Lacey in Lima: The last couple weeks

So I have definitely been slacking on my blog as you can see. My first anouncement is that I'll be having my first NEICE!!! After three boys my oldest sister will be having a girl!!!! I'm so excited about that, found out this morning! The team has the day off today since we had such a busy week with the South American conference with Pastor Scibelli last week. I'm sitting at Starbucks which is about ten minutes from our apartment. The conference was amazing, I got to meet a lot of the missionaries from the different South American countries. A couple from Chile stayed with us girls, Rolando & Flavia, they are such a sweet couple. Rolando is the song leader from his church so he did our song service on Sunday morning and I sang with him in SPANISH! I have been singing quite a bit which has been fun. I sang a couple songs in Spanish, its easier to sing in spanish then to speak it. I am having fun learning the language. I'm not taking an official class but learning things every day. I'm speaking like a caveman at times because of the translation. haha, its great. :) Hopefully I'll be able to speak English when I get home... :) So I'm going to attempt to fill you in on the past three weeks...

The trip to the jungle... We took another trip after picking up the gals from the airport (Adrienne and Rachel). We went to Mazamari (a jungle town) where Pastor Jorge lives with his wife. They have decided to affiliate with our ministry and offer Bible College classes there. His daughter lives in Lima and goes to our church. We left VERY early in the morning to drive there since its a 10-12 hour drive, the last hour is SO bumpy because the roads are aweful. haha, we get to the hotel and there is no water so we went to bathe in the river. :) I was a bit hesitant but then said, what the heck and went with the girls, the guys hadn't arrived yet, they would be coming in the morning. We were wearing bathing suits, dont worry. We were a spectacle becasue everyone there was Peruvian, they were washing their clothes and the younger kids were naked swimming in the water, it was quite the experience actually. I wanted to take a picture so badly but that would have been really rude. The river was coming straight from the mountain so it was clean, cold water. I stayed with two of the Peruvians so I blended in better than the other three girls. We spent a few days in Mazamari doing sketchboard in the plaza that was right across from the hotel. The people in this town were very open to the message of the Gospel! It was really an incredible time. We would finish the sketchboard and they would just stay there and ask questions and listen to the different Pastors teach from the Bible. They were like the sheep without a shepherd in Mark 6:30-44, a passage Pastor Stan was talking about quite a bit. Grant Sutton came to join us right before we had left for Mazamari and he was hanging with they guys, one afternoon they decided to rent dirtbikes for the afternoon and go for a ride. It went well the first day, they all had a blast. Then they decided to do it again the next day again. Grant took a little spill and busted his knee open but thank God he was ok. It could have been much worse. They had a blast though. It was great having him with us for ten days. Myself, Adrienne, Pastor Stan and Rachel all got sick towards the end of the trip. Rachel had it the worst. It was a long ride home but we made it. OH! I almost forgot! Some of us went to a local pool and played volleyball then went swimming, I had the silly idea of us four girls doing synchronized swimming and we did for a solid 15 - 20 minutes... well, we tried anyway, it was hilarious. We were probably laughing for most of that time. Sometimes you just have to create fun. Ha! Also, on Sunday morning we went and had church service at a local Indian village whose Pastor just recently died. They really appreciated us coming and then gave us fresh coconut milk after. Rachael is showing her appreciation below with Gustavo: