Home Sweet Home

I am getting ready to go out to dinner with my mom and dad. I just wanted to let you all know that I am home safe! Thanks for all of your prayers, support, letters, and encourgment! I love you all and can't wait to wait to see all of your beautiful faces!!!

Right now I am at Richard´s house in Lima. We took the night bus at 1030pm and arrived here around 930am. My last day just wasn´t what I expected. I woke up at 7am and was sick all day. It was horrible. I was just suppose to spend the day chillin with everyone saying goodbye and instead I was sleeping or in the bathroom. Being on the bus when you are sick is no bueno either. I have been sleeping all day here so I am feeling a little better just really weak. Now I am just ready to be done with traveling and be home already. My flight leaves at 1220am tonight so please be praying that I feel better before then. Love you all and can´t wait to see you soon!!!

:(

When I woke up in the morning it was just another day. I was so excited because it was Sunday! I just love church here. (well at home too but it is just different here) It makes me so excited! They people are so genuine. The pastor is really good too! (although today he didn't do a very good job translating so I missed a lot of it) The pastor was talking about how we needed to be volunteers and follow the law of our land by obey the rules as long as they followed God's word. They had a big Peruvian Independence day celebration at church since their Independence day here was on the 28th. At church, my dear friend Rita had to tell the Pastor that it was Karen and I's last Sunday here. I got really sad. I just try not to think about it and when it comes it comes. Well I had to go to the front of the church and the Pastor prayed for me and I said goodbye to everyone. I couldn't talk very well in the microphone because I was about to ball and trying to hold it in. Then after church Avis, Peggy, Rita, Karen and I had a girl's lunch and we took all the girls from the orphange out (except the 5 youngest girls) to a really nice resturant and had ice cream with them. It was a lot of fun!
Then when we got back Karen and I realized (with the help of a facebook message from my mom) that we had got our departure date wrong. All this time we thought we were leaving Tues. night but really it is tmro night. We spent about an hour trying to get a new bus ticket and getting everything figured out.
Then I made dinner for Rita and I. The rest of the night we just hung out with the kids watching TV and such. We were watching King Kong. There was this really nasty part where all of these bugs like huge roach things were attacking this guy in the movie. Then this huge beatle thing was flying around the room. It landed on Rita's leg. It was just like the movie sort of. lol I must say I was impressed how calm Rita was :)
My camera is currently out of buisness, but when I get home I will try and put some pictures on here. Or I might just make you all wait until you see me to see them all! You will have to save a lot of time for me because I have a ton of pictures!!! This will probably be my last post from here in Peru. I will let you all know when I get home. I love you all! Please be praying for me because tmro is going to be a really ruff day and then a long couple days of traveling before I get home to you all.
Also- pray for all the TPX people who are at camp this week in Colorado! They are leaving tonight around midnight. Which means Kailey, P-nut and Shelby won't be home when I get home. But I will get to see them soon enough....at this point what's a few more days!

Camping 101

Friday morning we left for our camping trip with the youth. There were about 16 youth, Karen, Rita, me, and the Pastor, his wife, and their daughter. It was about a 45min. drive to get to where we would be camping. Us 3 girls were in the front seat of the van. Lesson #1: When Rita is going to be sitting on your lap for 45min down very bumpy road; go to the bathroom first and wear extra padded clothes. So I have never been camping for real before. I have done the whole camp out at Alissa's house in the country, but never like this. I have always wanted to and loved being outside so I was excited. The camp area we stayed at was really pretty. We cleaned the ground to get all the stickers off the ground before setting up the tarp. Our tent consisted of two tarps wrapped around some trees for the girls. The guys didn't even have that. They just had a little wall. We played a lot of card games, some people went swimming, ate a lot off good food, and had some good devotional time. I ended up hiking back to the van that night with Rita and two other girls who didn't want to sleep outside. Good thing too because it was so cold and I only had one small blanket. On the trip we talked a lot about wisdom. We are God's creation and he gives us the wisdom we need but we have to be smart with it. We need to daily live our lifes like the christians we say we are. You can't act one way and then talk the opposite. This was the main thing that hit a lot of the students. Pastor talked about having a true faith. I really like how he said this was something we should be seeking. We should daily get excited about being in the word and learning about what God has for us. Just before that we were playing a tag game in the dark. Everyone was so excited about the game. Pastor talked about how our journey with God should be like that. It just made me think about that in my own life. Yeah sometimes I get really excited, but it is not a consistent thing. I want that fire to burn all the time. I want my one desire to be following hard after Him.
Lesson #2- bring someone with you when you have to go to the make shift bathroom to stand guard b/c that light blue tarp does nothing in the sunlight. Lesson #3- When cutting potatoes with a bent knife over a pot of boil oil don't look directly into the fire. Lesson #4- when you are going on a walk wear tennis shoes because that means you will be hiking up a huge sand hill and then sand surfing down it! Lesson #5 Gain a lot of weight before you go so you have more body fat to cushion yourself. :)
Lesson #6- when sitting in the sun playing card games for hours put on lots of sun screen.
Overall the camping trip was a lot of fun! Lack of sleep- yes but a lot of fun! It was good to spend time with the older girls here from the orphanage and see them outside their element.
Tonight we are having a girls night just me, Karen, and Rita. Good food and a chick flick are involved!