Thursday we traveled by boat up the Amazon River to a village called Padre Cocha. We spent the morning going door to door to invite people to a program in the center of the village that afternoon. When we returned to the church we ate lunch, which consisted of a whole fish (head and all!) in a cold soup.
After lunch we explored the village some more and then rested in the church. I was laying on the floor of the church and was awakened by two little girls talking to me and killing all the ants that were crawling around me. I sat up and talked with them, and pretty soon there were 5 little girls ages 7-11 telling me about their families and asking me about mine. One little girl informed me that I was older than her mom (that’s always nice to hear haha!). In those moments talking with them, I was reminded yet again why I made the decision to move to Peru for two years.
At 4pm, we all walked to the center of the village and played with children who came to the program. I counted 75 children playing elbow tag and simon says and by the time we sat down for the drama, the amount of children had doubled. After the drama, my friend Gary shared some of his testimony (in español) and presented the Gospel. Hard to believe 3 months ago we didn’t know how to tell people where we were from much less tell the greatest story in history!
At the close of the program, we had small gifts of pencils, soap, and toothpaste for the kids and there were at least 200 children following our group through the village back to the church. It was amazing.
We returned home exhausted and soaking wet from the rain, but content in the knowledge we had learned much in the day...
Aloha Means Te Amo,
Suthee
