Home from Peru

Let’s see, to recap some of the highlights from my last week in Peru (I got home on Thursday)...
But first, just to clarify (after talking to my little sis and finding out that my parents were really worried and thought that I was having a terrible trip after my last apparently “depressing” email)...that week was a bit difficult, but overall, this trip to Peru was absolutely amazing and I loved it more than I could ever have imagined! And it was so eye-opening to the way so, so many people in the world live, so drastically different from the comforts that I am so accustomed to. Anyway, my last week in Puno...we took a boat out to Los Uros Islands, some of the floating islands on Lake Titicaca, which was super fun! It was a little disconcerting at first, since the islands were kind of “squishy”and just made out of straw, but once we got used to it we had a great time. The people make all their houses and huts out of this straw/reed stuff too, and even have boats and look out towers made out of it. We went to the main tourist island, and then had lunch at a more secluded island where they have little teepees that people can stay at for the night. Another fun thing we did in Puno was play sports with the staff of one of the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that we visited. That was definitely a work out, since Puno is at 13,000 feet above sea level! I skipped the basketball and volleyball, but did get my exercise playing soccer. Our group did lots of subbing in and out, to say the least. In Puno I also did plenty of shopping, lived off their chocolate chip ice cream, fed my leftover bread from Lima to these pigeons in the central park (which was hilarious, because this Peruvian lady came up to me and said, “Oh how wonderful, you’ve come to our country to feed our birds!”), ran up and down the stairs at our hotel what seemed like hundreds of times, and found a Peruvian penpal.

To conclude, these were some of my favorite verses on the trip, and I tried to keep them close to heart as I remembered that I wanted to truly represent Christ's hands as I worked with the people we came in contact with. Colossians 2:2-3 "That their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."

May God bless you richly as you enjoy the rest of your summer!

Alane