After several months of fund raising, Scott Zapalac, Loli Reyna and Lori Johnson arrived in Lima on January 19th. Work began immediately to purchase shoes and provide personal gifts for each of the children.

The greatest challenge was obtaining the age and gender of each child in order to purchase age appropriate gifts. The next challenge was getting the correct shoe size for each child. We met with the children and Miguel, who runs the orphanage. Miguel was able to provide name, age and gender for each child. An additional challenge was that children were being dropped off daily at the orphanage, so the numbers were changing almost faster than we could keep up with them. We spent an entire day at the orphanage measuring each child’s foot. The school age children are required to wear dress shoes four days a week and tennis shoes one day. Most of the children only have “flip flops” and have never had a new pair of shoes. We were able to provide one pair of dress shoes and one pair of tennis shoes for each school age child and one pair of tennis shoes for each toddler.

We went to a variety of stores and the market place to purchase their individual gifts. Dolls and trucks were bought for the small children, Barbies, race cars and action figures for the next age group, make up and hygiene supplies for the older girls, and deodorant, body wash and personal care products for the older boys.

There are seven dorms, one for the toddler children and six for the children six to seventeen. There are three toilets and three showers in each dorm. None of the toilets have seats nor are there any towels. Two toilet seats, towels and bath mats were purchased for each dorm.

The older girls were asked what they would like to have if they could have anything they wanted. They wanted a boom box for their dorm. We were able to purchase a boom box for each dorm. The applause was thunderous and the tears flowed when we walked in with the boom boxes.

The children had a flat soccer ball, a basketball and volleyball. Words cannot describe their reaction when we walked in with 12 soccer balls, 12 basketballs and 12 volleyballs in addition to volleyball nets and cones for the soccer field. We also purchased 30 bicycles, books for each dorm, board games, age appropriate games, toys and shampoo for each dorm.

We provided supper for the children consisting of 500 hot dogs, chips, Inca Cola, watermelon and individual bags filled with candy. All the meals are cooked in a huge pot on an open fire, so we began boiling water and it took approximately two hours to boil the water and cook the hot doges. A local bakery provided us with 500 freshly baked hot dog buns and we prepared them “assembly line” style with the children pitching in and dressing each bun with mayonnaise, mustard and ketchup. The children had only eaten one meal this day and as always they were very hungry. The most moving moment of the entire trip came when we realized that, although hungry, not one child touched their hot dog or even took a sip of their Inka Cola until every child had a plate of food. Then, after praying and thanking God not only for the food, but also for the people who provided it, the children ate.

The children were overwhelmed with joy at all that had been given to them. Miguel was speechless and at times, in tears. We were humbled. We were blessed to see the face of Jesus in each child’s face and came away with a renewed sense of commitment to make every effort to help these children.

To all who made this effort possible, thank you and God bless you.

Lori Johnson