Last week our spanish teacher took us on a little field trip. These are some photos from the day.This is a street in the area of town where the city was founded-this is not a typical street though-All the laundry is dried on lines. This is at a convent. I liked how all the white clothes looked- An old fountain in what used to be a house- now a center surrounded by little shops- Recoleta-one of the cathedrals- beautiful inside and out- Chad sampled the infamous Frog Juice "Jugo de Rana". You pick a live frog, which they then kill, cook and blend with about a dozen different ingredients. It is suppose to be a SUPER health food. I had a little taste. It was not awful-and they do strain it for any chunks before they pour it into the cup. I didn't get many pictures at the market because I was just taking it all in! I hope to visit again with more time-this particular market is HUGE-I think you could find anything you wanted here- It is so fun to see the city with a Peruvian. I hope I can capture the feel of the city while we are here. The cars drive close to each other, people walk close to each other, cars and people move close to each other, the houses are close, the stores are close. It is tight, busy and noisy. When you walk out the door it feels as if you are joining a "dance" of people and vehicles.

Our host Mom took me and the kids shopping today. We saw places and things that we would never even know to look for on our own! I did not take any pictures today because I had the kids and Chad was working at the church. We would enter what I thought was a little shop, and end up way back somewhere in this labrynth if little counters and stacks of merchandise piled to the ceiling. So different! It is so much to take in and try to process. Pretty cool.

Chad has been busy with the short-term teams that are here now. They began arriving Friday morning and he was assigned to meeting them at the airport and helping get them to hotels. Our language school is on hold for the next two weeks when we have short term teams coming to help jump start the church planting here in Arequipa. We have somewhere around 100 volunteers here now, and more will arrive at the end of next week. The majority of the work they are doing this week is promoting our big event that will be next Saturday. The hope is that we will have 10,000 people attend Love Extreme, an all day event with music, speakers, booths, etc. Teams are going all over the city promoting this event. This is being done through kids festivals, medical clinics and any way people can think of to tell everyone in Arequipa about the event. It is exciting to see it all come together. There are also a few teams doing building/construction projects. Chad is on a team working at the church we attend here. They are basically giving the church a much needed "facelift". The kids and I try to be at the church as much as we can, but it is a hard place to keep kids occupied. We did not spend much time there today as the team was busy gathering supplies and creating a plan of action for the week to come. We'll see what next week holds. The kids will be in school, so I will have the mornings to help out without distraction.

It is an interesting thing being here with the kids. I am still trying to understand what God wants me to be doing here. I keep hearing, "Just be a wife to Chad and mother to Ella and Thomas." It is easy for me to dis-credit that being a Godly wife and mother can be a witness. I feel like I need to be doing more- but God keeps bringing me back to that.

I am really starting to miss everyone and everything familiar. There have been several times that I have thought, " okay- this has been fun, it's time to go home now-" It is something I knew would happen and it comes in waves. God is always faithful to restore me and encourage me when I am feeling weary. Your words of encouragment- and just knowing people are remembering us lifts my spirits! Thank you for your prayers. Remember June 19th- that is our BIG EVENT day. So much time, effort and money have been put into this event. We are praying that God use all that has been given to this project to bring people to Him. We wait and work with eager expectation!