Cumpleaños Feliz!

Matt again filling in for Kris while he and Indya and Andrew are up in Collana.  Today was an awesome day in Matucana!  First off, Cathleen and Caitlin went to Miguel Grau primary school at 8am to teach english classes and Bible stories.  This went very well.  Caleb and I went to the outskirts of Matucana to a place called Cacachaqui (caw-caw-chaw-key) and made home visits to many of the people that live there.  Previous missionaries (special thanks to First Baptist New Port Richey) have detailed lists of people who have been visited from the church.  We were able to follow up with some people who had previous interest in Christ and some new people.  Today we met several people who want to go to church, but they can't because they have to work, so please pray that they will find a way to plug in with local believers and both encourage and be encouraged.  Caleb, Priscilla, and I then went and met with Sr. Jose Acosta, who is a government offical and a friend of missionaries coming to Matucana.  Many have previously helped him teach english to government workers, but that isn't a possiblity this trip because the time of year causes people's schedules to have to be gone early and travel to other villages for their work.  However, he wants to see if we can help at the Dept of Human Services and also would like to introduce us to the Mayor of Matucana. 

After this meeting, we met with the girls at the school.  Before going into the school though we saw a friend from church and her daughter, Martha.  Martha is turning 8 today and invited Caleb and me to her birthday party.  Here is the invitation:

When we got there, the kids ran up and were yelling "Caleb!" (cah-leb) and "Mateo!"  They also wondered where Patrick, Robert, Jared, and the others were, so we told them they were back in the US.  We played with the kids for a little while at the school.  They followed us all the way down the street back to our hostel. The principal asked us to come at 10:15 tomorrow since all the kids will be on recess, we will be able to talk to them all at once, instead of just in one class!  After lunch we all went to Ian's house to do tutoring and hang out with his family.  We talked about computer programming and he even wrote fake programs.  An example for all you engineers out there:
If(MattStands),Then(CalebWalkToCorner) or
If(MattStands),Then(CalebJumpsOnOneLeg),Else(CalebLaysDown)
Pretty smart for a 13 year old!  Then we began talking about space exploration. Special thanks to Space Camp for coming in use today.  After talking about rockets for a while, we decided to make our own rocket out of coke and mentos. Video below:

(Video Coming if we can get it to load!)

Then we got to go to the birthday party we were invited to.  Caleb, Arturo, and I showed up and the kids said in Spanish, "Look who is here!" and Martha proudly told them that she knew we were coming because she invited us to come.  We proceeded to watch children run around and whack each other with balloons until we were served the traditional birthday food of boiled potatoes with a creamy chili sauce along with purple corn drink.  Definitely had to pray to keep that down. But we had a great time hanging out with the kids at the birthday party.  Here is a picture of Caleb having a good time:

After that we went to a prayer service at Principe de Paz Church.  It was great to see brothers in Christ praying for each other (and for us).  After the prayer service, we ate dinner and came back to the hostel and skyped with Patti (she was with us for the first half of the trip) and we talked to her and sang her happy birthday since she shared a birthday with Martha today.

God is blessing us with many avenues to share the Gospel and to share Jesus's love with the people here.  Unfortunately, many people are resistant to the Good News because they are happy with cultural traditions that are devoid of faith.  Please pray that people will see the necessity of faith. (Hebrews 11:6--And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him")  However, there are strong brothers and sisters here who seek God in faith no matter how they are mocked by the community. So please pray for their persistence, joy, unity, and mutual encouragement.  Also please pray for us that we would stay healthy.  Some teams members are having minor stomach issues or headaches.

Thank you so much for reading our blog and for your prayers!