Its been too long since I have written, there really is so much to catch up on. BUT I wanted to share one of the humbling things I am learning still….

“Poverty is dressed up pretty in the brick and mortar here, maybe not as ugly as the shanty towns out there.”



One of my good friends and a leader for Capernaum in Lima made this comment to me. Poverty does not strike me the same way it used to. When I pull into a neighborhood in the hills on the outskirts of Lima, it does not have the same effect it once did. I am comfortable there. It seems normal to me to have the huge hose pulled from house to house to fill trash cans with water for daily use, to see kids sitting and playing on a sand floor, to be offered a brick to sit on instead of a chair. I am aware that the little electricity they have is shared between neighbors and whoever has a TV has all the neighbors over. The soup kitchens called “comedors” where kids bring their own plate, are served a meal and head home seem as common as the lunch room when I was in school. Perhaps its horrible that I am so comfortable with this, perhaps its good. All I know is that this is the reality of many people whom I deeply love and respect. It is their life and knowing them and meeting them there is an honor…..



Now, I live in the north of Lima, in Callao on the border of San Martín de Porres. I will admit its not the fancy part, often one will go through 5 taxis before they find one willing to come out here past 8pm. BUT, the little neighborhood where I live I love! Its “gated” (you all would laugh if you saw my “gated community”) and a little safer inside that a couple of blocks away. Where I lived for the first year, about 12 blocks from here is not quite as safe, but feels like home to me too. Everyone has real houses with cement and brick… From the outside, most are painted some color. All have electricity at least for a light bulb, some have phones and even internet. But, my friend was explaining something to me that is hard to comprehend… those are masks. The houses are masks. Over the years families have put everything they have into building a home for the next generation and continue building up story by story for the generations to each have a “home.” So a house looks like stability, but its not. All too often many of these people, and many of my friends do not even have 1 sol (about $0.35) to buy bread for their family or take the bus across town to work. I think I forget this.



Our Capernaum team for the most part comes from these homes, this community, and this humility. I would not have it any other way as these people are my close friends, my family here in Peru and incredible servants with talents and gifts that blow my mind. However, poverty is dressed up well in their lives and the mask only comes down once in a while… sometimes leaving me with my foot in my mouth and embarrassed. We joined a large group of our students at a zoo outside of Lima for the day a couple of weeks ago to be extra hands and help for the school and to have some good time getting to know kids and parents. The cost of entrance to the zoo was a special price 5 soles… about $1.78. Think the Monterey Aquarium in prestige. Nice place. Super cheap. So, I asked the team to each cover the entrance and if they each put in 5 soles for gas for the van and we would be covered. I made lunch and brought for my team.

Little did I know that the 5 soles for park entrance was no small thing. I am still learning how families work here. If a young person works and lives at home, his/her salary goes to the family. They can ask for money when they need it to buy food (not like a coke or starbucks, more like a piece of bread) or for their bus fare to and from school. Ministry and volunteering is not seen well by parents who just want to see their kids get ahead.. its seen as a waste of time and resources, as a thing from their teen years to be let go. So, the fact that the team had gotten together 5 soles for a purely “fun” event as seen by parents was no small thing.

But here comes the gringa… asking for their 5 soles to cover part of the gas. I have been encouraged by board members and friends here to be sure to charge people their part. “DO NOT let them get accustomed to you paying for everything” I hear constantly. Don’t let them take advantage of you comes the warning. The van is a whole ordeal as I have been warned to make ministry pay their 1 sol/kilometer. So, I did as I was asked and later my friend explained to me how harsh my request was. His family was all out of money. Nothing to eat that day. 5 soles could feed them at least bread and milk for a day. Another leader was in a very similar situation as she looks for work to maintain her aging grandparents and schizophrenic mother. I am left feeling like an idiot and wondering once again how to balance this, how to make them responsible, teach interdependence and not dependence but also to be merciful and care for my friends, help with the resources entrusted to me.



I am not done learning about this culture… what I lack in knowledge seems greater each day. I am grateful for gracious friends and teachers, but, man, this can be hard!

It leaves me wanting to see…. what is it that is hidden behind the brick and mortar of other homes, behind careers and success in other, behind smiles and laughter in others, what is hidden in me... It leaves me longing for heaven where we will all be what we were made to be and where the pain and need will be gone as we are sustained and satisfied by our Heavenly Father!

So, I am reminded "blessed are the poor in spirit, for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them." And I just wonder what the homes of these will look like in heaven for my friends who have struggles through homes like these...

Capernaum... Need I Say More??

There is so much to tell of life’s happenings over the last several weeks

I finished classes in Pasadena & came home to cold, cloudy, dark Lima with people I love waiting for me at the airport!

Camp was canceled because of government alerts for swine flu… but the 2 people coming for work crew came anyway, so Christian and I hung out with Jason and Nicole, showing them ministry and just sharing life. A hidden blessing & time for ministering to this sweet Arizona couple!

My friend Alex arrived… here for 6 weeks from Fresno Alex works with orphanage redevelopment and organization, has a master’s degree in Child Development and Applied Psychology and has begun with my Swiss friend’s refuges here in Lima. Alex has spent time at a few & now we’re putting on a workshop/retreat for staff this week. The idea is to give them more tools & encourage their hearts. Alex’s presence has been life-giving, encouraging, and we work really well together!

I spent 2 weeks in the Dominican Republic where leaders from 15 countries came together for an intensive training for Area and National Directors. I got to serve, translate, teach, build relationships & check in with our Dominican Capernaum team. Lots of work, wonderful new relationships, sweet times with old friends, and much to follow up on!

A few days after arriving home from the DR, I picked up a friend named Jamie from the airport… she looks like she could be my sister… and she is… in Christ. Jamie is a Capernaum intern in Washington state and came last summer to serve. She came back to learn, relate, and be with Peruvian friends with the same heart.

The day after Jamie arrived, Alex and Jamie and I crowded into my guest room bunk beds while Ashley Maddox, a videographer from Young Life came to film for a Latin America video they are preparing. He has incredible talent, a great personality, & was a lot of fun to be with. Check out his blog… http://wampictures.blogspot.com/

Ashley leaves tonight, Jamie on Wednesday, then Jose, another friend flies in for a week. Christian will be leaving to translate with the medical mission team we work with and life is supposed to settle down a little. I find myself spending time with leaders, our national director, Alberto, and checking in with new countries interested in Capernaum. I have some meetings with business people in the community wanting to know more about Capernaum this next week and am preparing for a conference Peru is hosting in October for fundraising with Young Life staff coming from 5 other countries.

In the meantime, I am falling more in love. Christian and I travel a lot separately so time together is sweet and something we treasure. Please pray for FAVOR as he is applying for a visa to make a visit to the USA! It will be a miracle if he is granted a visitor’s visa, but something we feel is needed at this point in our relationship. We want to spend Christmas with the California Morrow clan!

Lastly… some of you will recognize Doris’ face. She was one of our Capernaun kids years back when we began. She is 17 and when her orphanage moved, she was taken out of the school where we did Capernaum. She lived with Vilma, the woman I have talked and shown pictures of here… 10 days ago Doris ran away. Vilma has done all she knows to do, but it was planned, intentional, and I don’t think Doris will be back. She is VERY high functioning and was in regular education, had tasted the world with parties and a boyfriend and wanted it all. Vilma’s home was probably not the right place for her… but the streets or falling into the hands of some sick man won’t be either. Please pray for her safety. Doris has lived with so much pain… mom threw her in a fire before committing suicide years ago… she bears the burn scars on her face and lost an arm, but her scars that are unseen are deeper!

I LOVE CALIFORNIA! I am a California girl and coming back always causes me to question again “WHY DO I LIVE IN PERU?” I have been in the USA for 1 week now and had a few sweet days with family laughing, remembering, cooking, playing, walking and gazing at beauty. We stayed at a Vineyard in the Santa Inez Valley near Santa Barbara. The weather was incredible, the company awesome, we enjoyed different wines every day and played together… board games, riding ATVs through the hills, campfires at an awesome lookout point. I got to spend time with my nieces and really begin getting to know Kennedy who is now 10 months old! Pete and I stayed up late at night talking about life and laughing. My dad took a fall and was a trooper through the pain of a facial fracture (sounds cooler to say he broke his face) and stuck it out. Mom was mom…. incredible, steady, sure, serving and loving each of us so well. Because of papa’s accident we ended our vacation time early and I got a surprise 48 hours in Fresno. I LOVE Fresno. I love the unique community of people God has placed there and their love for God’s Kingdom and the world. I saw a lot of people for brief and unplanned visits and as I sit on the bus on my way to Pasadena I once again am aware of how rich I am. What precious community, fellowship, and unique expressions of the body of Christ.

As I look around at the vineyards, the grapevine and its desolateness, and head to Pasadena, I once again feel like my eyes cannot possibly drink in all the beauty I have missed, Blue skies, green, flowers, hills, mountains, and clean air are not what I see on a daily basis at home in Lima. While summer graces us with sunshine and bluish skies, the pollution and over population of Lima will never compete with the beauty of this state that was home to me for 28 years. I am so grateful for smog laws and environmental protection today.

And yet, I am still calling Lima home. Did you notice? I have, I am homesick for Lima while being delighted to be here…. While all the jokes about missing my boyfriend and leaving my heart with Christian in Peru have truth, its more than that, God has woven deep into the tapestry of my heart a love for Peru, but more than that, for my community there, I DO love the culture, but its more than that. I love the team I work with, I love watching them grow, listening to them share the gospel for the first time with kids with disabilities, seeing them get excited as God answers prayers and seeing His transform our lives. I love my family there… Monica, Luis, Sofia, Raquel and Christian have become my family. I feel centered when I spend time with them, I know I belong to the Lord and that we belong to each other. I love the adventure of seeing the ministry grow like never before and the calls we are getting regularly as people who are passionate about teens ask Young Life Algo Nuevo Peru to teach them how to more effectively share the gospel with teens, I love the adventure of driving in the city, of buses and taxis and the chaos.

You know you’ve been gone for too long when

You mutter “permiso” or “perdon” anytime you brush against someone

You forget that car seats and seatbelts are not optional

You feel like its just wrong to flush your toilet paper

You have the urge to tuck cell phones or money into your clothes and leave purses and bags at home when walking any distance at all

You have a hard time laying off of the horn while driving (not an angry or aggressive honking, just conversing with other drivers and cars).

You miss the ritual of boiling water multiple times/day

Warm showers burn you… lukewarm is what I now call a hot shower.

You take a look at all the great food offered in California and say “I want some ceviche or caldo de pollo”

Your niece asks if you will ever live in Fresno again….

While I do not have an answer, I know I am blessed, content and thankful to be where I am. I remember reading something about a missionary who is happiest in the air when between homes… I feel like that. When I am in Peru I miss my friends and family and beautiful state of California. When in the USA, my heart longs for what has become my home and family in Peru. So, I remind myself that this world is not my home. I cannot even imagine a place more beautiful than Califiornia, but am promised that my citizenship is there…. and unlike the laws for US Citizenship, I intend to invite everyone I know into this Kingdom that God is establishing… and THAT is why I return to Lima. That is why another country has become my home… so that others may know our ultimate home!

Psalm 121

A friend emailed me what she "heard" from the Lord as she prayed for Raquel.  What a gift it is when we listen to the Lord on each other's behalf.  I was blessed.

A Mother's Heart

I have been thinking a lot about mothers and mothering. Mother’s Day is an even bigger deal here in Peru (and throughout Latin America) than it is in the US. They have commercialized it to the max. Every stoplight I sit at I am bombarded with ambulant vendors poking plastic red roses, gaudy gold and red cards, balloons and cheap chocolate at me. Fresh flowers are on every corner too and much prettier. Schools close streets to have ceremonies and festivals. The gym that I go to looked like a junior high school valentine’s day dance with red heart shaped balloons all over. Young Life even has a mother’s day club. Grocery stores were a nightmare last night. Apart from the commercialism, mothers truly are valued in this country and perhaps we have something to learn from them.

Its been a rough 5 weeks for me. I think that I have underestimated the reality of a grieving process and our farewell to Raquel. So while my eyes have often been a leaky faucet, this month they have been more of a fountain. Friday morning the Capernaum team and I joined the special education school we work with for their Mother’s Day celebration. It was a 3 hour long celebration. Mothers sat in seats of honor, receiving flowers, watching dances, listening to poems while kids sat behind them, some participating more than others. I sat with a group of kids- in fact 32- adolescent boys with severe disabilities. These are the boys of the San Cristobal home and they are some of the boys for whom my heart breaks. Mauri is one of the stories I have shared and his story is only one of the many tragic stories. These are young men who have been totally abandoned… some with disabilities since birth and others with disabilities caused more recently by accidents or abuse. Unfortunately, the Peruvian governments’ system to care for these kids is not much better that their families at times and the home they have been in has been closed and they are being moved next week 2 hours outside of Lima. The school is in crisis looking for students to replace 40% of their student population, but more than that, we are all so sad to see these guys lose their stability, family, and the love of the house director. As I sat with them, I had 5 or 6 of them all over me. One young man with Down Syndrome who is blind stroked my hair from behind, another sat on the floor at my feet leaning against me. JohnFranco help my hand and touched my face, smelled my skin and leaned on my shoulder. My sweet Mauri is still learning to accept human touch and sat close and let me put my arm around him. Another one (bigger than me) plopped himself down on my lap which did not go over too well with me or the other boys who got pushed out of the way. It was one of those sacred privileges to be with them. While my heart aches for Raquel and broke every time one of the staff from the school asked me where my “hija” was and offered me a flower, a card, the mom seat, I was reminded that I still have a mother’s heart for the motherless.

I wept for these kids who have no mom, who get no tender touches and whose lives have lacked the detail a mom brings… cleaning their ears, straightening their clothes, a tender kiss on the forehead, a kind word... or helping them learn basic hygiene. They are loved at the school but there are so many and so little time. I know there is very little I can do, but I have to believe that my tears were lent to me by their Heavenly Father to allow me to share in His pain for them, in their pain and loneliness. My tears are also prayers for their lives as are the pats, the hand holding, the gentle back rub. As Christian and I talked (Christian talked, I cried) later, he said something that I think is very true and that comforted my heart on this Mother’s Day. He said, “Christen you are a mom. You don’t have to give birth to be a mom. You are a mother at heart.” If you’ve known me since I was 2, you will laugh because you saw me carry my dolls around like I was nursing, changing diapers and clothes before sleeping and bringing them wherever I went... It is true though and I am thankful. Sometimes my heart swells with a love that I cannot explain except to say that it is God’s love in a mother’s heart.

And then of course I think of my mom… the most incredible woman I know. She is quiet, humble, flies under the radar and most people do not notice her unless they know her. My mom. She is the most integrous woman I have ever met. In 29 years of life I have yet to hear her tell a lie, not even a “white lie.” Gossip does not cross my mother’s lips and she is quick to remind me when my words could become gossip or hurtful. My mom who goes to great length to serve us, friends, and people who are practically strangers. I have watched her make baby clothes and blankets for young students who were expecting a baby, clean out houses for people forced to move at the last minute, drop everything to baby sit, cook for, care for, sit with, shop for people in need so many times. I have watched my mom and learned how to love children, to discipline, to calm and to soothe. So, if I have a mother’s heart, its because God have me a mother who has nurtured and taught me the art of mothering, and I count it an incredible privilege to be a stand in mom to the motherless and to cry tears for the pain of kids who no one has ever cried for or prayed for. I am truly blessed!

More pics of sweet kids....

Our Capernaum team here is a family.  We just love each other.  Yesterday our prayer meeting at 6:30am ended at 9am. It became a sweet time of praying for one another and listening to the Lord for each other.  I am thankful.

I am excited about the training we have begun as well as they wanted in depth training on disability... they all have 3 page case studies on a student due in 2 weeks!  They thought I was joking at first.

The best part of this team... you can see it in the pictures from last week's club meeting.  Weather in sill skits, gentle touches and presence, or the actual sharing of the gospel verbally, this team oozes with Jesus love and I am thankful!