Love Extreme Part 1 - Puerto

We had an amazing group of short termers here in the middle of June. The majority of the group was from Trevecca Nazarene University in Tennessee. They arrived on Friday and Saturday worked hard all day (a long, hot day) at the soccer tournament.

Most of the group at the soccer tournament

Sunday was another big event, our women’s conference with Lonna Vopat. Most of the team entertained/wrangled the kids of the 70 women attending. This was quite a feat considering it was about 3 hours, most of the did not speak Spanish, and the kids were outside (aka, not contained)! I was impressed:) The conference was wonderful and in addition to Lonna sharing her testimony , Felix Vargas’ wife, Lillian, shared hers as well. It was a wonderful balance and between the two testimonies the conference spoke to a wide range of women. During prayer time about 30 women accepted Christ!

The rest of the week was full of activities in different communities. We showed the Jesus film, visited the women’s prison, built garbage cans for one community and planted trees in another. The girls went to houses and pampered the women by giving manicures and pedicures to hard working women. In one of the communities outside the city, La Joya, there were certain areas that had been going without water for many days at a time and when it was turned on it was only for a short time. We ordered up a water truck and the team hauled water around to the people in need. It was a huge blessing to the people in that community! Between the tournament, conference and other events about 80 people made a commitment to Christ! Praise the Lord! We are now in the process of following up with them all with discipling so please keep them in your prayers.

Working hard hauling water in La Joya

We could not have asked for a better group of short term volunteers. They had such a wonderful attitude, were ready to jump in and help in anyway and we never heard complaints! In that short week we grew to adore the group. While we were there to encourage and support them they turned around and encouraged and blessed us! What an awesome group! Needless to say we were sad to see them get on a plane that Thursday as they headed to Arequipa…the good news was we joined them a few hours later. On to Arequipa for the big Love Extreme Event…more to come!