Wednesday, May 17 We have all seen stores like Ten Thousand Villages that sell artisan crafts from abroad, but this week students learned what it means to buy those handicrafts via fair trade principles, meet some of the artists that make the crafts, and try their hand at being artisans. The organization…
Friday, May 12. Today we drove 25 miles north to Puente Piedra, an area more typical of where most people live in this sprawling capital city of 10 million. The outer regions of Lima, known as the conos, didn’t exist 50 years ago when the population of Lima was…
Wednesday, May 10 In the center of very urban Lima we visited Cantagallo, a tiny part of the Amazon jungle that lives in the hearts of a few hundred indigenous Shipibo people, from the far eastern side of Peru, who have settled here. Their language – Shipibo –…
Monday-Tuesday, May 7-8. After getting to know their host families over the weekend, on Monday the students started their routines for the rest of the “study” portion of SST in Lima. Most days are spent at the Good Shepherd Church, where the students’ days begin with 3 hours…
Friday and Saturday, May 5-6. Ice cream with Peruvian fruit flavors. The students are all with their host families now after having spent 2 days together in orientation activities, including introductions, walking to the ocean, tasting a variety of new fruits, and going over many basic housekeeping…
Friday, May 5. It’s 12:30 a.m., but everyone is wide awake for a new journey. After a long 18-hour day of travels 21 students arrived safely in Lima early this morning. Soon afterwards we left them at a hostel near Casa Goshen, where group leaders Maria and…
Friday – Sunday, April 7-9. We had a group retreat this weekend to review and share what was experienced and learned on service, and then to prepare for transitioning back to home in the U.S. While on service students each had to research a special topic of their…
Thursday, April 6. All the students have safely returned “home” to Lima from their service locations. Our house filled with the sounds of back-slapping and laughter as everyone reunited with long-lost friends. Tonight they will spend with their host families, sharing experiences from service as well as saying goodbyes, and…
Monday, March 27. The Amazon region of Peru is home to more than 50 indigenous groups, the largest of which is the Ashaninka people, numbering about 80,000. Gabby and Tyler are living in one of the communities, San Miguel, that welcomes visitors to live with them. The community is…
Sunday – Wednesday, March 26-29. These small twin cities are in Chanchamayo, a region directly east of Lima that is reached by a road that climbs from Lima (in the desert at sea level), up over the Andes, through a snowy mountain pass at 16,000 feet, and then…
