Sunday, July 29, 2012

Peru Here We Come!!!

On August 5th, Ethan and I are flying to Peru for two weeks!  We are going with a small group from Hope Community Church.  Hope is a supporting church of World Impact and we have attended there off and on this year.  We have gotten to know the worship leader, Eric Hauck, and his family.  Angie has enjoyed playing with his worship team as well.  Their oldest son and Ethan have became good friends.  In spring, Eric invited Ethan and I to go on this trip with him and his son.

The first few days of the trip we will be visiting Machu Picchu.  I didn't actually know what Machu Picchu was initially, but Ethan had studied about it in school and immediately was pumped to be able to see these ruins. Just to get there will be an intense amount of traveling.  We literally will experience "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" to get there!

After those initial days, we will take a 7 hour bus ride overnight to Huaraz, where we will meet up with the missionaries we are partnering with for this trek.  This trip is a ministry of Wycliffe Bible Translators.

The plan is to trek 5 days in the mountains with our guides.  We will have about a 4-6 hour hike each day to a different village.  All of this at about 12,000 feet and potentially up to 15,000!  We will carry backpacks, but thankfully we will have mules to carry a lot of our heavy gear.  We will then set up camp to sleep in tents each night.

At each village we will visit with many kids and adults in the village.  The idea is that us Americans are the draw to the Quechua people!  We will play soccer with the kids and at night the missionaries will show the Jesus film.  We then will pass out a Bible to each person.

It will be an amazing experience for Ethan and I together.  He will be turning 10 on the trip, and I am praying that this will be a big moment in his life.  It will be a grueling trip for us emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  We have been training all summer, but there is nothing we can do to prepare for the altitude.



Please pray for us as we finalize packing this week.  We've been able to borrow most of our equipment from others.  The challenge is fitting all of our gear and gifts for the villages in our duffel bags and backpacks.