11 days and counting

I am accepting $15 donations. $15 will purchase a nice pair of shoes for one child in Peru. Interested? Email me.

It is August 24, 2011 and as little as one year ago, I would have laughed in your face if you’d told me I would ever see the mountains of Peru.  

A year ago, I answered a very small and unassuming call to help.

Today I’m packing.

In 11 days my 16 year old son and I leave for the adventure of a lifetime. We will be heading to a mountain village in Azapampa, Peru. The plan is for us to help the people of this village rebuild and recover their homes from heavy flooding that took place in February and March of this year.

Passports are in hand, plane tickets are paid for, and bus tickets from Lima, Peru to a village 10,000 ft above sea level are purchased. And I still can’t believe we are going. Talk about getting out of one’s comfort zone, this is the mother jump.

The goal is to serve others.  Yes, we will be working hard while mixing, hauling and pouring concrete to provide stoops (small concrete porches or steps for you younger generations) in hopes of creating a primitive curb and guttering that will keep water out of the villager’s homes. Yes, we will be re plastering and painting crumbled walls from the flood. Yes, we will be providing shoes to children who live in the mountains of Peru. But somehow, my son and I can’t help feeling like we are the ones winning in this situation because of what we are gaining in return. I’m looking forward to meeting the people, hearing their stories and learning what Peru has to offer.

Providing internet service holds out in those mountains (technology is amazing isn’t it?) during our two week visit, I hope to blog my way through this experience. I’ll be posting stories of people, the day’s experiences and lots of photographs along the way.  If you would like to be notified each time I post, email me (gm@mynwmo.com) and ask to be placed on my email alert list. I’ll be sending out notifications with a link each time I am able to post.

My son and I, along with a few others in our traveling group, are going to be witnessing the beauty and the sadness of a foreign land and its people. We are going to be encountering the adventure of a foreign culture, its hardships,  , foods, new  languages and meeting people whom we would never have had the opportunity to meet without taking that mother jump of faith. 

Today I sit at my desk in familiar surroundings writing to you. Eleven days from now, I’ll be blogging to you from Peru. It is amazing what happens when one is really open to the possibilities in front of them.

Look at that smile! You can't receive a better gift than that.

Blessings,