Today Was NOT "Ratchet"

I am traveling with teenagers. Sigh... there was a LOT of use of the words "sketch", "totes", "adorbs", and "ratchet". The blog post title was a challenge from the team. They didn't believe I would do it. Wrong. On with the real post -

Today was AWESOME! God blessed us so immensely. Our first stop was in Carhua, and to be honest, we didn't expect much. This is typically a holiday from school and there aren't many children there. We drove in and school was open!! OPEN! The teachers welcomed us in, allowed us to teach our entire lesson on the Prodigal Son, do the craft, and play some games. There were 15 kids. Members of the team had the chance to talk with the PE teacher and discover that she attends a Baptist church in Lima. I also had the chance to chat with one of the secondary teachers about the differences between our church and the Catholic church. The kiddos are very excited that we're coming back the next few days!

After a picnic lunch by the river, we headed to Lachaqui. We headed straight to our friend Dulia's class. I got a bit "misty" when I walked in and a bunch of kids yelled "CANDI!!!" and ran for hugs. Life is good. She invited us to come teach our lesson a bit later in the afternoon so we could have more kids than just her class. Since we had some time on our hands, we went into the plaza to find some of the families Parkway has worked with before. First, we visited with a family that our mid-term team invested heavily in - Zoraida, Jaimito, and Carlos. Today we were able to deliver some devotional and study materials they had wanted, as well as some pictures that Ben took. They were so tickled with the photos of their birthday celebrations! In a gesture of thanks, they gave us a 3 liter bottle of Inka Cola. :) The best news of all is that they have been continuing their Bible study three nights a week!!! We have been invited to join them tomorrow night as they continue through the book of John. We also visited with Elsa, who runs a restaurant two doors down. She is cooking chicken soup for our lunch tomorrow, so we will get to spend some more time with her. Our time with the Lachaqui kids was good as well, and our trip down the mountain was smooth and full of laughter.

Speaking of laughter, our team is a RIOT! I have laughed more today than I have in a long time. God is also blessing us with a fellowship that is out of this world. We have flowed seamlessly from conversations about the grace of the Lord to playing a game about death row - what would our crime be and what would our last meal be. Seriously, crazy stuff happening south of the equator.

Please keep praying for us! It makes such a difference. Specific prayer points include our health (we have had small amounts of headaches, etc.), the openness of the children to our stories tomorrow, and for God to move mightily in the Bible study tomorrow night.

Until the next update...I hope your day was not at all sketch and that your tomorrow is totes fab. (pray for me - I threatened that my death row crime was beating a slang-using teen to death with a proper English dictionary!)