August 05, 2006
Clancy’s Peru Trip
As many of you know, Clancy spent two weeks this month on a mission’s trip to Peru with Focus on the Family. Yesterday she wrote a thank you/re-cap letter to the many friends and family members who helped send her on this trip. I thought you might get a kick out of hearing about her trip, too.
Dear _____________.
Hello, it’s me again, remember the one who asked for a bunch of your money and then told you that you wouldn’t get a tax deduction on it? Yep, that’s me, but don’t worry, I’m not asking for any more money. I just thought that since you were nice enough to send me some money I guess I should tell you exactly what your money (and your prayers) went towards. Now, if you know me, you know that I’m really bad at giving summaries because I think that every single detail is the most important detail ever, so I’m just going to tell you everything that happened, but don’t worry, I’ll try to keep it at least under 4 pages.
So, first we went to Miami for 3 days so that we could meet our teams and learn the drama. Oh, I forgot, when I got to the airport at Miami there was a mix- up and there was no one to sign me out so I was sitting at the terminal with the flight attendant for an hour-and-a-half. Great way to start the trip right? Anyways, after that I went to the hotel and I was put into team one, and the name suited us perfectly because we were, of course, the number one team. So for the next three days all we did was language training and drama training so that right when we got into Peru we could start performing them. Oh yea, we also had the nightly services called F.U.A.G.N.E.M. (which stands for “fired up and going nuts every minute”) and every single night there was a speaker who was totally different than all the other speakers, yet still just as amazing.
Then, finally we went to Peru. For the flight over, our team got split up in two and my half of the group got the best flight, we left at 11:00 Wednesday night and we got in to Lima at 3:00 in the morning so that we had all day Thursday to sleep or just explore the hotel (which by the way was amazing, it was like a little Mexican village thing and each room was like a little house but it was attached to the next little house, I don’t know how to explain it but it was fabulous.)
The next day we finally got to go out and work! It was so awesome; our bus would drive up to the little villages and everyone would be outside cheering and yelling and crowding around just to see us. Everyday we would do pretty much the same thing, our team would split up into four groups. One group would go clean streets and daycares and stores, and another group would go wash clothes, and another group would go wash hair for people who don’t even own a bottle of shampoo, and the other group would go and just play soccer or “duck duck goose” (which in Spanish is “paco paco ganzo”) with the kids. Then after about three or four hours of that we would go back to the bus and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a banana or an orange and water, every day, for two weeks yet I still crave them.
Then after lunch we would get dressed in our costumes and go around the village inviting people to come watch the drama. Then w would perform the drama and after that one person would get up and tell their testimony and invite the people to ask Jesus into their hearts. We would pray over them and then just go around and talk to them and play with them some more. That was the time when the most amazing things happened. Like one time we did our drama and the person got up and asked if everybody liked the play. Usually there everybody yells “si!” but this time it was just silent, like I seriously think I heard some crickets. Then these 6 guys sitting in the back yelled “NO!” The girl that had asked the question didn’t really know what to do so she just went ahead and told her testimony and then asked if anyone would like to receive Jesus in their hearts. And no one raised their hands, and then the guys in the back raised their hands and started laughing so we were like “ok come on down here and we’ll pray for you” and they just laughed at us and started mocking us. So we were dismissed to go and start talking to people and our team started talking and by the time we got back on the bus every one of those guys and a bunch of people in the audience had gotten saved!
So, the missions trip obviously helped many people come to know the Lord but people didn’t just get saved. There were lots of times where we just planted a seed inside their hearts by just showing the love of Jesus to them. For instance, we were working on painting and building this office building in the worst part of town. And we took a break for lunch, my favorite pb&j, and we had a few sandwiches left over that I guess we were just going to throw away, but I saw these three guys just standing over across the parking lot just watching us, so I asked my leader if I could give the extra sandwiches to them. He said that it was a fabulous idea so me and this girl on my team named Susi (who’s from Mexico so she’s fluent in Spanish) went over there and gave them the sandwiches and started talking to them. Actually she started talking to them I just stood there, smiled, and nodded and said “si” whenever they looked like they were talking to me. But anyways, she talked to them and I later found out what they said. They asked her what company we were with and she told them that we were from all over the world and that we came just to help out. And they were amazed that we were doing all that hard work for free, so they asked her why we were doing this. And she said that we were doing it because Jesus loved us and he wants us to show his love to others. Then after they were done talking to us we left and they left and I don’t even know what happened to them but I hope they left and tried to find out more about God just because some weirdo Christian American girls gave them some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
But on the missions trip we didn’t just help others, we definitely got helped ourselves. Through the nightly sessions I learned so much about things that I don’t even think have anything to do with the mission trip. Like I learned a lot about the spirit of God and his timing. And I also learned a lot through just being with the little kids and washing clothes and hair. I learned that even the littlest things like shampoo mean the world to these kids. And that my life is so totally and completely blessed compared to most people’s lives. Plus I met some fabulous friends that hopefully I’ll have for life.
All in all I’m so incredibly glad that I got the opportunity to come on this trip, it really has changed my life and I know it has changed the lives of many others in Peru. And now I’m going to know over 10,000 people in heaven! Did I tell you that? Well, yea, by the way, over the course of two weeks, over 10,000 people came to know the Lord!! And I never would have been able to be a part of that if it weren’t for you guys being so open and giving with your possessions. So I just want to thank you so much again and I hope that you agree that your money definitely went to a good cause. Oh yea, and since I’m going again next year, you might see another letter from me in your mailbox in the not-too-distant future!
Posted by weblion at 04:48 PM
