Come and Find Rest

In order to follow, we first must come.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

“Vengan a mi todos ustedes que estan cansados y agobiados, y yo les dare descanso.” Mateo 11:28

The theme of our trip has been “sigale” or “follow you.” We have followed God’s call in our lives to serve Him in Peru and continue to learn each day. An interesting thought I (Emily) had recently was in order to follow, we first must come.

It isn’t hard to follow after something or someone if you really want to. Twitter is a perfect example of this. The American dream is yet another. Every person is following something but if you don’t have faith in that which you are following, it becomes increasingly hard to continue.

The same can be said about following Christ. It is easy and somewhat tempting to go through the motions, especially when you’re exhausted. One can say the right words and do the right things but if he doesn’t know the person he is following, it is a path to disaster.

This thought came to me as I was processing our first few days here. We’re exhausted. In the last 3 days, we’ve probably had 12-14 hours of sleep total. Don’t worry, we’ve already calculated the math in our heads… 4-5 hours each night. The temptation is just to enter into survival mode but this would be detrimental. At some point, a person would break because they would lack faith in that which they were following- Jesus.

Though I believe our team is walking in the Spirit, pray we would rest in Christ first and then follow Him.

The rest of the blog will be written as a play by play of the day. As stated earlier, we’re exhausted. We are pooped out (literally and figuratively). We so appreciate your faithful prayers back home but the play by play style will allow us to get to bed a bit earlier. Thanks!

*Gerry led us in devotions this morning after some acapella worship. Two years ago Gerry placed his faith in Christ and completely changed his life. A year ago, Gerry was baptized by his son in the Pacific Ocean while serving on the medical mission team in Peru. This year, he shared what God had been teaching him and set us up well for the second day of clinic. We’re proud of you!

*Clinic got off to a great start! We had at least twice the amount of patients as yesterday. Care providers got to do a few surgeries, dental cranked through multiple teeth extractions and we saw over 100 kids in the Well Child Clinic. Wow! The Spiritual Clinic was definitely the highlight as multiple people prayed to receive Christ into their life for the first time. One man was able to find healing after battling with severe depression after his wife left him and their daughter. The people who walk through the doors of the clinic are broken but we are seeing lives transformed by the message of the Gospel.

*For lunch we had carapulcra con sopa seca, a dish famous in Chincha. Literally translated it means clean face with dry soup…yum! Despite it’s name, it was delicious! We each received a plate full of angel hair pasta cooked in olive oil with spices, a semi-spicy sauce with potatoes, a chunk of pork and yucca.

(Matt eating carapulcra con sopa seca)

*After dinner we returned to the hotel for an hour and a half. Many team members took naps or went to a local market. Nothing like the smell of freshly slaughtered animals on a hot day…

*Outreach for the evening took two forms- a concert for the community and medical home visits. A fair number of Chincanos who had come to the clinic the past two days returned for the service. We were thrilled to see the mother of Jocelyn in attendance, a little girl who has spent every moment at the clinic since it opened.

Chris and Vicki went on a special mission to visit some homes in the community. They thought they were only going to a few homes but had to turn people away after nearly 3 hours of visits. Both were energized as they returned on the bus, telling us of all the patients they were able to serve.

*Dinner was pork sandwiches and chips back at the hotel. As we returned for the day, we enjoyed spending a bit more time with our Condevillians brothers and sisters.

Thanks for your prayers! We are off to our last day of clinic and lots of travel back to Condevilla tomorrow. Love to you all…