Courage builder #4: Evidence of God in My Life

Two summers ago I spent a week in Cajamarca, Peru on a mission trip.  There were three different teams:  VBS, Medical, and Construction.  I was on the VBS team, so we spent our days teaching a VBS at an orphanage there in Cajamarca.  There were only 50 kids at the orphanage, so by the end of the week we knew almost every kid by name and had grown to love them very much.  At night our whole group would come back together we would all share experiences from our day.  The group of us on the VBS team realized that although we were enjoying all the kids, God seemed to be laying a different kid on each of our hearts that we really felt connected to.  A special bond was forming for me with a twelve year old little boy named Jhon.  I began noticing him when the kids would play during rec time.  He was very gentle and patient with the younger kids, but he also was a great leader with the boys his own age.  I could tell that the other boys looked up to him and followed his lead.  I could just see a special spark in him.  I guess the expression in my eyes told him that I loved him and saw potential in him, because he bonded to me as well.  Everyday when our van would pull up, he'd be looking for me and waiting for me to get off.  I'm telling you, I would have taken him home and raised him myself if they would have let me.  As we became friends (with me communicating in my "patchy" Spanish) I tried to explain to him how I thought that he could grow up to be anything that he wanted to be.  I asked him if he knew that one of the great leaders in the Bible was named John also.  He said that he didn't know, so I ran and got my Bible and began to show him.  I will forever be indebted to one of our teenagers on the trip who snapped a picture of this precious moment to me.  So, anyway, the week ended and we all came home, trying to remember how to function in our normal American life after experiencing something so amazing.  :)  I continued to think about Jhon (that's the way he spells it) and prayed for him often that entire year.

Fast forward to this past summer.  I returned to Cajamarca with my church group.  There were still three teams like the previous year, but the VBS team's plans were different this year.  We were only spending one day at the orphanage and then going around to several public school to hand out shoes that we had brought and make salvation bracelets, sharing the salvation story.  Once I got to Cajamarca, I longed to go back to the orphanage that had impacted my life so much the previous year and I wanted to see all the kids so bad.  Every year the group is different, so no one else on this current trip had been on the VBS team the previous year and been able to build such strong relationships.  I actually cried the first morning that we got up and headed to one of the schools, because I wanted to see my babies at the orphanage so bad.  On Sunday we went to the church there that was started by the ministry that we work with.  I knew that on Sundays sometimes kids from the orphanage came to church there.  I hoped to see someone that I knew.  The service started and there were no kids.  After the first prayer a few kids and one of the tias (that's what they call the woman who serve as "house moms") came shuffling in and sat on the pew almost directly across from me.  As I looked over......you've probably guessed.......yes, Jhon was one of the five kids that had gotten to come to church that Sunday.  You see there are around fifty kids at the orphanage, so of course they can't transport that many all in one Sunday.  The kids have to take turns going to church.  You can tell me that it was a coincidence that Jhon's Sunday happened to be the Sunday that I was there, but I'm going to say that it was God ordained.  During the next song, I got up and went to sit by them.  I just kept hugging him!

The place that we stay in Cajamarca is called Villa Milagro.  In English that means "Village of Miracles."  When I am in Peru I always feels God's presence so strongly.  It is probably because all the distractions of everyday life are taken away and I can focus on Him.  Also it is so beautiful there that it is impossible not to acknowledge that God exists.  It is also really high above sea level there, so you feel like you are in the clouds.  I loved to go up on the roof in the mornings to have my quiet time.  I could hear all the amazing animals, see the mountains in the distance, and I was practically in the clouds.  Can't imagine a better place to talk to God!

This is the picture that Chantel snapped when I was showing Jhon the "John of the Bible."  That crazy thing on his head is the parachute that we had been playing with during rec time.....silly man!

This is another picture of Jhon the first year I went.

This is Jhon and me the second year that I was there!

There's one last thing I want to share about this that I will never forget.  On the last day of my first trip, we all had to say goodbye to the kids at the orphanage that had quickly grown to mean so much to us.  Saying those last goodbyes, it was a very good probability that it would be the last time that we would see them (at least here on earth).  Let me back up a minute to explain our van rides to and from the orphanage everyday.  Driving in Peru is CRAZY!!  There aren't really any lanes, you just honk at someone and that means that you are passing them.  The man that drove our van was hilarious and everyone was always talking, joking, and laughing.  So, on that Friday we all relunctantly said our last goodbyes and climbed on board.  The ride back to Villa Milagro (where we lived while we there) was about five miles.  There was not one word spoken on that van the whole way home----complete silence, which was a stark difference to our usual van atmosphere.  All you could hear was the occasional sniffle.  Man, I will never forget the heavy feeling that we all felt.  Our hearts were breaking for these children and their lives.  And I know that I personally felt like my feeble attempts to make a difference just didn't add up to how great those kids were and how much they deserved to know that even if they don't have an earthly family, they are loved by their heavenly Father and can be apart of his family.