Behind Prison Walls

This past week was quite the adventure. I was blessed with a lovely bug at the beginning of the week and was sick for the day. Our outreach team ran a mini DTS for the older kids at the orphanage during the week. Wednesday, Emma and I were able to teach on Relationships. It was a really good experience and I'm so glad I took the opportunity to do it. The rest of the week, we helped out with the younger kids while others taught.

On Wednesday afternoon, a group of the girls had the opportunity to go to the prison and talk with a few of the women there. It was intimidating, I must admit. Hearing their stories was so cool though. We stayed with them for about an hour and a half before we had to go. They kept telling us how blessed they felt that we came to be with them for a while.

On Friday, we did the same thing, however, we were able to take our whole team and do prison ministry. We had people share testimonies, music and we did skits. I shared my testimony and I was terrified. But it was such a good experience and I was so challenged by it. At the end, we were able to talk with more women. We learned that there were about 74 women in the prison and 65 of them were in there for drug trafficking and the rest were there for robbery. It was so encouraging to see the way that they were being changed and to just hear about life in the prison. There was a lady who shared her testimony with us as well- she had been in prison when she came back to God. After she got out, she fell back into drugs. The second time that she was put in jail, it was a mistake, a set up. She shared her faith in front of all her inmates. It was so good and encouraging for us to see how our speaking had impacted her and reminded her of the love that God has for her.

We have one last week here until we have two days of debrief and then back to Australia! I'll be so sad to leave Cusco- everyday it gets more and more beautiful to me. But I'm also very excited to get back to see the rest of our school :) God has been so good to us here in Cusco and we have been so blessed.