Without Love, I am Nothing.

If tried to write a blog every time something that melted my hear t or made it feel overwhelmed by joy happened I think I would spend a ridiculous time writing blogs. To say that I love it here is an understatement. I find myself feeling, experiencing, giving, and watching more love than I ever even knew was possible.
The Peruvian workers… and strangers on the street… are so warm, open, and welcoming. I have only been here 3 weeks and already I have been invited to two homes for dinner and one for breakfast, out on the town for a birthday celebration, and to four different churches. I am not the only one. All of the volunteers here have been invited out by many of the people with whom we come in contact. They meet you, and then they invite you to share time with them. It is that simple here.
Along with that, my role here at the orphanage involves a lot of responsibility and interaction with the Spanish only speaking staff here. They have been overwhelmingly gracious with my grammatically wretched Spanish. Their faces while they try to find the meaning to my poorly pronounced garble shows how much work it is for them, but they never seem to get frustrated. They are always willing to repeat things that I just don’t follow and use other words or ways to communicate with me. They have also always been willing to answer my thousand questions. I don’t think I could count all the times I have walked into a room and started a conversation saying “OK. I have a question” (in Spanish of course). They are all so patient. Even now, as I was writing this, the handy man walked by the door to my office, took a step back, stuck his head in, smiled at me, and then went on his way. It is great.
The children. I have not yet written about the children in any of my blogs or updates because I find myself overwhelmed with things I want to share. I want to tell you all the stories of the funny things they do, the adorable things they do, the terrible things they do, and the things they do that show who they really are, but instead – for this blog at least – I will only share a few of the moments when their love has overwhelmed me.

Samir is 9 or 10 I think. He is one of those kids that can be ‘too cool for school’. He was here the last time I was here, and he was too cool then too. He, generally speaking, is not very affectionate, not very clingy. He has recently started holding my hand as I walk him to and from school every day. Lots of the kids like to hold the volunteers’ hands, but he has never been one of them. I have to get up like 40 minutes early to walk the kids to school in the morning, but when he holds my hand as we walk it makes it totally worth it. (He hates to have his picture taken, so this is the only one I have of him)

Yen is 4 years old. He is adorable. He is literally adorableness in human form. Sometimes when we are walking towards each other he will throw his arms out to the side (I will then do the same), then he runs toward me and throws himself into my arms. It is the best moment – every time.

Jhonathon is a total punk. He is a really tough kid. (He has a really rough background.) He can be pretty mean and disrespectful. He is usually pretty mean and disrespectful. But sometimes when I hug him and hold him in my arms I feel his guard come down. I feel him change into the sweet, broken little boy he is underneath his shell, and I wish I could just hold him forever. Of course, sometimes he won’t let me hug him at all, cause he is a punk. Ok. I could go on about this for forever, but I won’t.

An update on things I have gotten to do lately –
Eating in the street. So I went to the bead store with one of the workers here (cause there is a special one I go to get a discount, and I can’t find it on my own yet). After we had gotten all the beads we walked down the street and ate soup at a table – set up in the street. Not a street that was closed – there were taxis flying down the street less than a foot behind me.

Covering houses. I spent one 24 hour period as the mother of nine little boys. It was exhausting. Most of the day was fine because I had smaller groups of them, as the others were in school, but the evening was a little hectic. I also spent 48 hours in a house of girls. That was much easier - much calmer. It was still exhausting though. Both times were good because I got to form deeper relationships with the kids. I let them do things like play hide and seek inside and play twister. Things their madres would probably not be happy with me for… don’t tell them.

Hide and Seek with the Boys!

Twister with the girls! (and Danny)

Lunch with Macgyver. The handy man here is the Peruvian version of Macgyver. Seriously, he can fix anything and is the most resourceful man in the world. He invited all of the volunteers (all 6 of us) to his house for lunch with his family last Sunday (or maybe the Sunday before). Then we all piled in the van and headed to the beach. It was a really fun time.

Banquet on the roof. Many of the girls (and two of the boys) got all dressed up and went to a banquet at a youth group here in town. We decided that, with all the girls who couldn’t go, we would have our own banquet. Lindsey and I set tables up on the roof, got some soda and cookies, cut up some fruit, and brought all the girls up for a candle lit banquet. Of course, it was really windy so the candles wouldn’t light and the girls were all cold and wore our sweatshirts, but we all had a blast hanging out together.

This coming week the kids have vacation (well most of the kids do). We have lots of activities and fun things planned for this week (Game Day, Pajama Party, and Movie Times). We also have three new volunteers coming for a couple days. It should be a pretty fun filled exciting week!