The language of the heart...

We made our second trip to Puca Cuesta today. Señor Mendez bought a new chain for Wade´s bike and, praise God, it held together the entire way. As we putt-putted on our lowely bikes toward the school, we were passed by the teachers on their motorcycles. We have been joking around about buying a motorcycle for two of us to ride and pulling one of the bikes behind for the other person to ride, but don´t worry Dad. It´s just a joke. Anyway, when we got to the school, the teachers put their classes together so we would have a full hour, instead of 30 minutes for each class. We were only prepared for 30 minutes, and so when the creation story was over, we had to wing it for another half-hour. We decided to teach the kids "Jesus Loves Me" in Spanish. I had to translate the main part of the song myself, because I only remember the chorus in Spanish. Needless to say, it didn´t rhyme and the timing and beat was all off, but the kids enjoyed it. We even taught them the sign language for the chorus. They made us sing it 5 times so they would remember the melody. Also, all the kids wrote the words down in their notebooks. It was cool. After the hour was up, we said chau to the kids and went flying down the hill on our bikes to the community center where we met the Moms´ club. We passed out gospels of John in Spanish and tried to tell the story of the Samaritan woman, but mine and Wade´s Spanish finally failed us. Between the two of us, I hope the women got the gist of it, but even if they didn´t understand completely, I think we made it understood why we were there. Although our Spanish wasn´t up to par today, we used the language of the heart (as Wade likes to call it) to connect with the women. Señor Valderiano, the former president of Puca Cuesta, was there because his wife is the president of the Moms´ club. He told us that the women learn best visually, and asked us to bring a video for them to watch. I have no idea how he plans to run power to a TV out in the middle of nowhere, but if he can get it done, we can do our part too. We think that there is a Christian bookstore in Juliaca that may sell videos, and so we´ll check it out tomorrow. We may need your help. Can someone send us a copy of the Jesus video or some other video like that in Spanish if we don´t find anything? If possible, it would be good to have a copy that the community could keep and use again later on if they wanted. Let me know if you can help. Another "Praise God!": Señor Mendez has been coming up to our little apartment almost every night to do a Bible study. He is very excited about learning, and this makes us excited too. Please keep praying for our efforts to have an impact. Muchas gracias y hasta luego!