End of Outreach - Back to Mexico

Our last part of DTS outreach was spent in central mexico, we stayed at the YWAM base in Pachuca, and then each week went to a different town to do ministry. 3 weeks doing ministry in 3 different towns... Actopan, Mexico City, and Huitzitzilingo.

Week 1 - Actopan

I translated ALOT!

Actopan is a tiny town in central Mexico with a centro (downtown) surrounded by lots of ranches. We slept on the floor of a church while we were there and every meal we had a feast provided by all the different familes in the church. They had never had a group of missionaries come to their church before and they were so kind and generous to us. In the Bible it says to keep on loving each other as brothers, do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it... they truly treated us like angels in that place. In Actopan, we did prayer walks, held church services, did dramas, and spent a lot of time with the youth of the church.

part of my team outside the church in Actopan with the youth

Sights of Peru

Some pictures from my time at the orphanage in Peru...

Clownin' around at the orphanage in Peru

Guinea pigs - pets when they're little, food when they're big

At the end of our hike - we made it to the top of the Andes mountains!!

Harvesting beans - technology has not quite reached this part of the Andes yet

Here's when we took a hike up the Andes mountains - it was rough at times, but the view from the top was totally worth it!!

Market day in Peru
*warning: the last picture is completely gross!*

2 women ready to go to market - braids, top hats, and blankets strapped to their back, ready to go!

fruit galore!spice aisle

veggie stop

and last but not least... the meat market...

yes, those ARE what you think they are!

Peruvian Orphanage

So I was pretty much AWFUL at updating this during my DTS in Mexico, but I'm going to try to catch it up to speed now...

During our time in Peru (back in January), we spent a week at an orphanage in the middle of the Andes mountains. Literally we could see a glacier from the dining hall! It was a beautiful view, and the kids were great too. Since most people when they go to an orphanage just want to play with babies, we decided we were going to focus our time on the teens. It turns out that the week we went there was "vacation week", meaning all the orphans that had some kind of family in Lima went to visit them, leaving us the kids that were truly alone in this world (God's timing to truly perfect).

Each day we had a group of about 15 teens and we did a "mini-DTS" for them, meaning we taught them about the things that we had learned about in our classes in Ensenada. I did most of the translating because the other girl that speaks spanish got really sick while we were there and couldn't get out of bed, so that was cool (me translating I mean, not her being bed-ridden). The kids were very quiet at first (Peruvians tend to be much shyer than Mexicans), but around the 3rd day, one of the girls in our group taught on worship, and how sharing your life story (your 'testimony') can be worship to God becaust it shows how he has used you during your life and also how he has given you the strength to overcome hard times. After that we asked the kids to each write their own testimony, which they had never done before. As we helped them recognize God working in their lives, we started to learn the situations that these kids were in before coming to the orphanage.... girls raped by their uncles, boys living on the streets in downtown Lima, one even shared that she had seen her father kill her mother before her very own eyes. Terrible terrible life situations, but Jesus had redeemed them all. God has given us free will, which means we all have the choice to make good or bad decisions, and our decisions will always affect other people as well. But the Bible tells us that God works together ALL things for the good of those who love him, and for these kids, it was being rescued from their life situation before and being put into this orphanage.

Below is a video of a hike we took around the orphanage. We were teaching the kids about how they are each a unique part of God's creation, and we thought it would be cool to let them take us on a hike to experience the rest of God's beautiful creation in that valley.