Tonight was our FINAL meeting at the Lighthouse. Goodness, it’s so unfathomable for me to even think that there are people that I saw tonight for the last time. Gladys came tonight. I’ve never met her before, but she said some of the nicest things. One thing she said to me was, “Thank you for coming here to help out our people, the Peruvians.” She went on to explain what a blessing she could see that we’ve been, and told me to take heart in the fact that I will see many of my friends again someday in heaven; she encouraged me to pray for those that haven’t made the decision to accept Christ yet.
Our Christmas/Going-Away Party was quite fun! We gathered together and read the Christmas story directly from God’s word. While discussing the birth of our Savior, we also talked about family traditions and things that we love about the season. One thing that I find to be so interesting here is the time that they open gifts and eat Christmas “dinner.”*our cake from manuel
So, the tradition is for the whole family to get up at midnight on Christmas Eve and open presents! After that part of the celebration is over, they eat Christmas dinner! That’s right. Think about this. . . it’s one, two in the morning and you’re downing turkey and hot chocolate! ¿Qué extraño, no? Yeah, I love Peru!! :)
*serving some ice cream!
After all that, we ate ice cream sundaes! It was so fun because some of our friends had never had them before! In addition to the ice cream, our friend from conversation club, Miguel, kindly brought us a going-away cake! Thursday he asked Liz and me what our favorite type of cake is to which we had opposite answers. (I’m sure you can guess what mine is!) He had the bakery make a half-chocolate/half-vanilla cake! We managed to eat the whole cake and TONS of ice cream that night! Haha. It was fantastic. Julio was my helper and served the ice cream toppings while I scooped up the ice cream and cut the cake! He did a great job and really enjoy the whipped cream! :)
*dr. julio serving the toppings for hernan
*rene, arturo and junior
*moises and raul 
*noemi, gladys, miriam, martin, jhon and javier REALLY enjoying their ice cream!
One thing you must know is that we have a ratio of like 10 boys to 1 girl at the Lighthouse. It’s quite humorous really, but we are never short on bodyguards! :) Anyway, somehow our group of wonderfully sweet GUY friends managed to organize themselves enough to get us not only going-away gifts but going-away cards, too! I was so impressed with them! They all went to the store together and picked out the perfect cards for Liz and me and took the time to each write a sweet message in the cards. They also decided to get us perfectly-Peruvian t-shirts that have cuys (guinea pigs) on the front! Guinea pig is a delicacy here in Peru. . . :)
*me, junior and liz with our "cuy" shirts!
For a parting gift, we printed out group pictures from our Lighthouse meetings from this semester. Everyone seemed to love their pictures, and I hope they treasure the memory of our time together as much as I will.
*me, aulo and liz
My goodness. . . just a few more days now. I’m not to the point of tears quite yet, although the urge hits me from time to time. . . God has been so good to me. He’s blessed me more than I ever imagined He would. Coming to Peru, I knew that I would be His instrument to speak to others about Him, and to bless them in His name. I never imagined that so many people who were perfect strangers to me only four months ago could impact and bless me so abundantly. But they have.*our wonderful group at the "Lighthouse"
Katrina
“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
"It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.”-Philippians 1:3-11
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