With a team of 14 ladies and 4 dudes you know we have to do a little local shopping. So wednesday morning we headed out. We did have a little set back. Seems like the boys started a little prank battle and the girls had their revenge late one night. All I know is several of us ended up with mascara on and a wet mop in Colt’s bed. We laughed it off. However you should have seen the look on the girls face when the van mysteriously wouldn’t crank to go shopping – priceless. They were totally punked.
On the way back we picked up some pizzas to give the ladies a special treat before we left. We also worked for hours preparing a gift basket of the essentials (soap, shampoo, lotion, etc). Along with that we prayed over the 33 ladies names and asked God for some words and scripture to share for each and wrote them in a card. Haley led the way with making the cards beautiful. They enjoyed the pizza and we even got to take some extra for the kids at Pequeno Joshua. We said our goodbyes to the kids but not before giving them a bracelet and Courtney H shared the gospel. Back at the party with the ladies we received gifts of tote bags with local PR candy. The ladies also made us a huge card. We gave them our gifts and prayed with them. Then they performed a skit about what La Perla is all about. It was a lady going to another lady that had nothing and lived the street life. Crazy thing was that the drama is so real because the actress really doesn’t have any family or someone who cares. La Pearla gives them a family and leads them to Christ. How beatiful is the transformation that takes place there in lives. Then the cycle repeats and the lady with a new start goes to lead another into the family of God. After their skit we performed the drime that we were given at training camp not knowing the atories of these ladies. How awesome to see them act out the transformation God has in the life of a girl that is filled with pride and following the flesh in drugs and alcohol. Then they do the Jesus dance. We should all be doing the Jesus dance. We ended on a good note with a bunch of chocolate cake – yumm.
The team stayed up debriefing and the good and not so good parts of the trip as well as a litlle testimony. It is so incredible having a group so close. This morning it was a lot of packing and cleaning. We did get to pray one more time and Lydia prayed for us. Carmen showed up too weak but walking – praise God. It was truly tough to say goodbye. There were a few tears and lots of hugs and kisses (PR style). The testimony of several of the ladies was encouraging as they spoke of how the young people blessed and encouraged them in their walk at a difficult time in their lives. One lady even said she was so close to losing her faith until we came and how awesome the time we shared was for her. I really don’t think we will understand the full impact of our trip until we sit down in heaven. God moved and worked in our team and I was blessed to lead such a wonderful group of disciples for Christ.
