Taken from from my journal on August 1:
Our 4-year anniversary!
We spent this morning on an amazing trip to a Quechua village outside the city. So far outside that we had to take a very rough truck ride way up the mountainside, and then walk an hour farther uphill from there. We went with a Peruvian nurse who works with the MTW clinic in Cusco, Yasmina.
The whole area is in tough shape, to say the least. On the way up we met some kids that just about broke our hearts. They ran up from their house as soon as they saw Yasmina, for she always brings them food and words of love. These four kids - 11, 7, and 6-year-old boys and a 4-year-old girl were tiny for their age, filthy and definitely malnourished. Their parents, not together, are alcoholics, and there is a history of abuse. They have been abandoned at times, and their only hope has been the presence of those from the church, who have taken the kids in when needed and are starting to work with the Mom to help her addiction and ability to care for the kids. All but the shy little girl had big smiles, and they loved seeing their picture on our camera. 
As we hiked on and approached the village, we could see that it was very small, perhaps 20 adobe houses strewn across an area the size of a football field, and obviously extremely poor.
We decided to keep Noah in his backpack, as most of the ground was covered in animal poop of some kind. We had come to visit a man there who the church has been helping over the last several months. Santiago is probably in his 70s (he's not quite sure) and completely blind, yet he was out gathering sticks for his home when we arrived. He said he was worried for how we were, and was wondering when we (any visitors from the church) would come. He had even dreamt last night that friends had come to visit. We helped him gather some more wood, then went to his tiny, dirt-floor, one-room house and chatted for a while. He talked all about what had been going on, health struggles, prayers and praises, and we thanked him for his hospitality. (all was translated through Yasmina - Santiago speaks only Quechua) It is hard to see much to be thankful for in his life, but he has great trust in God, and it is obviously what sustains him. Santiago just became a believer in Christ for the first time during the last year. His daughters, who live nearby, don't look after him, as their husbands are alcoholics, and people from the village regularly take advantage of his blindness and steal from him. All he has is a mentally-challenged teenage grandson who does his best to care for him, another relative who occasionally comes to bring him food, and the church. Yet before we left, he gave us (Laura and me) a bag of potatoes from his meager pile, insisting that we take them - he said he had been learning from the bible about how we are to share what we have, so he wanted to share. It still staggers me to think about it - how little we heed Jesus' words. We think we are generous, but this man has nothing! Part of me didn't even want to accept it, but that is just pride. It's a lesson to me to receive such a gift from Santiago. I began thinking about the things I worry about, we worry about, how strange it would sound to try to explain internet connections or matching clothes or broken dvd players or whatever else. What kind of table do we want? Did we see the latest movie? It seems so ridiculous. What do I think is important? Am I truly generous? I don't think I've ever seen such a clear example as I did in this brother Santiago, of Jesus truly being one's all, "my shepherd, I shall not want." And I was very encouraged by the ministry and how the church was serving. Folks regularly come to bring food, clothes, and just as important, to visit and talk, to share life-giving words of Jesus from the scriptures, which he so longs for. This is what the Allens and the MTW team there do all over mountains near Cusco. Bill has also given to the whole village a closet full of medicines and trained them in how to make use of them. It was such a hard place to see, but the hope and love this man showed because of his faith was as much a picture of Jesus as I think I've ever seen.
Certainly an unforgettable anniversary.
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