Day One in Chilca

I've only been in Peru for 18.5 hours and I can already honestly say that today was one of the best days of my life. I started out my day by rolling off of a damp top bunk with a frozen nose and a missing sock, running on 4 hours of sleep. I walked into a room of 20 people, where concentrate coffee and scrambled eggs were being served- scrambled eggs being my least favorite food on earth. I decided to eat a banana, forgetting that altough I love the taste, for some reason they make my tongue and throat itch like crazy. Seems like a pretty awesome start to my day right? We got ready to head to the church, and the walk to the bus felt like an eternity to me. Has anyone mentioned yet in their blog that it's FREEEEEZING here right now?? Well it is. Yet another shock, it is winter here. Anyway, it took about 30 minutes to get to the church, and in the first 10 minutes I was already falling asleep. Great. How was I supposed to stay awake for a 2 hour church service in a language I didn't speak, if I couldn't even stay awake for 1 minutes on a moving bus? Pulling up to the church, I immediately knew I would have no problem staying awake. The pastor was waiting at the door eagerly passing out abrazos (hugs) with a huge smile. As we began to fill the small concrete building, adorable children ranging from age 3 to 11 filled the room with smiles and fast chattering little mouths. Without warning, I was quickly surrounded and I had tiny little hands tugging on my shirt. They made themselves welcome and plopped down right on our laps and next to us in our seats. The next 2 hours were literally life changing. Taking 4 years of Spanish enabled me to understand small phrases and words, yet I was still overwhelmed. The translator did an excellent job, but I was more moved by the pastor's actions and projection than his words. He exuded an amazing spirit and his passion for God flooded the room by the look on his face alone. I felt the Holy Spirit's presence more in that cold, tiny concrete building than I've felt anywhere in a very long time. I sat in amazement as he continued to speak, and my entire body was quickly covered in goose bumps. I'm thousands of miles from home, listening to a man speak a completely different language from my own... and absolutely blown away by the fact that he is speaking of the exact same God that I love and worship. How is it possible that these people who lead such dramatically different lives than my own have a personal relationship with the God that I just prayed to? The thought of this was mind-blowing and I could do nothing but smile. It was one of the best church services I've been to in a long time, simply because I was so amazed that my God is so big and so incredible that He is loved by people at literally ALL ends of the earth.

That was long and took me way too much thinking, but it was the most impactful thing I've experienced in a long time and I felt like it should be shared. Real quick, to sum up the rest of my day, I played with some amazing kids on a playground for an hour, ate a great lunch with them and then rode a bus back to the orphanage, called Hogar de Ninos. They showed us around their home and I got up close and personal with a goat, a BUNCH of roosters, and some baby ducklings. The kids would run from coop to coop gathering freshly laid eggs, and they knew exactly when they were ready, and where to carry them when they were. Lastly, we visited Hannah's Home, the building we're preparing for pregnant teens. It was BEAUTIFUL and I had a great time looking around and getting a feel for what we'd be working with. After checking out the home, I began a game of escondite (Hide-N-Seek) with a few of the girls from the orpahanage. We had a blast, and my spanish began to really come out and I became confident carrying on conversations which was a really self-esteem boost, because it was very intimidating hanging out with these amazing children when I couldn't speak to them. Anyway, I'm wrapping this up because I'm tired, and a few of the girls are waiting for me to finish so that they can hit the sack too. Haha. It's only been one day and so far it's ABSOLUTEY AMAZING. I've loved every second and I can't wait to see what God has in store for the rest of our trip. I miss the fam, love you all!!

-Allyson Abbott