A New Vision

Hello friends,
Though I have chosen to keep and maintain the blog that I began when I first traveled to Peru, I renamed it. This is a new chapter with a renewed vision. "Searching for Sunshine" is in honor of my Abraham, whom I have always likened to sunshine itself. Warm and full of life, he spread joy wherever he went. For those of you that will be following my journey, it is important that you get to know him.

It's been five years since my last time in Peru. As I prepare to return to the place that was so foundational in my walk with the Lord, it's impossible to know just what to expect. Below I have attached my 'Plan of Action', but it is very fluid and subject to direction from the Lord. As He leads me, I will report. As soon as I begin my search, I will be posting video updates, as well.

Plan of action

1.     Upon arrival in Peru:

a.     Get situated

b.     Find existing ministries and churches in Huacho

c.      Meet and plug in with the local youth.

d.     Connect with existing ministries throughout Peru

1.     Develop relationship           

2.     Use network to get Abraham’s name and face circulating

2. Traveling

            a. Travel to Trujillo

1. Connect with those I knew from previous visit and find information   about Abraham

2.  Go through Salaverry and other surrounding villages showing Abraham’s picture.

3. Document everything through video camera.

4. Follow any leads about other places he might be

            b. Travel to Lima and other large cities

                        1. Make connections with ministries

                        2. Follow up on information learned in Trujillo

3. Finding Abraham

            a. Communicate

                        1. Why I came

                        2. The Lord’s heart behind sending me

            b. Build/Rebuild relationship

                        1. Possible relocation, or excess travel

                        2. Time spent pursuing his interests

                        3. If acceptable to him, time spent reading the Word and doing music

            c. His future

                        1. Determine his immediate need: education, housing, etc.

2. Set up a fund for his education/vocation until he has a sustainable living

4. What’s next?

            a. Ask the Lord

VIDEO DOCUMENT EVERYTHING

Uncontainable love

I never know how to begin speaking about my life here. My days are just so full of so many people and experiences and feelings that its practically impossible to fucus on one thing. Perhaps if I fulfilled my promise to write more frequently that would not be such a problem =/
I am just learning so much here. God has been telling me to keep a joy and a love in my days no matter what is happening or how exhausted I can get. When I remember the beauty and hope life has to offer, I really can´t help but be happy all of the time, and want to serve and make others happy, too.
I really do love my life here so much. The kids are opening their hearts to me so much, and I to them. Another thing that the Lord is teaching me is that there is a constant battle going on for our hearts. At every moment of every day, there are opposite forces at work attempting to win our hearts. I have chosen love of Jesus as the ruler of my heart, and I want nothing more than to help fight the battle for His other children, too. Love can be the victor of every battle.

Good times

This week has been quite eventful! Because school is starting again, all of the summer programs are over and all of the volunteers have new jobs. My job is going to be taking over for one of the girls who is leaving in 3 weeks, so at the moment I am just helping out in different projects and spending a lot of time in the houses with the kids. Also, a few new volunteers arrived, and the founder of the orphanage came to visit. Lots of new faces!
Due to reasons unknown, I was especially emotional and sensitive this week. I kept crying! When the teenage girls were being disrespectful and mean to me in class the other day, I burst into tears. When the teenage boys were listening to music that was not allowed, I had to take it away. I started bawling my eyes out because they got mad at me. As ridiculous as it was for me to become so upset over all of this, in some ways I believe it was good for them to realize how much their words can hurt people sometimes. It was very sweet, though, when the other children saw me. I had a very comforting group hug =). And the older kids did apologize. I think what happened was that I had previously put myself in the role of their friend, and when the time came for me to act as authority, neither end could handle it. I love to hang out and play with them so much that I don´t always remember that I need to establish a role of authority, as well. Finding the right balance is going to be a necessary challenge for me.
Oh, oh, oh! I have been challenged to a cheesecake bake off! There is actually a guy who thinks he can make one better than me =O. Quite impossible, I assure you. After all, I learned from the best. If I win, I get to cut his hair. But if he wins, I am forbidden to eat with my hands(he finds it disgusting). The winner is by popular vote, and I am super psyched!
From now on, I am determined to stay more updated on my blogging, so everyone can count on a minimum of one entry a week. Thank you everyone for all the love and support.

Learning more

Been way too long, I know! Only three blog entries in a month is pretty pathetic. Staying busy! I have so much to share and to say but I can´t possible write it all down. Where to start... with the kids, I think!
I continue to be surprised at how different orphans are from anyone with whom I´ve before been in contact. As always, I am captured by the intense need for love constantly displayed, but another aspect of these precious ninos quickly revealed itself. Unexpectedly, they can be extremely cruel. Not only to eachother, but to the volunteers and workers, as well. As difficult as it is to comprehend, I believe I am beginning to understand. Although there are various causes for the kids´prescences´here, all causes rob them of security. Whether abandonment, abuse, familial death or simple poverty are to blame, what they have learned is that who or what they depended on failed them. For most of the younger ones, this created a need for any kind of assurance that they are loved. For the older, it created a need to lash out and tear down people around them. For all of them it created an insecurity that will always be with them. Can there be anything more heartbreaking?
In the past week or so we have gotten about 6 new kids here and are now one child away from full capacity. Scary to think that in just a short while it will become necessary to refuse an abandoned or abused child a safe place to stay.
But beautiful things happen here, too! A sibling group of five children are being adopted and are moving to Colorado in April. How amazing that they will have a family to love them, for always! And even for the kids that will never have a family, we are able to give them a safe envirement to sleep and to play and to learn. We do our best to instill in them a God-centered moral code and to teach them that He, at least, will never leave them. I sometimes feel as though that is all I can truly offer them. I can not give them a home. I can not give them a family. I can not stay with them forever. What I can do is give them the love that God gave me for them, and I can tell them where it came from. That is my mission here. He is the only promise I can make.

Falling even more in love

I never thought it could be possible to be in love with a dozen different boys at once! All day and night sunday and monday I was acting as madre to one of the boys houses, and it was one of the sweetest experiences I have ever had. The days were challenging, of course, attempting to get everyone to do their chores, get to meals on time and bathe, ect. We fought, played, wrestled, cuddled, argued and laughed a lot! But then that night every one of them wanted nothing more than to show affection toward me. These boys are not like the boys in the states who have a mother to coddle them and be coddled by them, so even the older boys just want to be loved on. I was sitting on the couch with three boys combing my hair, two in my lap and the rest holding any available appentage. It was both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Love crosses the language barrier.
As I have previously mentioned, days here are always eventful. This week we had a gathering here at the orphanage that included three other orphanages, as well as many of the kids from surrounding villages. We had a show put on for them and then handed out a donated toy for each of the kids. Tomorrow we are doing a garage sale open to the public as a fundraiser for the orphanage.
I am always surprised how friendly the peruvians are. They always like meeting new people, especially gringos! Whenever we go out anywhere we gather quite a lot of attention. Today on the bus a very strange old man kept taking pictures of me and two other girls. It was very funny, but creepy too! He wiggled his eyebrows at me.
My comprehension of the spanish language is not progressing as quickly as I had hoped. Communication is still extremely difficult. My top priority at this moment is to try and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can. Teaching classes or being in charge of kids for any events is ridiculously hard without Spanish. It is difficult to be taken seriously when I don´t speak the language, although it is understandably so.
I have not come to many conclusions about how to love these children. I feel like a fraud when I say ¨I love you¨. That statement comes with a promise. To me it means that I will do anything it takes to do what is best for you. And although I mean it with all of my heart, I will not be here forever and I don´t want them to think love is temporary. The only permanent thing I can do for them is to teach them about the love of Jesus, which will never leave. But these are just babies, and they need people, too.

Getting very, very attatched....

Every day here is so busy and eventful! My normal day usually consists of helping with school in the mornings, and then teaching music throughout the day until after 5. A few days a week I help with the older kids Bible classes, although ¨helping¨ is a generous term, considering I allow my spanish speaking parter, Anthony, to do most of the actual lessons and communicating. Most of the evening is taken up with various activities with various children, so my days are very full, but I love every minute of it.
Yesterday I was on baby duty for our newborn, little Guatalupe. I am in no way, shape or form describable as a worried or easily scared person, but being responsible for this little one absolutely terrified me! Paranoia was my constant companion. Everytime she twitched or frowned I thought I had somehow done something horrible to her. She is so fragile! Eventually I was able to somewhat relax and we took a nap together. That child is ridiculously and stunninly beautiful.
There is always something to be doing with the children. A lot of them love to hear me play guitar and sing to them, which has quickly become one of favorite things to do. My other favorite is the soccer games that frequently take place outside. At least a few times a week the boys get a game together, and at ten years old they are already as good as I am! For the girls I brought jewelery making stuff with me from the states and they all really enjoy doing that with me.
I have only been a part of these kids´lives for about a week, and already leaving them seems unfathomable. Is it wrong for me to love them so incredibly much when I cannot be a permanent part of their lives? They have such a need for love and I have so much to give to them. How can I give my love to them in a way that won´t end up hurting them? I have no idea.

Beginning my peruvian adventure

In the interest of how much I want to talk about the beautiful orphan children, for now I will skip all of the events leading up to my arrival and settlement at Hogar de Esperanza. The uncomparable beauty of South American children, of course, goes without saying. Countless pairs of chcolate colored eyes captured my heart on day one. But sometimes I get the feeling that some of them know exactly how cute and pretty they are, and think they can walk all over me. Which may have been true for the first few days, but I am quickly beggining to catch on to their mischief and schemes. Never before have I seen such an fascinating cross between troublemakers and sweethearts. I pray every day that each of these precious ninos will someday have a family to love them, and the possibility of that not being in their future breaks my heart.
My first few days here at the alburgue were crazy. A newborn arrived on the same day I did, so the volunteer coodinater, Samantha, was completely swamped and unable to go over anything or help me settle in. Circumstances sort of left me floundering a little bit. But things worked out. I met the other volunteers and some of the children and almost immediately started teaching music classes. The advantage I have that most of the other teachers do not that the kids chose to take lessons. When they genuinely want to learn, it is a joy to teach.
The language barrier is a huge hindrance. I am spending as much time as I can studying espanol in order to be better able to communicate. As it is, when I attempt to speak, I am generally met with either laughter or mockery. Just the other day, I accidently told the 14 year old girls that I had 5 boyfriends waiting for me in the states! Obviously they thought this was quite amazing.
This weekend I am solely responsible for a house of a dozen boys, all but one of them 9 and under. Definitely going to be an interesting experience! Around here we all have to be extremely flexible, as well as being able to go outside our comfort levels to do what has to be done. Nothing could be more exhausting, or more rewarding. All of us our here because we believe more than anything that each child deserves love and security.

More to come about the peruvian orphans!