Rural Chiclayo

Today was a baking hot day in a project named after John Wesley. Greeted by a church full of singing and cheering young people of all ages, this was a well-established project in a rural area some distance outside Chiclayo.
It was Jeanette's birthday and the children sang Happy Birthday for her. A young praise band then sang for us and genuine enthusiasm lit their faces. Two sixteen-year-olds then gave their testimony, reflecting on how God, through the work of Compassion in their area, had changed their lives and home situations and given them hope for the future.
We got to serve the children their lunch and the chanting and clapping we received for this simple act was heartwarming.
This project was in a completely different setting to the ones we have already seen. Miles out in the countryside this project is remote. There's a much different kind of poverty to that of the big cities - plumbing and sanitation for example and electricity supply. The homes are different too, slightly larger on average than the city homes, but still a far cry from our homes in the UK and Ireland. The homes tended to be either adobe mud (mud smeared over sticks and dried) or mud brick.
We visited one family in their home where the parents weren't Christians and this reinforced the fact that Compassion, in the projects, is selecting the neediest children who might not attend church and bringing God's love into where it might not otherwise have been.
The children in this project were fantastic, scrambling to have their photographs taken beside us until we left on the bus. This was a beautiful day, a real joy to have been a part of it.
Alastair.