'Live' from Lima, Peru

What an awesome day!  Amazingly enough after only having about 4 hours sleep on the plane, I spent the whole day feeling like I'd slept all night!  Lima is an absolutely incredible city, and after sharing a delicious free breakfast at the hotel, Mark arranged for us to have a private tour of the city, which included a trip to a great restaurant which specialized in Chivas, a mixture of Peruvian and Chinese food.  Delicious!  (It sounds like all we do is eat on this team!)

We then toured the city square, drove by some magnificant ruins left behind by the "Lima" people, went to a monastry that was started by Fransican monks, which included catacombs below the building that contained the bones of over 25,000 people, and the bones were all out on display, separated by body parts.  I have never seen anything like it in my life, and I'm not sure if I ever want to again!  They also had a library that contained thousands of books that are hundreds of years old - the largest historical library in South America.  The wooden carvings that were in the church were absolutely breathtaking, and there were tiles on the walls that were handpainted and sent from Spain in the 1600's that are still as bright today as they were back then.  I was dying to take pictures, but unfortunately we weren't allowed.

Our guide then took us down to the ocean, and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!  She told us tons of stuff about the city, half of which I can't remember right now.  

We ended the tour by visiting the "Love Park", a park which is dedicated to couples.  By this time it was dark, and the lights were beautiful.  The park overlooked the ocean, and had beautiful tiled walls along the walkways.  The main part of the park though was the statue in the middle of a couple kissing.  Our guide told us that every Valentines day they have a competition to see which couple could hold themselves in the same position as the statues and kiss the longest - she said the mayor and his wife lasted 20 minutes, but the longest record was 4 hours and 15 minutes.  Only in Peru!

The crowning touch to the day was the incredible time of sharing and worship that we had with the team tonight.  God had some very special things to share with one of the young ladies and it was amazing to watch God use these big burly men on the team to reach out and touch her with his love.  Incredible.  I am blown away by this trip already.  Wish there was some way I could get some pictures out to show you what I'm experiencing, but that may have to wait.

Keep praying because He's blowing my mind already!