Amazon Adventure

There are a thousand and one things that I could say about this past week and what has gone on here in Peru lately. I suppose I can start by sharing what the Amazon Rain forest was like and then share what the Lord is doing at Puerto Alegria.
     All the stories that people here about the Amazon such as there are huge snakes that want to eat you, flesh eating fish like piranhas, and termites and mosquitoes that like to bite your ankles are true. There were boa constrictors and anacondas longer than the length of two lunch tables, there were monkeys (got to hold hands with the monkeys), there were toucans and many other exotic birds, and plenty (I mean PLENTY) of mosquitoes and other bugs. We slept in mosquito nets each night and probably used (as a team) around 10 cans of bugs spray with lots of deet haha. I also feel as though I have fulfilled the "Be A Missionary" song that we always sang in Sunday school when I was little due to the fact that I ate grubs or "Zuri. It was probably the most strange thing I have ever consumed and if I am being honest, it really did not taste that bad! I swam in the Italya River/Amazon River (we also bathed in the river everyday haha). It truly was an adventure.
     This home also has been one of the only homes were I felt like I was being fed spiritually so this week past week was a tremendous blessing to me. At each meal, Ray (the house father) read a passage of scripture and we would always pray together. The boy were also able to quote some verses when we read. There was just something special about this home and the Holy Spirit is definitely at work. The team I was with this past week from South Carolina was exactly what I needed. We, as a team, did devotions each night, so it was another opportunity to be fed spiritually and talk with some other university students my age (praise God for some people my age). This week in my personal devotions, I was reading through Hebrews and even through that the Lord was just teaching me how amazing and worthy he is and I am so thankful for the cross and for Jesus. There are so many things that I could say and I do not know how to put them all into a blog post but all-in-all, this past week was the one I was most excited for all summer because I got to live-in and experience the Amazon Rain Forest. Although I was most excited for it, I was most excited for the animals and different culture, I was not expecting to be blessed but such an amazing church group that took me in and made me part of their family, I was not expecting to be taken in by the home and prayed for and loved on when I was the one going to serve these people. I was humbled this week, refreshed this week, given a little bit of home, and I could not have imagined this week even if I tried. God is good all the time and all the time God is good.  

(Also, all the photos uploaded under Iquitos/Puerto Alegria of animals are ones that you can see in the jungle right around where we stayed)