Adventures in Peru :): Day 29 First Huntington Group says goodbye to Gallito

Hey all :)

Thursday was amazing, it's kinda of scary how attached I've become to the children in Gallito... I have mixed feelings about going back next week with the second half of the Huntington group, I'm excited to have more time to spend with them but I know just how much harder those goodbyes are going to be...

We all headed back to Gallito on Thursday, the medical clinic ran their again, and I'm sad to report we gave out an alarming amount of lice shampoo, needless to say I had the nurses do a lice check on me, since I'm always surround by children... But of course that was me being paranoid lol, absolutely no lice... But as another protective measure I will bemusing lice shield shampoo from now on... Complements of Lynn, one of the Huntington Nurses :) they also handed out anti-parasite medication and vitamins along with several anti fungal creams, It's so humid down here, their skin never really drys out, they also saw a horrible case of what I assume was psoriasis and several other rashes... But all in all the clinic ran smoothly and everything that needed to get distributed was :)

As far as my day goes it was a really emotional one, my day started like it usually does, I was bombarded as soon as I got off the boat with a bunch of little child's going " hermanita Natalia que vamos hacer hoy?!?! " or "miss Natalie what are we going to do today?!?! " well today was James' 13th birthday, he's a member of the Huntington mission team, so I had the kids make him birthday cards while everyone else was busy painting the Sunday school building... After the cards were finished and safely tucked away, so James wouldn't see them, I gave the kids some paper to draw and that's when it started... That's when the kids, who probably get coloring paper once in a blue moon, decide instead of making something for themselves or their families, something to take home with them. That they wanted to draw pictures for me... And these are some of them....

Needless to say I started to tear up... But I held it together... Barely : / it's not the best stragey to cry like a dork in a packed church full of kids, and an attentive audience of adults waiting for their turn in the medical clinic, but I was just so moved that these kids who've known me for only five days now,would want to do something like that for me...

Our last bibles school for this first week in Gallito followed our theme of God is love, we had two verses today the first was
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself" Mark 12:30-31
And the second was
"Dear friends let us love one another for love comes from God" 1John 4:7

Their were four craft projects today, we made heart pop-up cards, heart shaped paper woven baskets, we made a cross with hearts on either side, and wrote on the cross First Presbyterian Huntington WV and Presbyterian church of Gallito on the other... Across the cross we wrote united in Gods love :) the final project was one for the group to take back to Huntington, it was hearts the children decorated and wrote their names on so that we could add their pictures, that we've taken over the course of the week, so that members of the congregation back in Huntington could pray for the children :) it was a great day :)

Here are some pictures...