the Incan religion, there are many different gods--all associated with nature. They worshiped the rainbows, the moon, the stars, the mountains, mother earth (Pachamama), and the sun (Inti). Of all of these deities, the sun god Inti was said to be the most powerful of them all. They believed that the Inka emperor was a direct descendant of the god Inti. One day one of the most powerful emperors at the hight of the Incan empire, Pachacutec, decided that he wanted to better become acquainted with his father, the sun. He had his subjects take him down to Lake Titicaca, a huge lake in the high mountains between present day Bolivia and Peru. He spent a number of days alone on one of the lake's many islands, and just observed the sun.

Upon his return to the capital city, Cusco, he decreed to the people that the sun god is not the all powerful being that they had believed. He said that the most powerful God must be free to do as he wants and all powerful, just as on earth the Inka emperor was the only free, all powerful being. But, he said, Inti does not seem to be free. All day he travels the same path in the sky, coming up in the same spot and setting in the same spot. The sun makes no original moves of his own. Pachacutec also stated that the sun does not appear to be all powerful either. Even a mere cloud is able to block its rays from arriving at the earth.

After stating these observations, Pachacutec decreed that there must be some unseen creator God in control of the sun and everything else. In the main temple of Cusco, he had a bunch of gold melted down, and it came out as a formless blob. The Inka decreed that from now on the civilization would also worship this unseen creator God.

What a paralell to Paul's journey to Athens where he found the altar to the unknown God. This story makes me wish that the colonizers might have taken time to learn about the Incas and explain to them who this unknown God really is. They could have told about the real Son, rather than the sun that was presently being worshiped. Unfortunately the thirst for gold and treasure was greater than the desire to spread the true Gospel, and rather than being redeemed, the culture was, for the most part, destroyed. Thankfully, the story here in Peru is not over. God is more powerful than any destructive acts of human beings. Please continue to pray for God's active work of redemption to continue here and around the world!

I'm Back!

Hey everyone...I know that it has been more than one month since my last post, and the goal is not to let that happen again. Being one full month since my last post, I have quite a bit that I can write about. Rather than putting everything all into one long post, I think that I will write a number of short posts over the next week or two. Also, make sure to check out my new pictures from May and June.

I have now switched gears--from working in the schools in Lima to working with American and Scottish short term missions teams who come to support the street boys' ministry that we have here. I have enjoyed the switch and the change of pace, but it is quite busy here. I traveled with my first two teams to one of our boys' homes called Kusi. In the Quechua language that is indigenous to Peru's sierra, the word Kusi is used for three separate English words: (1) Contentment, (2) Happiness, and (3) Joy. The word Kusi also fits very well with the name of our street children program--"Girasoles" or "Sunflowers" in English. In Peruvian culture to label a boy with a name like sunflower has no girly connotation as it would back in the States. The reason the boys here and all over Peru are called Girasoles, we hope that they will turn from the darkness towards the Light, the Son of God just as a sunflower turns to follow the light of the sun as it moves across the sky throughout the day. Only when the kids turn towards the Son can they find true Kusi.

Over the past couple of years that I have had the chance to become familiar with the site of Kusi, and for me personally it has certaintly lived up to its name. I have been blessed with a great friendship of the house parents in Kusi, Angel and Rosa, the scenery is beautiful (at the base of the tallest mountain in Peru), and it is always a joy to work with the kids at the home as well as share the ministery with the different short term groups.

At the base of the mountain near Kusi

After my few weeks in Kusi, I headed straight down to Cusco where we have our newest Girasoles home. It opened just over a year ago in March 2008, and there are already 42 children living here. My job from now through August is to work as the site coordinator here in Cusco. It is up to me to host, translate, and figure out all of the logistics of transportation, lodging, food, and ministry for all of the short term teams. I will talk more about Cusco and the ministry here in later posts. I will leave you with this short video (sorry for the poor quality) of one of the new seven wonders of the world--Machu Picchu! While most of the work teams that come here to Cusco spend a tour day at Machu Picchu, I rarely accompany them. In the case of my first team in June, my friend Polly had planned on going with the group, but then decided that she wanted to meet up with a friend who lives in the city of Cusco during the groups Machu Picchu day. I was happy to take the ticket off of her hands, and enjoyed having a tour day with the work team!

Also, I wanted to leave you with a few prayer requests. As I have talked and emailed with many of you, I have been reminded over and over again that so many people are praying for me and the ministry here. Thanks so much. I continue to covet your prayers.

--Pray me as I adjust to the pace of hosting work teams. The job extends far beyond the regular 8 hours a day, 5 days a week time period. When there is a group here in Cusco, I am almost always on the clock. Pray that God would give me strength to be able to encourage the short-term teams in their ministry. I will be in Cusco full time until August 8, then I have a few week break when my mom, dad, brother, and sister are coming down to visit. And after they leave I have a pretty full schedule with work teams through the middle of October.

--Another difficulty that I have during work team season is that life is very much like a roller coaster. Just as I start to become accustomed to one group of people, they leave, and I start over again. I am very thankful for the other Scripture Union staff that live here in Cusco. They have become good friends quite quickly, and they are a welcomed constant here where life has so many changes.

--Pray for all of the work teams this summer. We are know into the middle of the season, and there are traveling within the country a whole lot. Pray for their health and safety. Pray for God to work in their lives--that they would not go home the same as when they arrived here. Pray also for their ministry be it medical, construction, or with the boys--that their hearts would be overflowing with God's love and that God would use their efforts to further His Kingdom!