We spent most of our time at the Sagrada Familia Communidad de Ninos - an orphanage of about 800 children, ranging from babies through university students. Many of the children are true orphans without parents, many have been abandoned by their parents, and some are living there because their parents can't afford to raise them.
Casa Time
In the mornings our group would split into teams of 3-6 to work with the children in their dorms, or "casas". There are anywhere from 30 to 75 children living in each casa. Since I was working with one of the smaller casas, I was on a team of three - me, my fabulous partner Susan, and our wonderful translator, Ana Lucia.
One morning we asked the girls to teach us some Peruvian dances:
Each day we had a craft to do with them. My favorite was the button bracelets - we asked members of our church and friends and family to donate buttons. My mom's quilt guild donated about 10,000 buttons! In all we had over 16,000 buttons for the kids to make these beautiful bracelets with:
We also took the girls outside each day for some games:
The best part of "casa time" was getting to give each of the girls their very own bible. We handed the bibles out on Tuesday, and each morning for the rest of the week they would be waiting for us, bibles in hand, ready to learn. There were four Spanish speakers on our team who would visit the different casas each day to tell the bible story. It was such a joy to see the girls reading from their own bibles as the story was read.
Here are Susan and I with most of the girls in our casa:
On our last day, Susan got shirts for us to have the girls sign. I chose to put mine on and the girls were very concerned about the ink bleeding through the shirt and getting on my skin. I told them that it would be fine, that I didn't care if some got on my skin. I did come away with a quite a few marks on my skin, but it was well worth it - I loved having all those precious hands touching me while they worked on my masterpiece:
Ventanilla
In the afternoons, part of our team stayed at the orphanage, while some of us went to a basketball court just up a hill from the orphanage where we held an event for the residents of the area. As soon as we showed up with our balls, jump ropes, and hula hoops, the kids started coming!
After a time of play, we would gather the crowd for music and bible story, and then we would pass out a craft and then end with a snack. Lauren (one of our two our missionaries who live and teach at the orphanage and have also done work with the children in the public schools in the area) had them all singing - she knows how to captivate a crowd and is amazing to watch in action:
My favorite part of our trip by far was Thursday afternoon when we handed out salvation bracelets. I got to work with the fabulous Amanda (a missionary in Peru who is a friend of Lauren's). Amanda and I sat down in one corner of the basketball court and started offering bracelets to those who would come up to us, or walk by us. Then we'd tell them to send others our way to get a bracelet. As you can imagine, it didn't take long before we had a small crowd around us. Even so, it never got too crazy and others from our team joined us to help as the crowd grew. I can't imagine how many knots I tied that afternoon, each time getting the priviledge of touching the hand and looking into the eyes of a person who is precious and important to God!
Of course, we had some kids come back for a second bracelet with one hand behind their back (hiding the one they had already received). When we would ask to see their other hand, they'd get a sheepish grin and run off. It didn't take long for a few to figure out they could go and take off their bracelet and give it to a friend to hold before coming back to us! We had plenty to hand out, so it wasn't too big a deal. It was just a stark reminder to me of how little these people have.
After a time, I think almost everyone on that basketball court was wearing at least one bracelet, from the littlest babies to the oldest grandmothers.
When the crowd gathered for the bible story that day, the meaning of the colored beads was explained to them: black to represent the sin in our lives that separates us from God, red to represent the blood of Jesus when He sacrificed His life as the payment for our sins, white to represent our lives when we accept God's gift of salvation and commit our lives to following Christ, blue to represent baptism - an act of obedience to show others of our commitment to Christ, green to represent the growth of our faith as we seek to know God more, and yellow to represent heaven - the promise of being with God for eternity for followers of Christ.
After a time of play, we would gather the crowd for music and bible story, and then we would pass out a craft and then end with a snack. Lauren (one of our two our missionaries who live and teach at the orphanage and have also done work with the children in the public schools in the area) had them all singing - she knows how to captivate a crowd and is amazing to watch in action:
My favorite part of our trip by far was Thursday afternoon when we handed out salvation bracelets. I got to work with the fabulous Amanda (a missionary in Peru who is a friend of Lauren's). Amanda and I sat down in one corner of the basketball court and started offering bracelets to those who would come up to us, or walk by us. Then we'd tell them to send others our way to get a bracelet. As you can imagine, it didn't take long before we had a small crowd around us. Even so, it never got too crazy and others from our team joined us to help as the crowd grew. I can't imagine how many knots I tied that afternoon, each time getting the priviledge of touching the hand and looking into the eyes of a person who is precious and important to God!
Of course, we had some kids come back for a second bracelet with one hand behind their back (hiding the one they had already received). When we would ask to see their other hand, they'd get a sheepish grin and run off. It didn't take long for a few to figure out they could go and take off their bracelet and give it to a friend to hold before coming back to us! We had plenty to hand out, so it wasn't too big a deal. It was just a stark reminder to me of how little these people have.
After a time, I think almost everyone on that basketball court was wearing at least one bracelet, from the littlest babies to the oldest grandmothers.
When the crowd gathered for the bible story that day, the meaning of the colored beads was explained to them: black to represent the sin in our lives that separates us from God, red to represent the blood of Jesus when He sacrificed His life as the payment for our sins, white to represent our lives when we accept God's gift of salvation and commit our lives to following Christ, blue to represent baptism - an act of obedience to show others of our commitment to Christ, green to represent the growth of our faith as we seek to know God more, and yellow to represent heaven - the promise of being with God for eternity for followers of Christ.
