The Chadwick Chronicles

We had a great 10-day visit from First Church of Highland, IN

We had a blast with this team. Every member of the team had attended, or is currently attending, Illiana Christian High School, where Elise taught for 3 years. One team member was even a former student. Elise had even attended this church for a couple of years. Tyler had them start a couple of benches on their first work day, saw how amazing they turned out, and quickly ordered parts for six more. They painted a long guard rail, painted a couple of rooms in the new office, removed a chunk of cement, and planted a tree and flower garden – all in Manchay. When Tyler discovered that one team member is a plumber, he quickly drove him over to Pachacamac to fix our septic system.

We also allowed them to have a little fun after working hours and, just like the last team, they didn’t mind getting a little wet at the fountain park.

We have been very busy lately. Jon has been running around with the group quite a bit and I have been putting the finishing touches on several sponsorship projects. One of my big projects was translating 45 letters from kids in the mountains. Back in January, Kids Alive took an already existing children’s home in the mountains of Peru under our name. The main reason these kids are in the home is so that they have the opportunity to go to school. They are in extreme poverty situations and it would otherwise be impossible for them to attend school.  Most people in this region don’t go to school past elementary, but this home allows them a place to stay while they attend school. Someone else was supposed to translate the letters, but was unable to and so when I realized on Tuesday that they needed to be translated by Saturday to send out with the team, I was under a MAJOR time crunch. Well, I had no idea what was ahead of me. The blessing that I received from reading these letters was amazing. These children are probably the most grateful kids I have ever encountered. Their letters were peppered with stories of a life without electricity, cutting down alfalfa to feed little piggies, and musings about how a little girl hopes the chickens she is taking care of are hens and not chickens so that she will have chickies and not chicken soup. Life here in Lima can be quite modern and these kids’ letters took me back to simpler times where chicks, playing in the river, and climbing trees are the finer things in life. It was a beautiful distraction. I thank God that these kids have the opportunity to know the Creator of all these simple things so many of us pass right by.

In other news, we fall more and more in love with out little girl daily…

We said “goodbye” this past Sunday night to a group from People’s Bible Church in Goshen, IN.

This church has been a long-time supporter of Kids Alive in Peru and has been sending teams to us for the past 8 years. This team spent their working hours creating a sewing room out of what was meant to be a storage room. They did tons of painting and cement work. Unfortunately, our car broke down and I wasn’t able visit the worksite to take any pictures. This was also the first team that I’ve been able to convince to get really wet at the fountain park. Despite the cold weather, they jumped into the first fountain available and even asked to return to it before we left so that a couple of them could brave the journey to the center.

Wanting to spend more time with the kids, they spent their Saturday mornings working with the kids on a “Thank You” project for their sponsors.

Thank you so much People’s Bible Chuch for your work, joy, and generocity.