sorry these are small, but this is some of the girls on the creative ministry team washing dishes at our sink

The last night we were there we threw a party for the little girls in the village and gave them hand massages, painted their nails, gave them lots of food and danced.

Me and Leslie took Drew's camera and played a game where you make weird faces and take pictures but you don't know when they are going to be taken.

Me and Yesabel

They roasted a pig and we got to watch them shave it and stuff...interesting

Drew tried to teach Leoncio how to play guitar

Me and Yesabel again.

Hiking

and again

Drew "eating" chicken foot soup

Our favorite little boy, Omar

Drew cooking, which the kids thought was really funny

The Group, Nestor, Leslie, me, Amy, Drew

Our nightly game of Skip-Bo

Drew being crazy

Leoncio, Lucy, their daughter Yesabel, and son Aisten

Some prayer requests:

1. Leoncio and his family to continuing studying the Bible
2. That the other believers would start wanting to attend the study also
3. That the believers would feel an urgency for sharing the gospel with those in the village

Quito Arma~the door on the far right is where we ate dinner every night.

The boys room

The "bathroom"

Leslie and one of the believers (Leoncio's mom) Yolanda

Leslie, the second from the right, became the godmother of the Huaytara Torros (bulls) soccer team

Quito Arma square

The daily past time for the kids after school, watching the gringos do nothing interesting at all!

This was our "kitchen"on the other side of the room.

This was our bed and where we slept for a month and a half.

This is the church in Quito Arma

I'm home!

One last story I wanted to share with you was once we got back from our mid summer debriefing we ended up staying in Huaytara for several days waiting on the church team to come and Leslie became very very sick. She had bronchitis with fevers over a hundred for about a week. We ended up having to leave her there and go on to the village with out her and we were there almost 2 weeks with out her. The Lord used us while we were there and kept us busy. We were able to teach in the high school. We would talk about something and then play a game that enforced what we talked about that day. It was a lot of fun. We were also able to continue our study with Leoncio and his family. Needless to say we kept pretty busy for those few weeks. Well, busy according to Peruvian mountain standards. I'm going to end this post now and then post some pictures in my last post. Thanks so much for reading and praying for me and everyone else!

Natalie

Continuation

Sorry it's taken so long for me to get back on...the last week here has been really busy.

More about Leancio, we also feel like he has had a struggle with feeling comfortable and capable to lead a Bible study or church. Whenever we would ask him to pray or read, it would take him a little while sometimes to agree to it. Please pray for strength from the Lord to fill him!

I wanted to tell you guys a little about some of my experiences while here. As you may have read earlier in my blogs, at the beginning of the summer there were 5 people on my team, Leslie Bass, Drew Jackson, Amy Long, Nestor Trinidad (our translator), and me. It was a great group, but unfortunately Amy had a heart condition and one day had an attack. We told her that if she had another one we were going to send her back to the States because it wouldn't be healthy for her to stay. Unfortunately the next day she had another one. Immediately, Leslie and Nestor went looking for a way to get Amy out of the village and at least to a bigger village. This happened only 4 days after being in the village. So, that day Leslie took Amy to meet up with the Barnabas team (encouragement team) that was in the next village. They ended up sending her home. This caused Leslie to have to be gone for about four days and me to be alone in a room for four days. Unfortunately I'm one of those people who freaks themselves out, and so sometimes it's really hard for me to stay somewhere I don't know very well by myself and it's also hard when it's a foreign country and you are sleeping on a floor with mice running around the room. God deffinately used this situation to stretch me and grow me way beyond what I could have imagined. Looking back, even though it was not a fun situation, but it was a good one.

During our mid-summer break we were in Huaytara and we found out the news about Greg Gomez, one of the Research team memebers, passing away in a vehicle accident. They were traveling on a mountain road, with more than one lane, and the driver or the vehicle fell asleep. They ran across the road and ran into the side of the mountain. They hit it hard and bounced against it several times and also ended up driving along it for a while. Greg was sitting on the side of the vehicle that hit the mountain and it made him unconscious. Once they stopped the vehicle, they got Greg and another lady in the back of a taxi and drove them to the hospital. By the time they got there, Greg was already gone. Please pray for the Gomez family and Lydia Schiver and Claudia Puente as they were his other teammates and had to deal with his death very closely.

That's all I have for right now, I will update more when I get back with pictures and more stories! I will be arriving in Little Rock National Airport at 7:13 p.m.! I look forward to seeing everyone and talking to all of you again!

Love,
Natalie