Best 4th of July Ever

Saturday we slept in, which was great because we were really tired. I did some laundry, and we kind of just did stuff around the hostel until we went to lunch. In the restaurant, Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame was playing in Spanish, so we watched it and it was fun to see a Disney movie again, even though that one is definitely not my favourite. Anyways, in the afternoon we went to play basketball with Wilder and Daniel and then watched a bunch of men play soccer for a bit. Then we commenced our preparations for our Fourth of July par-tay! The guys went up to the ridge where we stargaze and stuff to prepare for the campfire and to see if we needed to buy firewood, and Kelly and I went to buy some snacks and search for firewood to buy. Thankfully, we had our trusty walkie talkies with us so that Kelly could translate for David and Shane, and finally we convinced someone to let us buy some firewood. Our friend Jhoannes accompanied us to the ridge and ate hot dogs around the fire with us, and the hot dogs were surprisingly good. Not the best, but better than we expected, and we were so pumped that we had ketchup to eat them with (it’s hard to find ketchup here, and it’s a strange, sweet taste). The guys did a great job with the fire, and for once I wasn’t all that cold. Throughout our time of just talking and roasting hot dogs, Kelly kept on getting up and going to the edge of the ridge under the pretext of “going to the bathroom”, but we all knew she was up to something. A couple of days before, Wilder had asked her help in planning a surprise for us for the Fourth, and we suspected her frequent trips to the “bathroom” were part of that. Finally, around 8 pm, she called us over to the edge, and we looked down across the valley on one of the coolest things ever: a huge, flaming USA. It was incredible, and we freaked out both because it was an awesome sight to see this bright beacon of our country on its Independence Day and because Wilder and Daniel had shown such amazing kindness and friendliness to us through this. We couldn’t believe that they would go through so much trouble just to make our far-away-from-home celebration extra special. After they had lit the fires, which turned out to be huge evaporated milk cans stuffed with charcoal and kerosene, Wilder, Elva (his wife), Ken (his 1-year-old son), Daniel, and another guy named Roy, came up the ridge and sat around the fire with us. We roasted some hot dogs for them, and they played the guitar and sang songs. Then we sang the Star-Spangled Banner for them, and Kelly sang along with us with the lyrics I wrote out for her. We told her that for that day she was an estadounidense (basically, United States-ian). It was an amazing time, and aside from being away from my family and friends, it was by far the best Fourth of July I’ve ever had and one I will not soon forget. The four of us stayed a while after everyone else left, and we just savored the amazingness of the moment and how awesome it was to be in Peru, up on a ridge that overlooks everything, around a warm campfire, celebrating the birthday of the USA. We stayed until the fire had almost died, and then we headed back to the hostel to collapse into bed since it was kind of late (it was only 10:30, but that’s late for us).

Sunday morning we had church again, and this time the guys went all out. They made little programs for us with the order of the service and the lyrics to the worship songs we were going to sing, and they had assigned each of us parts in the service. David opened us in prayer, I read the Lord’s Supper passage, Shane prayed over the Communion, and Kelly closed the service in prayer. Plus, they had hung a huge cross on the wall by using 2 huge sticks of firewood leftover from our celebration the night before, and they rigged them together with 2 socks and some rope. It was pretty special, and the sermon from Tim Keller on David’s iPod was really good. Then we went out to lunch, and in the afternoon played some volleyball with the people. We had talked to our friend Jackie earlier and made plans for her to come over in the evening, but unfortunately she didn’t make it. So we just hung out and played cards. The boys taught me their version of Rummy, which is way different but pretty fun, and we just had a good time laughing and talking.

After an amazingly fun weekend, we got some sad news this morning. Our friend Jhoannes, who accepted Christ last week, had to leave Cabana and go four hours away to Puquio today to live with his grandmother. We had been told last week that he would stay in Cabana for the rest of this month, but this morning he came by to say goodbye. We got to pray with him for a little bit, but then he had to rush away to catch the Combi that would take him. It was so sad because we had been looking forward to sharing some Bible stories with him and maybe even baptizing him, and we had hoped to help him grow closer to God before he left. Plus, we didn’t really get to say goodbye because he had to hurry away. Kelly and David talked to his mom after he left, and she said that he was crying because he didn’t get to say a good goodbye and because he was traveling alone for part of the way (he’s only 8 years old). Needless to say, it was a sad, shocking morning, and we’re all a feeling pretty down right now.

So, prayer requests:

-Pray for Jhoannes, that he arrives safely in Puquio and that he would look to Christ for strength and comfort. Pray also that he would encounter people who would encourage him and help him grow in his faith and that God would just grow fruit from the seed that has been planted in him.
-Pray for Kelly’s aunt, who has just had a baby and is not doing very well
-Pray for our friendships with Wilder, Daniel, and all the others
-Pray for guidance for us and an urgency to complete the work that God has entrusted to us
-Pray that we would stay strong and be focused on the now and not on the later

Thanks again for all your prayers and comments! I love and miss y’all!

P.S. Happy birthday, David!!!!!!!