The Countdown

Alrighty, here is the second try at this. Internet has been acting weird lately here in Coracora.

The summer is quickly coming to an end, I can't believe it is already here. We only have 4 days left in our village and 11 days left in all in Peru. The summer has just flown by so fast.

So this past week has been great. We have been informing everyone of when we would leave and have been saying good-byes to people and taking tons of photos. We went to a bullfight in Chumpi for two days. It was absolutely amazing and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I got to meet some professional matadors and got to talk with them for a good while. They even let me come with them to the ring for their introduction and I stood to the side taking photos. We met one of the professionals here in Coracora one night while at the Pizzaria and he remembered me when we saw him in Chumpi.

Katya (a woman that we have been discipling here in Coracora) was able to hook us up with some seats with her friends in Chumpi and we just had a grand time. The second day we went, the matador I knew was able to hook me up with two banderillas and a Peruvian pin type of thing that they tie to the tails of the bulls. I felt pretty special because the people we were sitting with kept telling me that I would not get more than one banderilla, which I would have been fine with because there was a place outside of the ring where I could buy one to match the one I would get. But I ended up getting two anyway and it was really awesome. And the matadors, during a break would always come over and start talking to me and the people we were with. It was pretty awesome.

After the bull fight, we headed back down to the ring and a ton of people wanted to take pictures with us and interview us and even the matadors wanted to take pictures with us. It was pretty awesome! The matador I knew, let me use his cape and his gorro (the hat) to take a picture and I enjoyed it thorougly. As we were leaving, people would come up to us and start video taping us and asking us questions and a man came up with his voice recorder and started interviewing us and we sent him straight to Allen because none of us could understand him at all. I felt like I was someone famous in Hollywood with paparazzi all around. It was insane, the amount of people we were surrounded by.

Okay so back to everyday life. We have been holding Bible studies almost everyday and it has been awesome! This past week, we have had to Bible studies twice a day because people weren't able to make it to the early one but could make it to a later one and people couldn't make it to the later one but could make it to the earlier one. So all that to say that we just started doing two in the early afternoon and then later afternoon.

At a Bible study at Katya's house, we saw her friend/maid/sister (not exactly sure who she is towards Katya) come to know Christ, her name is Nelly. It was amazing how God moved so quickly during that time. As we were having Bible study, you can just see her face change and show how much in need she was and she asked a ton of questions about how would she be able to recognize Christ when she saw Him and other very deep questions and then she told us that she wanted to accept Christ, it was amazing! We gave her a Bible that day, it was so moving and just pumped us up so much! We had a Bible study the next day at Katya's house again and she was there and had even more questions from what we were reading out of. I must say that I love Nelly a lot and I am praying that there will be someone to disciple her after we leave.

During the early afternoon we have been having Bible study with Flor and that has been going great, she has actually been reading her Bible and one night she wanted to lead us in the closing prayer. Wow, does that not sound Baptist or not. She prayed and thank God for us and for how much we have impacted her life and the witness that we have brought. Saying bye to Flor is going to be so hard because I have just been reaching out to her this whole summer in love and wanting to see her come to know the Lord. This brings me to tears just writing that out and thinking about how she prayed over us and was so thankful for the witness we have had on her. Honestly, if Flor isn't already saved she is sure close to accepting Christ. Earlier this summer, she told us that she doesn't read the Bible and now she is coming to all our Bible studies and is reading the Bible while she is at home and it has just been awesome!

Here is a HUGE prayer request. Yesterday when we were leaving our hostel for church, we ran into a guy who stopped us and asked us what we were doing here. We begin to talk to him and tell him that we were Christian missionaries. Well he didn't seem to agree to that so we started talking to him and found out that he doesn't believe in God. Allen asked him what would happen to his spirit when he dies and he believes that his spirit will just wonder around the earth. Allen started talking to him about hell and heaven and the Bible and he just disagreed with everything we had to say. His name is Treveña, please keep him in your prayers. Pray that we had some sort of impact during the 30 minutes that we got to talk to him. He seemed to like us a lot and said it was very nice to meet us but he just didn't agree with what we had to say about God. My heart is really breaking my heart for him.

Also please pray for these next 4 days and for our trip from Coracora to Lima. It is going to be a 19 hour bus ride and I am not too excited about it. For the first 10 and a half hours, we will be on mountain roads and it takes a huge toll on my stomach. That is the trip from Coracora to Nazca. After Nazca, the road is flat and straight all the way to Lima. Pray for our safety, after Greg's death I have been really nervous about traveling on these mountain roads. Especially since the drivers like to drive as close to the edge as possible.

Thank you all for your prayers during this whole summer. I will be definitely updating this at least one more time before I get back to the States so keep your eyes opened!!! I love you all, I truly do and I am so thankful for your support!