Well our adventure is coming to a close as we leave tomorrow from Mexico City back to Minneapolis. It has been an amazing adventure and the prayers have truly been felt as we’ve taken this trip back to the States. We’ve heard so many horror stories of things gone array from other travelers and we just thank God, and continue to give Him all the glory, as we have not had any problems. The Lord has truly protected us on this journey back.

We have met so many great people on the way back and have had plenty of open doors to share our faith and the Gospel of Christ. It has been great talking with different people about our goals and how God has worked, and continues to work, in our lives. We hope that our actions have served as an example and pray that the Lord has used, and continues to use, the conversations and encounters that we have had along the way. 

Tomorrow morning we leave from our hostel at around 3:30 to catch our flight out of Mexico City at 6:25 AM. We have two connections along the way, one in Dallas, TX and one in Chicago, IL. We arrive into snowy MN at 4:35 PM and are looking forward to seeing different family members who are meeting us at the airport. We will be spending the weekend in Minneapolis, going to the AFLBS Christmas concert Saturday night so we hope to meet up and talk with many people there. We are fortunate that both of us get to spend Christmas with family and look forward to the coming weeks when we will be celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Thank you all once again for your continued prayers and support, not only on this trip but also during our time in Brazil. We honestly couldn’t have been as effective without your prayers and we thank the Lord for the blessings that He provided. God bless all of you and your families as we celebrate the Christmas Season. Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!

In Christ,

Jon Nelson and Nathan Olson

Dear friends and family!

Our time in Mexico City has been going great and we have been VERY busy. It’s hard to think the time is flying by so fast as tomorrow is already our last day here and then we will be heading back to the States on Thursday. Here’s kind of a sneak peak at what we’ve been up to the last couple of days.

Sunday: We left at about 9am with a group of people to head out on a day long tour to visit a collage of different locations. Our first stop was the “Plaza of Three Cultures”. Here is represented the three cultures as you are able to see one of the pyramids built by the Aztecs, a Catholic Church in the background that they Spanish built by destroying the pyramid and using it’s rocks to build the church, and then the residential apartments that surround both structures that were built in the 1960’s. Heading out from there we went to visit the Church of the Lady of Guadelupe, the second most visited church in the world, following the Vatican. It was quite an impressive structure, built where an Indian claimed to have visions of Mother Mary. While great and enormous, it was a little hard to see the amount of sales that were going on in and around the church while there were so many people that were in need support right outside the main building.

In the afternoon we went to visit the Pyramids that are near Mexico City, which existed from the people group living there from 200 BC to 700 AD. We are both constantly amazed at how much work is still to be done on various excavation sites that we visit as this one was only 20% excavated and what was there was quite impressive. We were able to see both the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, and then many different smaller pyramids surrounding this illustrious Indian Empire as the Indian culture was polytheistic. One interesting fact that we were also able to take in about this culture was that even though they lived in an earlier time, they were already at the point of discovering concrete. Most of their buildings were made with this substance they called “Stucco” and were quite impressive architecturally all around. These Indians, along with the Aztecs that came later after them, were one of the only Indian groups to practice human sacrifice as well.

Monday: We spent the day walking mostly around the historic center of the city and doing some exploring and running some errands. There were a couple of things that we were looking for, so we decided to just walk around the city as much as possible looking for them and exploring in the meanwhile. We were also able to take an amazing tour to the top of the main Cathedral off of the historical center and climb up to the bell towers (35 bells total, most weighing 6-7 tons). We were able to walk up on top of the domes and on the rooftops/balconies of the Cathedral and the whole experience was really quite remarkable and impressive. The city also has a large Christmas Wonderland that is in the center of the historic center plaza that we were able to go to and enjoy (snowmobiling & tubing on artificial snow, ice skating, ice sculptures, etc. are all present at the downtown center). The previous evening, there had even been a large firework show to kick it off as the first night of the Christmas Wonderland, so that has brought a sense of readiness for Christmas into our minds as well!

Tuesday: We left in the morning on a city bus tour that would take us around the major part of Mexico City. The city bus tour was cheap and affordable, allowed us to get off and on at any of the main locations that we wanted to without paying extra, and granted us the privilege to see much of the largest city in the world (30 million people). Passing by quite a few parks, museums, monuments, and getting to stop at an enormous free zoo were all highlights (the zoo had everything from lions, tigers, rhinos, pandas, jaguars, etc.) Getting back to our hostel we went out for a walk on the town and got to see a different side of town then we had been to before with Mexican serenades and some good authentic Mexican food (Jon got and taco and Nathan got Mexican corn on a stick)

All in all, the past couple of days have been fantastic and we are looking forward to our final day tomorrow and also being reunited once again with all of you! Blessings in Jesus!

Nathan & Jon

Hello to all!

We have had a very eventful trip from Guatemala City to Mexico City that is for sure. It all started with Friday morning, December 3rd as we were looking to pull out some money from the bank, as we were going to need it for travelling and were completely out of cash. Fortunately there was a ATM at the gas station across the street and so we weren’t to worried about getting money out before our bus was scheduled to leave at 11:30am.

So at around 10:30am, Nathan left to go and pull out some money from the ATM across the street and left Jon to watch the baggage and check out of our hostel. To his untermost surprise, when Nathan tried to pull money out of the ATM, the only thing it would give him as an option to pull out was the Guatemalan currency, where most ATM’s usually let us pull out US Dollars as well, which was what we were hoping for in order to make the purchases we needed to in Mexico…Guatemalan currency wouldn’t do us much good there. In a short state of panic, Nathan asked the men at the counter where another ATM was and they said that the only other one was 3 blocks down the road.

Bolting out of the gas station, Nathan ran the 3 blocks down to the other ATM, and to his dismay, found that it also, wouldn’t give out US Dollars. These dollars were a necessity as we needed them to purchase our tickets from the Mexican border to Mexico City and using credit card isn’t an option. However, now, with only 45 minutes until the bus was about to leave, we were facing the fact that getting those dollars was going to be a tough reality. Going to the counter of the place that had the ATM, Nathan asked if there was a local bank nearby and was pointed off in another direction, started to run quickly to see if he could do a currency exchange with the bank. Getting there, they said they would be able to trade currency for Nathan, no problem, (which was a good sign as we had done the same the day before at another bank), and so Nathan ran back to the ATM and pulled out 2000 Guatemalan dollars and ran back to the bank to make a switch for about $250 USD….however, the man at the counter just stared at him confused. “Sir”, the man replied, “you need to have an account with us to trade the money”…..ouch. Here Nathan was, sitting in the bank, with a handful of money Guatemalan currency that in 30 minutes would absolutely useless, a bus that left in 30 minutes, and no US Dollars for the trip.

Thanks fortunately to God’s wonderful provision, Nathan was able to get directions from an old lady that pointed him to another bank about 18 blocks away and so stopping back at the bus station quick to talk with Jon, Nathan grabbed a taxi and raced off for the other bank, waited in line for 20 minutes, and finally was able to trade out the money for US Dollars…and make it back for the bus!

Getting onto the non-airconditioned bus, we continued on our way to Tapachula, Mexico, where we were hoping to spend the night and then continue on our way to Mexico City the next day. Along the way, the border crossing went very smoothly, and God answered yet another prayer for us and allowed us not to pay the migration tax for Mexico of $262 per person as we were only going to be in Mexico for less than a week. Thus, continuing on our way, we arrived in Tapachula at around 7pm…where we were originally hoping to spend the night.

What we have come to find, however, is that things never go according to plan, especially on the trip that we are taking, and as Jon went out to check to see if there was room in the nearby hostel, we found out there was “no room in the inn” so to speak, and that the hostel was full. So, after being on an already long bus, we decided to book the next bus out for Mexico City, and left 1 1/2 hours later at 8:30pm for Mexico City, with the conclusion that this was going to be our very last bus of the trip…but at about 4am when we were told to get off of our bus and onto another at some random location, we found this to have been a preconceived fallacy.

We further found this to be a wrong notion, when the bus that we had be told to get onto at 4am brought us to the city of Oaxaca, where everything was unlaoded and all of the passengers disembarked….the problem was that we were not intending on going to Oaxaca and wanted instead to be arriving in Mexico City as planned at about 2:30pm.  Again by God’s provision, there were 3 others that were facing the same problem and one lady out of those three that was continuing on to the same location as we were. With there help of better Spanish communication than our Portuguese is able to do, we were able to get everything figured out and were issued tickets to continue on the way to Mexico City, as the bus company apologized for the problem on their part.

5pm, we arrived here in Mexico City, to a great hostel (located right in the middle of the historical center of town), some great local food that we found on the street and nice beds to crash in after a total travel time of about 29 hours. We look at spending the next couple of days here and then fly out for the States on Thursday morning, 6:35am. Please continue to pray for us for safety in the city during our time here and thanks as well for your prayers as we have seen the hand of the Lord with us during our travels this far!

God bless!

Nathan and Jon

Good morning, Good morning!

Today we find ourselves waking up in Antigua, Guatamala and preparing to head back to the capital, Guatamala City. The last few days have been pretty much a haze of travelling, but we finally found a spare moment to throw on an update!

Leaving Costa Rica with Manual and Sonia, we continued on our way through Nicaragua, Hondurus, and El Salvador. We went through these three countries in one day and literally power cruising in our travels. As we begin going through some of these countries, it has been interesting to see some of the American influence beginning to take effect (international companies [ie. Mc Donald's, Pizza Hut, etc.], American Dollars as currency, and cost of good being more comparable). The country side of all of the countries has been a beautiful green with mountains and praires scattered along next to each other and all of the travelling surely has been a great time to relish on God’s creation.

One interesting adventure that we ended up having was when we pulled up to the border of El Salvador. Our bus pulled into this docking bay where the police officers were having dogs sniff the bags of the passengers that were kept underneath. After about 10 minutes of waiting, an officers and our bus driver came on board and asked for a “Olson, Nathan” and requested that he be escorted off of the bus for questioning. Nathan got off, was given his bag by a couple of officers, and was asked by the officer with a gun to follow him to his interrogation office.

“We know you are carrying and trafficing illegal drugs” the officer said as we entered into his office. Very surprised, Nathan’s first thought was, “oh great, i hope nobody is using my pack for smuggling anything”, as he obviously wasn’t carrying anything. Despite the very surprised glance, the officer wasn’t turned away in the least and demanded that Nathan empty his entire backpack (the large 50lb one) onto the desk, identifying everything as he went along. Hoping and praying that he wouldn’t have to unload EVERYTHING, (which would take a LONG TIME), Nathan started with his side pouches where he kept his dirty laundry, hoping that it would serve as a detterent for the officer to continue. Pulling each piece of laundry out, he began to identify it (Socks, underwear, shirts, etc.), however, this was to no avail, and the guard made him continue to empty everything, convinced that Nathan was an illegal drug trafficer. Despite his beliefs, Nathan finally got to the bottom of the bag, amidst many other questions along the way, only to find that the dog had been wrong and that he was “clean”.

Upon arriving into Guatemala, we ended up taking a taxi down to Antigua, Guatemala, where we were able to stay in the historical part of the city. Cobblestone roads, ruins from ancient monestaries, and Catholic Church builidings all served as a perk to this side of town. While there, we decided to take a ride to climb one of the 37 volcanoes that are in Guatemala, only 3 of which are active, including the one that we went to climb. Apparently, it has been forbidden to climb it for 6 years because of it’s activity, and has only recently reopened, which cautionary tape and warnings, as there has even been quite a few people that have died since it’s reopening.

Starting off of the climb, we began on freshly hardened lava rocks, as it had recently errupted only about 6 months ago and continued up toward the top, where we encountered some high intense winds, enough to blow around even a big guy like Nathan off his feet. Our guide continued not only from the first peak, but led us right toward the crater where the volcano had errupted and right past the cautionary tape to the warmer area of the volcano. What had once been a freezing wind, now began to turn into a warm gust as the wind was picking up the heat released by the lava. Continuing on our trek, we past by a lava pit, picked up some rocks that were still hot to use as natural hand warmers, and actually got to enter into the cave of the volcano, where the temperature gets up to 58 degrees Celcius! Needless the say, the cave felt like a extreme sauna and served as a nice pitstop.

Today we plan on heading back to Guatemala City, checking out some historical sites, and continuing on through to Mexico tommorrow, Friday, December 3rd. Please continue to pray for us as we travel, especially through Mexico as the danger in crossing is a very real danger. Praise the Lord for his protection this far and we continue to look for it as we press on!

Only Jesus,

Nathan and Jon

Hey there friends and family!

Our time in Panama turned out to be great as we had a fabulous time at the Panama Canal and learning about the history and operation of the administration of it. Although we were feeling a little sick after climbing the Cotopaxi Volcano and for Nathan with getting his face scraped up, it has been on the mend and we are both feeling considerably better. We also had a safe, yet long, travel to Costa Rica (16 hours), so we are also very thankful for your prayers as we continued along the way…the 5 hour border crossing from Panama to Costa Rica will, however, be an experience that both of us will remember for the rest of our lives.

Arriving into Costa Rica this last Friday, we were picked up at the bus station by a wonderful and cheeful couple: Manual and Sonia. Manual and Sonia are friends with Nathan’s grandma and so we were able to stay with them during our weekend in Costa Rica, and they really just opened our eyes to a new aspect of Costa Rica that we never would have been able to have otherwise.

We have been able to have authentic Costa Rican food with them (including rice and beans for breakfast, which was a treat for both of us after being away from Brazil for so long, go out for a Spanish Restaurant meal (as Costa Rica was inhabitted by the Spanish), visit the La Paz Waterfall gardens (that receive 14.5 feet of water per year, and see various creatures such as the jaguar, tree frogs, birds, monkeys, sloths, etc. along with the massive waterfalls there). Overall, this couple really took us into their home and showed us a great and sincere kindness while we were with them and it has been a great blessing to stay with them.

In all of our travels so far, we have really seen the Lord’s providence for us and His hand of protection as He has been meeting our daily needs. We now look to be heading through the most dangerous part of our trip (Nicaragua, Hondorus, El Salvador, Guatamala, Mexico) with reports that even the south part of Mexico has begun to be dangerous, so continued prayers would be appreciated and valued as we continue to travel into the unknown frontier. May the Lord receive the glory from our lives in whatever state He determines to place us in.

Only Jesus,

Nathan and Jon

Hello to all!

We now find ourselves in Panama City, home to the Panama Canal! Almost in every direction you look, it is possible to either see a skyscraper or a crane on the top of one being built. Very impressive growth taking place in this city. It is also very warm and to walk out from the security of a fan or Air Conditioner is a certain request for a sweat beaded face.

We officially got in yesterday, after 36 hours without sleep and a quick flight from Ecuador to Panama City (as we had decided to skip Columbia due to the danger in the country) and pulled into our hostel at around 12 noon. After getting a quick rest, we got our international bus tickets for our trip out tonight for San Jose, Costa Rica, where we will be leaving at approximately 11pm and arriving tommorrow at 2pm. (15 hours) For today, we are going to be boating down the Panama Canal and getting a little tour of this very large and hot city.

With today also being Thanksgiving, we just wanted to let you all know that we are very thankful for your support and prayers as we have been travelling along the way and also during our time in Brazil. Even though we have faced trials and struggles of various kinds, we have been encouraged and strengthened by your prayers as we go forward! May we also all continue to look to Jesus and the thankfulness that we have in looking to the salvation that He brings us!

Only Jesus,

Nathan and Jon

Greetings friends and family!

We have recently been traveling through the country of Ecuador and considered it a blessing to be able to connect up with Darwin and Kirsten Paccha, Luca Pillman, and the Berger family during our time down here. Last Friday, we pulled into Cuenca, where Darwin met us at the bus station for a long awaited weekend with them. We saw the Lord’s hand with us very clearly even in our short time being in Ecuador as when we had gotten out of the taxi, Nathan had taken his passport holder out of his bag to pay the taxi driver. Darwin had ended up paying for the taxi and Nathan had accidentally left the holder on the back seat of the taxi, thinking that he had put it back on before getting out of the car. The taxi driver had left us off near the market, and Darwin’s house was down the road just a little bit and then down the street to the right. Both of us, having 2 massive bags each, quickly grabbed our bags and proceeded to follow Darwin as he lead us to his house.

After arriving, we dropped our bags off in the main room and began to start talking and catching up with each other on some of the ways that the Lord had been working in our lives. About 25 minutes later, we get a doorbell ring and Darwin excused himself to go to the door….it was our taxi driver. He had seen the passport holder in the back seat of his car and had driven all the way back to return it, without even opening it (This contained money, credit cards, passport, etc.). We still have no idea how he found Darwin’s house as we had walked off of the road where he had dropped us off, but we are incredibly thankful to the Lord for His provision in bringing Nathan’s passport back as continuing along the trip without it would have been very difficult.

Throughout the rest of the time with Darwin and Kirsten, both of us were immensely blest as we were able to see the hand of the Lord amidst the ministry that they are apart of. Both of them are apart of mentoring different students, Darwin is doing a great job in leading both the youth and college age ministry at his church as well as preaching for the church on the pastoral rotation. Both Darwin and Kirsten are also teaching and working at the Bilingue, which is the Lutheran High School and Elementary School that is right next to the church. Darwin, looking at being ordained this coming Saturday, has a great heart for the people there and as the respect and love of all of those he is working with! Please continue to pray for the Paccha Family as they go forward in serving the Lord in the ministry in Ecuador.

Monday, after our time with the Paccha family, we traveled the 10 hours up to Quito, where we were going to be catching our plane up to Panama City. Tuesday, November 23, we woke up early in our hostel in Quito to go and climb Cotopaxi Volcano, the 2^nd highest active volcano in the world at 5897 meters high. As we started off driving to the volcano we past by quite a large number of farms and forests along the way. The day was a nice 70 degree day and as we drove past the farmers’ fields, many of them were full with the up and coming crops. However, as we neared the volcano Cotopaxi, we found that this volcano was snow capped and it was actually snowing up on top of the mountain as well (We found out later that this was the most snow the mountain had received in 10 years). Driving up to the refuge, we got out of car to a couple inches of snow already on the ground and a nice blanket of snow readily coming down upon us. It was into this very same blanket that we set off into, hoping and praying that our bodies would not be affected by the altitude as we would be nearing the “No Oxygen Zone”.

Setting off, we trudged uphill slowly, thoroughly unequipped and unprepared for the amount of snow that we were encountering as we has tennis shoes on and just a t-shirt with a hoodie for warmth. As we made our ascent, we began feeling the effects of the altitude immediately as climbing up at 15,000 feet was pretty drastically different than what we had been used to. However, after quite a long hike, we finally made it up to the main base, where we were thoroughly exhausted and very ready for something warm to eat/drink, or really almost anything for that matter. After a great lunch, we began our slippery and icy descent down the mountain. Unfortunately, the altitude had started affecting Nathan and he began to get a pretty bad headache and had to take it slow on the way down.

Upon getting down to the refuge, the organization that was with us provided mountain bikes that we could use to do some intense mountain biking down the face of this active volcano. Both of us got onto the bike and began our pursuit down the mountain. Unfortunately, many people use these bikes on a regular basis and the brakes are all but completely gone. While this allows for a faster ride down the intense mountain, it also allowed for a pretty intense wipeout for Nathan as he tried to brake on a turn and flipped over his bike to slide for 6 feet on face along the hard volcanic rock. Getting up, he found that he had a various other scrapes o n his body and has slit his knee, but the left side of his face was really busted up. Luckily, one of the people that we were traveling with was a doctor (with surgical experience) and was able to provide medical services for us as we had to catch an airplane and trying to get to a hospital would be pretty difficult with the timing. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any needle and thread to sew up the cut near Nathan’s eye, but she was able to take scrub out the dirt that had dug itself into the cuts and place some Polysporin on Nathan’s face. Upon working with him, she had said that in every other situation, a local antithetic would be applied as it is excruciatingly painful, but instead she told Nathan to simply grab the door handle and the sink as hard as he could and apologized for the pain that was about to be endured (Nathan will have to apply half a container of Polysporin to his face every day for the rest of our trip)

Upon getting back from the Cotopaxi volcano, we headed to the airport and crossed into security at about 3am in order to get on our 6am plane to Panama City (layover in Columbia). Please continue to pray for the Lord’s hand to go before us and His protection both in the small and in the bigger things.

Only Jesus,

Nathan and Jon

Dear family and friends, greetings from Trujilo! We pulled in here a couple days ago and have really been having a great time here. After leaving Nazca, we continued on to Lima (capital of Peru), where we stayed for a night and then continued on here to Trujilo where we have since been for two nights.

Our first day full day here (yesterday), we went our early to buy our bus tickets for heading up to Piura, which is on the way to Ecuador where we will be leaving to go to tonight. After securing our bus tickets, we left to head out to the Indian capital city of Chan Chan, which is a city near the Pacific Ocean that is completely built out of mud.

Upon seeking to get to the the museum, we began to look for modes of transportation. Taxi’s being too expensive, were obviously off of the list, thus when a packed mini van pulled up, with 19 passengers plunged inside, we decided that it was our perfect opportunity. Shortly after this very cozy ride, we pulled up to the Chan Chan museum right as it was opening. After a quick visit inside, we bought our passes for visiting the local areas and found out that in order to actually see anything, we would have to leave the museum area and walk a 1/2 mile down the road to the actual entrance.

Upon getting to the entrance, we found that the actual city was quite a ways down the road and so we decided that maybe our usually means of transportation (walking) maybe just wasn’t going to cut it this time. Therefore, we proceeded to get a travel guide that took us around to all of the sites in the area for a pretty reasonable price. We were able to visit a total of the Temple of the Dragon, Temple of the Emerald, and actually city of Chan Chan, which really put into perspective how big the civilization actually was! After getting to see the city, we later went down to Huanchaco, which is a city right on the edge of the ocean and proceeded to walk the shores and found a nice little place to eat along the way.

Today was a little different, and allowed us a chance to head out and do a little more exploring as we made it to Huaca de Sol e a Lua (Pyramid of the Sun and Moon). Upon arriving there, we were a little unimpressed, but as our guide took us up and into the Pyramid of the Moon, we were blown away by what we saw. Everything there has been preserved and conserved from the original and nothing has been reconstructed, so what you saw was what it was. They are also still in the process of excavating and have only excavated 50% of the Pyramid of the Moon and haven’t yet started on the Pyramid of the Sun. We walked past one room even that has been excavated in only the last year! Getting toward the top of the pyramid, you could look out and see the other one about 1 km away and in between was another excavation project where archeologists were currently uncovering a massive city (population 20,000) that had been buried by sand. There apparently are entire roads, houses, etc. that have been buried for the last thousands of years and the archeologists are just now beginning to uncover them. This made tour all the more exciting for Jon and I as we were able to see some of the archeology first hand, and realize that in only 5 years, the tour through the pyramids could be drastically different. There are certainly many parts of our world that are yet to be explored!  

This afternoon we are mostly just hanging around and packing up as we gear for heading to Ecuador in just a few days to see our friends there. We will be driving 7 hours to Piura and then about another 9 to Loja. Please continue to pray for us as we travel and that God will keep us safe along the way! God bless!

Nathan and Jon

Hello everyone!

We now find ourselves in Lima, Peru after a couple of long bus trips from Cusco to Nazca and from Nasca to here. In just about 1 hour we will be continuing along our way up to Trujilo, Peru where we will be staying for 2 nights before heading on to Ecuador. Even though at this point in our trip we are going to be moving quite frequently, we would like to enlighten you regarding one of our trips in particular, which was the 15 hour bus ride from Cusco to Nazca.

We had woken up that morning after coming back late the night before from climbing Machu Picchu. We were both still a little sore but excited to keep going and continue along the way to our next destination: Nazca. We got the bus station in the early afternoon and left on our bus at around 1:30pm. One thing that we didn´t know however, about this trip is that the roads would be winding back and forth, at a very continuous rate, which in effect makes the stomach also move back and forth at a very continuous rate. With this in effect, Nathan spent about 2 hours in the bathroom praying that we would make it back on a straight road for at least 5 minutes out of the trip.

Finally making it to Nazca, we pulled in at about 5am after spending most of the night bus awake with a person right behind us that was snoring. Getting into the bus station, we decided to let down our packs and take a quick 1 or 2 hour nap before heading out onto the streets. Originally, we had intended to look into getting a flight to go over the Nazca lines while we were there, but with a lot of reports of people dying on planes that had gone down over only the past 3 weeks, we decided to try a different adventurous option: Sand boarding.

We had seen sandboarding done before when we were travelling to some of the costal cities in Brazil and were thinkging that it would be pretty comparative so we decided to save a little money and our safety and go that road instead. Heading out early, we got to the foot of a mountain in the Andes at about 8am. Looking around, all we could see for miles and miles were mountains and deserts. There was no sign of civilization except for the two of us, and our guide (the car the dropped us off left and said he would meet us in about 5 or 6 hours) It was at this point that the both of us were really starting to rethink this decision that we had made as we looked around and realized that there weren´t any sand dunes around except one really massive one in the distance. When asking our guide where we were going (our spanish speaking guide), he just pointed to the sand dune in the distance and said: there.

So we set off…1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours….through this desert and mountainous wasteland before finally reaching it to the top of that sand dune. Since we had thought the experience would be a little different than it was, we were very unprepared as we only had one orange to eat as we wandered through this hot and barren desert. When we reached the top, we looked at each other, and realized that we were going to need to descend as fast as possible: sunburnt, chapped lips, hungry, thirsty, and shoes full of sand. As we strapped into our boards, we proceeded to try to go down this massive cliffs of sand and get into this new experience. After making it down a couple runs and faceplanting on some others, we found ourselves at the bottom about 20 minutes later just caked with sand in almost every part of our body.

From there, we continued to walk the 40 minutes back to the road from where we had decended and where our driver was supposed to pick us up. We got back to the bus station we little time left before it´s departure and just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat, a gatorade (for electrolites), and dump the mounds of sand out of our pockets before getting on the bus to Lima….lets just say that the shower and nice bed were a good treat after the 7 hour bus ride.

Thus, we press on! Please continue to pray for us as we have been averaging about 6 hours of hiking per day (sometimes intentional and sometimes not). Pray that our legs hold up and that we are able to have the energy to press on. The Lord certainly has blest us in many ways along the trip so far, and we look forward to how the Lord will continue to walk before us and show His faithfulness as we carry on.

Only Jesus,

Nathan and Jon

So we hiked Machu Picchu! We started off on part of the Inca Trail with our guide on Thursday morning! By the first stop our guide went very in depth on the information and we ended up in the back of the line. Along the way, we didn´t stop much more and passed all four of the other groups that had gotten off of our train and then another group that was on the train before us. Our guide was rather shocked and made several comments of how pleased he was at how in shape we were. We made it to the checkpoint much ahead of schedule and were able to stop for a long lunch. The views were very, very amazing along the way! We made it to the Sungate enterance over an hour a head of schedule so we had some extra time to look around the city of Machu Picchu. Walking around the corner entering the sungate and seeing the lost city was one of the most amazing things I have seen and felt like such an awesome accomplishment. Over two days, both Nate and I took about 4 gbs of pictures and videos so if anyone is interested in this section of our trip or going to Machu Picchu be sure to get a hold of us and we´ll help in anyway that we can!

After taking a quick tour around the city we opted to hike down the mountain into the city of  Aguas Calientes since we wanted to see how difficult it would be to climb up it the next morning. Needless to say we opted to take the bus both up and down the next day. We made it all the way down in 35 minutes and our guide made a comment that he couldn´t believe we kept up so well. I then asked if he was trying to lose us which he laughed and said he just wanted to see if we could keep up. He did stop several times along the way to make sure we didn´t twist an ankle or anything but at the end of the mountain he said his time, dependent on the weather, was between 25 t0 30 minutes. We hiked into the town then which took about an extra 30 minutes and when we got to the restauraunt we were both very much so feeling the 17 km up and down the Inca trail and Machu Picchu mountain that we had done. We had a great dinner and then went off to our hostel for a short nights sleep.

I say short night because we were up at 3:30 in the morning to make sure that we had a spot to hike Wayna Picchu. They only allow 400 people a day to hike up the mountain so to pretty much guarantee a spot you have to be in line by 4:00 am. We were there at 3:50 and were the first in line but by 4:30 there was well over 100 people waiting. We made it up on the first bus, got the stamp to hike Wayna Picchu and then started on our Machu Picchu tour. It was amazing to see the different things that the people did and how they built, it truly is a mystery how they were able to do it all. We finished with the city tour and began to climp Wayna Picchu not long after that. This was one of the most difficult climbs I had ever done. It was taking the original Inca trail all the way to the top and the trail is almost like climbing up a ladder the whole way. It was difficult but when you reach the top you realize how worth it it really was. On the way down we met a couple of guys named Jon and Rob that we hung out with for pretty much the remainder of the afternoon. They didn´t get a tour guide so we walked around with them kind of explaining the different things that our guide had told us. It was an awesome opporunity to be able to talk with them and, as typically happens, the Lord opened doors for an excellent conversation about our lives and what Christ has done for us and what they think about religion. It was a great opportunity that we are praising the Lord for!

After trekking around for a little while longer we headed back into Aguas Calientes to catch our long 4 hour train back to Cusco. After an approximate 20 miles of hiking in two days we were both very exhausted. I really didn´t feel like talking to anyone by that point but the Lord gave another opportunity to talk with a family about what we were doing in Brazil and how the Lord has really used the time in our lives. It was a great opportunity to hear what they thought about missions and what we had done as well as hear their perspective on Christ. In both instances with Jon and Rob and with the family you could see that they were really thinking about what we said from the questions that they were asking. We pray that the Lord continues to work in all of their lives and that they will come to know Him as their personal Lord and Savior.

Well that´s it for now, we´re back in Cusco leaving on the bus today for the city of Nazca. We thank you for all of your prayers and look forward to updating you all again soon!

Jon and Nathan