Kari Bussell in Peru

it has been such a cool experience to get to hang out with street boys in kawai, lima, & cusi. ive only got to spend a few hours really so far with each group & still so many have captured my heart with their smiles, joy, affection. im learning how much you can communicate without words. if you have a camera & you like playing games, then you can make many best friends with these amazing kids.

ive fallen in love with one little boy in particular. he´s ten years old & his name´s david. he was one of the street boys at the lima center. even though i absolutely loved all the kids there & played games with a lot of them, david would never leave my side. at one point during the night i looked down to see david tying a beautiful red, blue, & pink bracelet he´d made around my wrist. ¨para ti¨ he said (for you in english) & then drew a heart on my wrist. id call him ¨mi hermanito¨ or my little brother.

later the next night, billy, one of the leaders of scripture union, talked to us after dinner about some of the things these boys had been through. it was unfathomable really, that that precious little boy who held my hand & smiled up at me had most likely been abandoned by his teenage mother, starved, sexually abused, tortured, & left for dead. it broke my heart to hear billy talk. i kept picturing david´s face in my mind as he spoke. i cried as i wrote about it in my journal that night. in many ways peru is a very dark place but God has graciously placed lights in the darkness, scripture union & the boys centers among them.yesterday was our first day of hard manual labor at cusi.

i spent about an hour making adobe bricks (which after the 4th time i started to get the hang of) & then spent the rest of the time shoveling mud into wheelbarrows. it was incredibly exhausting work & i was completely covered in mud by the end of it, but it was actually a lot of fun & i felt really good after it was over. & let me tell you food has never tasted so delicious & sleep never felt so good as it did last night.

today was our day off, touristy, sightseeing day. we walked
through a busy market this morning & sam picked out an adorable guinea pig & named him henry. sadly, henry´s life ended at the restaurant we went to for breakfast when the cook broke his neck in front of us & then cooked him. even though there wasnt too much meat on him, henry tasted pretty good, kinda like greasy chicken. i got some amazing before & after pictures :).

then, we took a bus up to glacier lake. the guys had really wanted to jump in but mr horton wouldnt let them. something about dying from hypothermia...it was aboslutely gorgeous up there. i have never seen anything like it in my life. it was incredibe to be surrounded by towering mountains all around & to see mysef as i really should view myself all the time: very small.

one final thought before i go. i read revelation 5 two nights ago about the blood of Christ ransoming people from every tribe & every tongue. that verse took on new meaning for me in the past week because for the first time im being exposed to a culture & people completely different from myself. though so so many things are different between me & one of the street boys here, one thing remains the same. the blood of Christ saves us both. oh how wondrous & powerful is the blood of God which penetrates into all peoples, cultures, & languages to save man from sin & give them life everlasting.