Sunday, March 28th

What a busy day!  We spent most of the day being tourists and exploring the city of Lima.  Since we will spend the next few days working extremly hard doing service projects, it was a nice pace.  With that being said, we are still pretty tired and know we have our work cut out for us tomorrow...so we figured we give you the bullets of the day along with some pics :)

-got an early start and headed to El Centro de Lima (Lima is divided into 43 different districts. For example, Miraflores, where we visited yesterday, is one.  Each has their own mayor, etc.  Lima has 7.5 million people living in these districts!)

-Visited the St. Fransisco Church, built in the 1600's.  Did we mention we did this on Palm Sunday?! (Domingo de Ramos) Talk about an exciting atmoshpere and buzz around the city, especially in the church.  Got to go down below the church and walk through the catacoumbs, seeing tons of bones and skulls from all the people who were buried there.  The overall structure and design of the church was absolutely breathtaking.

-Saw the Peruvian "White House," where the President lives.

-Did some shopping and bargained for some good deals in the market

-Had an amazing Peruvian lunch, a GINORMOUS buffet.  We didnt really know too much of what we were eating (causas, ceviche de pulpo, a big ole chocolate fountain to dip every and anything we wanted, etc) but it was all rather tasty and delicious.

-Went back to the YMCA for a drum box lesson.  The drum box is an instrument you sit on and hit in certain places to make music...kind of like a djembie drum.  Learned some really cool beats, including the Samba.  Parents beware...its a good possibility your child will be bringing one of these instruments home!

-Packed up some clothes for our 2 night/3 day trip to Indenpendencia.  This is a very impoverished area and we will be doing a service project during our stay here.  We are very excited to get to work to not only build a building, but to also build friendships and fellowship.  Many of these families are overwelmed by life and have nowhere to turn.  It is our prayer that WE are an answer to their prayers...that our actions will exemplify God's love for them.

Time to rest up!