Cuy, or guinea pig, is the national dish of Peru and is eaten during important festivals, served crispy and complete with head, legs, and eyes. It's estimated that Peruvians consume around 65 million cuyes every year.
Peru is home to the pygmy marmoset, the smallest monkey in the world. The average adult body weight of a pygmy marmoset is just over 100 grams (3.5 oz), and they can rotate their heads 180 degrees.
Peru has the highest sand dune in the world, Cerro Blanco, located in the Sechura Desert in the south of Peru. It measures 3,860 feet from the base to the summit.
The Andes Mountains, home to our Friends of Peru ministry site, are the second-highest mountain range in the world, after the Himalayas. Mt. Huarascán is the highest point in Peru at 22,204 feet.
God is Working in Lima!
Please pray for...
Soft hearts and healing in the families of the children
Our staff as they create a culture that reflects God’s Kingdom
Healing for the children’s deep pain
Continued protection and health, knowing that while the threat of COVID-19 will eventually retreat, recovery from its impact will be more long term
Prayer requests updated 6/2020
Juniper Tree Children´s Home is located in Pachacamac, on the southern outskirts of Lima. Here we are dedicated to rescuing orphaned, abused, or abandoned children and placing them in loving, family-style homes. Consistent with our organizational commitment to provide holistic care, we seek to meet their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs while giving them tools to begin healing from the trauma they’ve experienced.
Our hope is that some of these children will be able to reunite with parents or other relatives when it is safe and wise to do so, restoring the family unit. The Families Together team provides training, support, resources, and oversight to families as they reintegrate.
We rejoiced as we recently reintegrated three children to their biological families. A new initiative was implemented for eight of our young adults, designed to give them a smooth transition into independent life by connecting them to families in the community. And we launched a visitor day project, where family members of children at Juniper Tree home can come and share a meal with us and receive training to facilitate future reunification.
As we look ahead, we hope to identify a relative or mentor for every child in our home as part of our Families Together initiatives. And we plan to continue developing ways of helping young adults gain independence through skills training or higher education. God is in the business of redeeming and restoring, and we are committed to being part of that work.
Our campus houses orphaned and abandoned children in family-style homes with loving, attentive house parents. In most cases, the kids have been through difficult and painful circumstances before coming to us, and we count it a privilege to give them a safe place to live and recover from their traumatic pasts.
Greetings in the name of Jesus from the ministries of Kids Alive Peru!
It’s been my joy in this first year of my new role as Country Director to catch amazing glimpses of all that God is doing through and because of your support. Your partnership and your gifts are helping to plant hope in the lives of at-risk children, and we rejoice that this is not simply a hope for escaping poverty or abuse – you are planting the living hope (1 Pet. 1:3) in their lives that means an eternity with the One who loves them!
In the past year, God has laid it on our hearts to be more fully involved in protecting children from the kinds of abuse that are often accepted, or at least overlooked, in Peru. We are accomplishing our goals by a combination of careful training of our staff, collaboration with other ministries who share our vision and will help us increase our impact, and working with local churches to reach out to their communities with the life-giving message that children are precious.
But swimming against an entrenched culture of silence and indifference can be hazardous, and our staff and others have experienced threats, isolation and loss of relationships because of their commitment. Choosing to follow Christ and to commit to life in a kingdom-centered culture often puts us at odds with the surrounding community. Please pray that we will stand strong for children even in the face of this adversity.
Peruvian authorities are increasingly determined to reintegrate children into their biological families, a welcome and much-needed effort. We are on board! But without the costly and time-consuming investigations that determine whether and when the family is a safe and healthy place for the child, we risk multiplying the trauma that fractured the family in the first place.
We are meeting this challenge through the formation of therapeutic teams of psychologists and social workers (and in some cases, attorneys), who will do the necessary work to ensure healthy transitions for our residential kids. We are also coming alongside families to strengthen relationships and parenting skills so that reintegrated children can grow up in healthy environments.
In all our ministries, whether in the city, the jungle, or the mountains, we remain dedicated to planting living hope for children who, without your compassion, have little earthly or eternal hope for the future. Thank you for partnering with us in this great task!
Dan Anderson
Country Director
Peru