The past two days we’ve visited two small villages up the river called Santa Fe and Olayah. I was instantly drawn to both these villages when I heard the name of them. Something about them stuck with me, and when I arrived at the villages it was easy to see why. The children in both Olayah and Santa Fe were so excited to see us, and followed us around everywhere. The heart I have for the children here is something I didn’t expect. I’ve always loved kids and knew I wanted to work with them, but these kids are different. Though we may speak different languages, our smiles,...

“¡Buenos días, buenos días, con sandías!” By 8:38 a.m. this morning, I had navigated a propane tank, cleaned the bugs out of our humble kitchen appliances, and cooked with two other teammates for fifteen people. Our breakfast was an egg-potato-onion mixture that was scrambled out of necessity, as it was all we had to spare for our first meal of the day. Our team scarfed down the meal earnestly, like how we scarf down all other meals, and we prepared to embark on our first adventure of the day: ignoring the possible critters in our boots and embarking...

If someone would have told me last year that this summer I would be bathing in the Amazon River, hand washing my clothes, and eating spaghetti in the middle of the jungle, I would have told them they were insane…but that is what I’m doing and I love it. We have been at our new home for about a week now. I would tell you our exact location, but I honestly don’t even know it myself. We took about a 2 hour bus ride from Iquitos to Nauta and then hopped on a boat from there for about an hour and suddenly we were here. At our new home we are surrounded by cows and chickens (and...

We made it to our home base yesterday afternoon (6/7/15). It began to pour down rain as soon as we got off the boat, and by the time we got all our stuff packed most of us were soaked. It was a beautiful kind of rain though, the kind that energized me and made me realize this was all real. Iquitos was an amazing city, and everything here has been so, so different from the place I used to call home. When we were riding on the rickety old bus, passing by broken down metal shacks and straw huts, a strange calm washed over me. I can’t shake the feeing that I’m exactly where...

Month 1  Peru Month 1 from Jeff Strohschein on Vimeo. Month 2 Peru Month 2 from Jeff Strohschein on Vimeo.

I never really experienced culture shock when I first arrived in Nauta, Peru. There were a lot of different things that I needed to adapt to, but those things became normal a lot quicker than I expected. Walking down a slippery, muddy, dog infested, mosquito filled, street multiple times a day was definitely new. But that didn’t mean I didn’t get used to it. Children saying “Hermana! Jugar!” While you’re trying to have quiet time with the Lord was something you just needed to get used to. Eating white rice and chicken everyday was something we needed to get...