Children's Ministry Tamshiyacu

Hi All,

Lucy, Gladis, Pastor Leiter and I arrived back from the children’s ministry in Tamshiyacu at 3 a.m. yesterday. We had such an awesome time with the kids. We arrived Friday and had a regular service that night then slept in the church… I will be very glad when the team comes in August to put a cement floor in as right now it has a dirt floor and it is all uneven so it is a little difficult to sleep.

The kids were waiting for us by 6:30 a.m but first Lucy and I had to find a woodcutter to start cutting the trees and cutting the wood for the parsonage that we will be building in August. We have to start now as the wood has to dry as long as possible before we build. We are trying to get as much of the materials such as the wood and sand ect as we can from Tamshiyacu to avoid having to pay transportation costs but unfortunately they do not sell cement, calimina, bricks, nails ect there so we will have to buy them in Iquitos and transport them to Tamshiyacu. The team in August will be laying a cement floor in the church and building a parsonage for the new pastor who will arrive in Dec/Jan. We also talked to a person who is going to dig us a small well and outhouse for $25 as we will need to have water to mix the cement with in August.

After our breakfast of fish and bananas, we started playing with the kids—first a soccer match, then volleyball. The kids were all pretty small so they actually thought I was a good player ha. They told us there was a spring nearby to go swimming. I had been to the swimming holes before and couldn’t remember one that was “nearby”. They all kept pointing in one direction from the church but we kept saying no, that was far away and wasn’t there one closer. Finally someone suggested a different one but when we finally got there, it was a little tiny puddle. The kids said the other one wasn’t far so we started climbing up and down huge hills, crossing logs and after we walked for an hour and a half we came to the “nearby” spring.

Unfortunately we couldn’t swim long as we had to get back to start the program. We had 26 kids with us with the youngest being 2 years old and thankfully returned with 26 after trekking through the jungle (I think that the 2 year old was better at walking than I was—I kept having to have help getting across the logs as I am afraid of heights but she would just run over them like it was nothing). The trip back was only about a half an hour. If we had listened to the kids that were pointing in the other direction earlier, we would have had much more swimming time.

The children’s ministry was great with about 100 kids attending. We sang, listened to the message, played games, had sack races, popcorn, candy and gave the girls jacks and the boys slingshots. Lucy dressed up as a clown and we had a great time. A lot of the parents joined in and it was a successful community outreach. We could have had many more kids but we really wanted to target the kids in the neighborhood close to the church.

We had another service later that night and then packed up to get on a boat that left at 11p.m. so that we could be back for church in the morning.

In October there is an election in Peru and I learned something interesting on this trip when people were talking about it. First of all, there is some fear in Tamshiyacu about their election as they have 2 strong candidates. The last time this happened 2 people were killed and one person lost there legs due to the mayhem after the election. They now have marines that come out and keep order. The other thing I learned is that in Peru, if you don’t come to the place you are registered to vote and vote, you have to pay a fine of over $100 U.S. dollars. In some areas the fine is not as much but I was surprised to learn it is an obligation to vote here.

We now only have 11 days until the team arrives inIquitos : ) We have sooo much to do before they get here but I am very excited that I will get to practice my English. We are going to meet with the man that is going to help us with the construction and start buying the materials. That usually takes some time here as the main transportation is moto taxis which is like a motorcycle rickshaw so we can’t buy very much at a time and there is no Home Depot or Lowe’s here so we have to go from place to place in search of materials. Pastor Leiter is going out with another church member to the village that we will be visiting with the team to dig an outhouse as right now the only place to go is the woods and we want it to be available for the team.

Well, I guess I better get busy. Please pray for the safety of the team and that we be a blessing to the church and community in Iquitos and especially to the Lord.

In Christ,

Kayleen