Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

¨God is not unjust; he will not forget your works and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. Hebrews 5: 9

Scattered sporadically across the auditorium floor,snuggled under blankets, heads resting on makeshift pillows: made out of jumpers; shorts t-shirts and clothes ready to be donated, the newest arrivals catch a few z´s before their next plane departs. As the last of the head torches closes its eyes I use the light of mobile phone to maneuver my way through the mattresses, equipped with my hot water bottle, johnston´s baby wipes and ear plugs (I´ve been here before!). Outside the chaos of Lima plays on, a lullaby that’s neither gentle nor maternal. Harsh discords of car horns, squeals of emergency sirens and the voices of Lima’s 8 million inhabitants clash with the chatter and giggling spilling its way out of the bedroom window opposite.


The bedroom opposite is occupied by some of Peru’s most vulnerable children. Known to many as ¨street boys¨ these children have been abandoned by their parents and now take residency in the filthy sewers or desolate doorways of Lima. Thankfully my sleep on this occasion is slightly more peaceful knowing that some of these little ones are safe here in the centre, Girasoles (The Sunflower Centre): as a sunflower blooms when the sun shines on it so these boys shine in the precious glow of God´s love shown to them by the workers here. The staff work patiently and sensitively to rehabilitate the boys, many of whom have stepped in from a street full of drugs and prostitution. This centre is a little haven for many children, tired and mistreated by the city it hides in.


Union Biblica (Scripture Union) is an international Christian organization. As a child I remember horse riding along the banks of the River Earn in Perthshire. Being sent off to camp for the summer was a highlight of my school holidays. I remember sharing bunk beds with other girls my age, exchanging stories about boys in our various schools and how annoying they were. In the morning we´d wake to leaders encouraging us to read our bibles, dusting them first having never opened them since the previous years camp. I always took a new packet of highlighters and made summer resolutions that I would actually learn the rainbow of verses I coloured that year. Camp ended round the camp fire, with songs, exchanging of addresses, tears and too many marshmallows. For me this was Scripture Union.

I never imagined that ten years later I would be at the other side of the world (Peru), sharing bunk beds with girls my age (still exchanging stories about boys) and highlighting my bible. Some things however have definitely changed. I no longer take my My Little Pony to camp and I´ve exchanged horse riding in Perthshire for swimming in the Itaya River (a tributary of the Amazon, the largest River in the world). Furthermore my experience of Scripture Union consists of more than camp fires and marshmallows.

Scripture Union Peru ministers in several different areas: working with abandoned children; teaching values to children in schools; working with Lima’s deaf community; hosting and organizing camps and organizing a hugely successful medical ministry, thanks to the generosity, friendship and prayers of their partners The Vine Trust, a ministry birthed out of Bo´ness Scotland. (www.vinetrust.org)

For many of you who have traveled to Peru to help with either a medical party or with a work team sleeping in the Girasoles Centre will have been a memorable experience, admittedly not necessarily a comfortable one but assuredly unforgettable. Arriving in Girasoles for the first of the hundredth time has an impact on your life.

It seems like only hours after I bundled myself into my sleeping bag that I reluctantly peeped my head out. Wakened by the sound of a football being kicked around the pitch below, the sound of Pablo Lavado´s (director of the Casa Girasoles) voice ushering the boys to get ready for school and Ashley. Ashley, a member of the New Braska/ North Carolina/ Scottish work team, is the most stunningly cooky girl I´ve ever had the pleasure to be woken up by.

Still wrapped in the blanket she ¨borrowed¨ from the flight Ashley crashes onto the mattress next to me. It´s only after she lands that I realize Lorna has vacated it to take position in the queue for the shower (singular!). Sleepily I scan the room. Interestingly I find the boys have made a cluster in farthest corner allowing the girls to occupy the area in front of the door, heroic or what. This morning is the first of many that I bare the wrath of ¨Daddy Cool´s ¨ wake up call, or rather roar! Daddy Cool, Pastor Adam, is our team leader. Although this morning it is slightly difficult to take anything he says seriously given that the jumper he picked out of the donations pile actually belonged to a petite female (Ashley’s mum) before he decided to model it. The combination of Adam´s roar and Ashley´s hysteria frightens some of the boys from our team out of their cocoons and they make their way down stairs to join in the game.

Christian and Marsha (whom by the way are both looking far too wide awake and glamorous given where they’ve just slept and the fact that we’re on our way to the jungle) spectate from one of the windows overlooking the boys dinning hall. Excitedly they chatter pointing out boys they know, calling them by name. I learn very quickly that the majority of this team have been to Peru before and almost everyone speaks Spanish: an absolute blessing.

Breakfast for me this morning is an exciting time, both because we get to share it with the boys of Girasoles but because I am reunited with one boy in particular, Luis. Summer of 2004 was the first time I ever came to Peru. I didn´t speak any Spanish and my head was so occupied with planning my 21st birthday party before I left that I really wasn’t prepared for what I would experience here. I seem to remember I packed my bag full of toilet rolls, I had two first aid kits (just incase) and I´d forgotten one of the most important items, my malaria tablets.

We arrived late at night, or at least I thought it was late. I´ve since learned that Lima lives under a permanently grey sky and it gets dark very early. Anyway, after passing all of our backpacks through the back window of a bus we somehow arrived in the middle of the boys football pitch/playground. Immediately the adults with whom I´d traveled lost all composer and entered into hand slapping games and thumb wars reminiscent of the school playground, others wrestled their cameras out of the clammy hands of children desperate to see themselves and I, amongst all of this, met Luis. Unable to communicate with words Luis and I danced to my slightly stuttery version of La Bamba (thanks Kareekee). I remember our dance being momentarily interrupted by something much more exciting…dulces (sweets). Luis, at that time, was only 7 years old. As one of the smaller boys he managed to salvage only one strawberry lace from the huge bags of sweets Jackie was distributing from. Very quickly he escaped the rabble and came over stretching out his hand to me, I assumed to resume dancing. Luis held out a tiny clenched fist gesturing me to look inside. Unraveling it he revealed his strawberry lace. Stretching it out he broke it in half. ¨Para ti¨ (for you) he smiled handing me one half of the sweaty lace. Receiving this lace from a little boy in Lima was one of the most painful blessings I´ve ever been given. Painful to think that Luis, a child abandoned by his parents, shunned by society and all alone in this world would share his sweet with a ¨Gringa¨ girl he’d just met, simply because she’d taken the time to go, meet him and sing with him.

The next morning we woke and like many teams since we rushed to catch our domestic flight to Iquitos where we worked on one of Union Biblica´s seven Girasoles homes.

Boys Homes
These homes are situated in some of the most idyllic locations in world, like the home in Cusco Lorna described in her last letter to you all. Iquitos is no exception. Like everything in Iquitos Casa Girasoles is built on stilts (the rain fall conducts the rise and fall of the river and the PO box of it’s residents) set far back on one of the rivers lush green banks. Hidden amidst banana plants, fruit trees and it´s natural inhabitants (crocodiles, electric eels, anacondas, monkeys, pumas, tarantulas and banana boats loads of cucarachas) Puerto Alegria is discreet.


Hammocks hang all year round from roof tops made of deep stained (expertly sanded) wood beams and skillfully pleated bamboo leaves provide permanent shelter and protection from the sun by day and wildlife by night. However, despite the apparent tranquility of it’s surroundings Puerto Alegria is impossible to miss. This place is home to forty absolutely adorable, scrumdidilyumtious little boys, all of whom have come from the streets. Each boy, like Luis back in Lima, has his own story to tell as to how he came to be living on the streets and more excitedly how he became a Girasole boy. (Paul Clark, Driector of Union Biblica Peru has recently published a book in which he shares some of these precious testimonies. Southern Cross www.amazon books.org)

For me these boys are no longer ¨street boys¨. They are children who literally have been taken from the miry clay and have been called by name, children whom despite abandonment were predestined to be adopted into God´s family (Ephesians 1:4 and 5, Isaiah 49: 15-23). These are the children who will rebuild the walls (Isaiah 58:12 ). Here I see children with huge potentials, beautiful spirits and frighteningly special smiles. Smiles so big that they almost completely detract from the scars written on their heads, their little arms, their legs and the ones that penetrate deep in into their big brown eyes. Scars caused by abandonment and abuse. Although there is obvious healing here these scars that sometimes bare themselves in tears, tantrums and nightmares.

This year it was a real education for me to be able to share, for the first time, with some of the boys. To hear their hopes; their fears for the future. What was more of a joy though was to hear the commitment of the team I was with and the burden God has placed on each of their hearts to pray for these children individually. For me this contribution is worth more than we will ever know.

Each team that comes contributes to one, or more, of the homes helping practically by painting, making mud bricks or as we have been doing most recently sanding and varnishing.


I remember feeling a certain amount of despondency the first time I came. Having been in Lima and heard some of the atrocities the boys face on the streets (prostitution, physical, verbal and emotional abuse) I couldn´t help but feel that me making mud bricks just wasn´t enough and that I definitely wasn´t making them fast enough.

I thank God that by his grace I don´t have to really on my efforts but on his plans. Since that first dark night arriving in Peru I have returned every year and this year I think more than ever I have realized that I´m part of a part of a plan so much bigger than we could ever anticipate or pen on a piece of paper.

Aswell as seeing the homes being built and hundreds of boys being rescued from the streets I have seen the boys grow. Boys like Luis who is now in school persuing an education and a future. As I ate breakfast with him this time he laughed and sang ¨Para bailar la Bamba¨. I asked him if he remembered sharing his sweetie with me and he smiled, squinting as if it was no big deal, I´m sure wondering what on earth it is I was talking about. His smile reminded me of the smile I´ve seen on the faces of so many volunteers. A smile that almost looks embarrassed. I smile that says: ´I didn´t do it to be blessed or to get thanks but I did it to bless you, please don´t make a fuss´.

Luis´s smile has echoed on the faces of the team we’ve been a part of this week. A team who each year come to Puerto Alegria, Iquitos and who, despite the humidity and an insane amount of hungry mosquitoes, work hard. This year we were contributing to the completion of five new bungalows. A team whose confidence is quite clearly in the works of God and not in their own strength. (¨It does not, therefore, depend on man´s effort, but on God´s mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh: ´I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.¨ Romans 9:16 and 17. )

It was quite simply ironic that as we floated up the Itaya river I sat out front on the boat listening to one of my favourite songs. Listening to Joel Houston´s sexy voice (am I allowed to say that?) belting out a chorus I know so well: ¨Jesus I believe in you and I would go to the ends of the earth, to the ends of the earth for you. For you alone are the son of God and all will see that you are God.¨

This year as we approached the familiar raft that floats out front of Puerto Alegria and as I clambered my way back into the boat, the chorus still playing in my head I suddenly realized that the people around me were doing exactly that. Trust me Puerto Alegria really does feel like the end of the earth when you´re there. What´s more as I got to know the wacky bunch from New Braska God confirmed what I´d thought all along: that he´d hand picked each of them ¨for this very purpose¨. ¨You did not chose me but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit- fruit that will last. Then the father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.¨ John 15:16

Throughout the course of this journey Lorna and I have talked lots about making your call and election clear…in other words how we know what God wants us to do with our lives? We´ve talked about neon signs, about God´s desire to have an intimate personal relationship with you. I love this scripture because it´s almost idiot proof. It´s for those of us (myself included) that have those days when we don’t know where to go or what to do. We stress that what we´re doing just isn´t enough to show our love for God. The team´s interaction with the boys this year taught me that instead of constantly checking if we´re loving God enough we should be checking if we´re loving each other enough. It is doing this that we really worship (Math 25: 35-41).

Fortunately for us the boys in Puerto Alergria and completely loveable and so that makes this part of the commandment slightly easier for us to obey. However there are people who are slightly more ¨challenging¨ shall we say. People who do not willingly receive they love we want to give them. Usually because they do not understand or necessarily agree with the way we are delivering it and so this presents a problem. Or does it?

It´s time to share a wee harsh reality that I learned in Puerto Alegria during one of our singsongy sessions with the boys before bed. In order for you to understand fully I need to introduce you to Gabino. Gabino has lived in Puerto Alegria since he was 7 years old. At 18 Gabino is now a handsome, extremely intelligent young man. As well as a smile that lights up the whole world, Gabino brings a peaceful almost parental aura to the home. Gabino is the hand the little ones reach for when their in trouble. More so he is completely humble about the fact that all of the other boys, young and old respect him wholeheartedly. You can imagine their despair then when suddenly after 10 year Gabino left the home and returned to Iquitos, sacrificing his prospects of finishing school and pursuing the degree he wants in Medicine.

Now I´m not about to bore you with the details of why he left, firstly because I don´t know them all and secondly it´s not appropriate. I would not like it if someone came into my home and then proceeded to air all of our problems in public. My intention is merely to demonstrate what I´ve learned.

Another extremely neccessay and wonderful part of the ministry here is that each home has a set of house parents. We mentioned earlier (in previous entries) that each couple dedicates their lives (or at least a substantial part of them) to raising these boys (all forty of them). The house parents at PA are no exception. Everyday Jean and Patty get up at 5am and dedicate their day to these boys. You can imagine then that know them pretty well. Imagine now their reaction when we arrived and asked where Gabino was and then proceeded to bombard them with a whole list of suggestions as to how we could bring him back. Of course we wanted Gabino to come back because we saw that, that was what was best for him; because we love him. However in displaying that love it was necessary for us to be sensitive to the house parents, Gabino and to the culture. This required patience, humility and understanding, none of which I´m expert in but I´m working on them.

I want you to imagine now the day Gabino returned home. Think back to the story of the prodigal son and there you have the joy we experienced when Gabino´s giant smile entered the dinning room. The ceiling was laden with streamers and balloons, as we were also celebrating several of the boys and team member’s birthdays that evening. In typically Casa Girasoles style a lifelike Spiderman hung precariously from the roof, his belly stuffed full of sweets and toys that would latter spill into the arms of the expectant and extremely excitable niños (children) below.

The night ended with some Scottish dancing and one last rendition of the ¨Peanut Butter Jelly¨ song Mama Marsha style. Finally as I prepared my sleeping bag for bed, crushing the last of the cocarachas beneath Lorna´s workboots (I´m not sure if the impact killed them or they were suffocated by the smell but needless to say they didn´t live to see day light) I thanked God for his mercy. Basically for saving me from myself. You see if I´d had my own way we would have all been on the first banana boat to Iquitos running about in my usual ¨bull in a china shop fashion¨ looking for Gabino. Then having found him I would have explained in my worst Spanglish that he was to come home. Ok I don’t need to elaborate you can imagine it would have been a nightmare. A nightmare conducted in love but never the less a nightmare.

What´s more I thanked God that I don´t need to rely on my own understanding but completely on his strength (Proverbs 3:5). I love it that he takes the pressure of, of us and takes it upon himself. The difficulty in a situation such as this is that sometimes we don´t agree with the ways things are being done. Thankfully Jean and Patty had more experience than me and the outcome was a happy ending. However there are times within the church when we don’t agree with the way things are being done or the outcomes. In these times do we take the huff and retract our help or do we endure it? On the other hand do we willingly except help? This requires equal humility!

I loved watching the guys (and Marsha) hammering away at the cement last week in Puerto Alergria. It was a classic example or humility and endurance showing love. I´m no engineer but I’m sure there was an easier way to create spaces in the cement other than letting it set then hammering bits out. Yet instead of saying this to the Peruvian workers our team worked away in perfect harmony to Marcos and Lorna´s torturous perpetual singing of Shine Jesus shine.

The fact that they were contributing was making the difference. In the wise words of Mama Marsha sometimes we don’t agree but in order to complete the prophesy (the body of Christ 1 Cor 12) ¨we need to be able to co-exsist¨. The team were neither concerned with who was getting the credit or who completed the building but they simply recognized that their contribution was necessary. ¨To prepare God´s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Chirst…. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Eph 4: 12

I love the fact that here in Peru I can physically see the process of the church maturing infort of my eyes. I see a generation of people both volunteers from abroad and here in Peru completely selflessly contributing to¨ works of service¨. What´s more the boys see it too. They see love in the fact that these teams come every year, some for the first time, they especially love seeing familiar faces.







They hear love in the voices of the enthusiastic volunteers who have taken the time to read a Spanish dictionary on the flight over and for sure they see the love in the way everyone carefully and expertly sanded the wood…for the hundredth time! But more than that I’m sure they see love in the forty peanut butter jars someone packed into their case and brought all the way from the USA to share with them. In the fact Anna allowed Luis to wash her hair with soap for the 5th time in dirty river water, despite the fact it was paining her head. In the energy Mama Marsha and MacKenzie put into reciting the Peanut butter jelly song for the 100th time. The fact Adam never complained when asked to give a kid a piggy back despite the fact he’d been hammering cement all day and was totally exhausted… and so the list of little acts of kindness unravels.

In short what I´m trying to say is that we really should never ever tire of doing good works ´cause God really is blessing what you´re doing. (I know there is a verse somewhere but it must have been one I forgot to highlight at camp because I can´t find it!). You may be like Luis thinking that what you have done for someone else is nothing but to them it can mean everything. I know that for the boys living in Girasoles homes here in Peru and for me that sometimes it´s the smallest acts of kindest that make the biggest difference.


Love you all Erica xxx
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