WHERE YOU INVEST YOUR LOVE , you invest your life.

Meet our Live Simply Interns Rachel and Becca                 

Rachel Lenzsch

     This May I will be graduating from Texas A&M University as an Allied Health major with the goal of pursuing a career in Occupational Therapy. While at A&M I have dedicated my time to a ministry called Young Life Capernaum, where our goal is to share the Gospel with high school students with disabilities. Capernaum has given me the opportunity to pursue real and meaningful friendships with these high school students that will last me a lifetime. I have served for four summers now at a camp called Camp Blessing Texas, which is a Christian camp for kids and adults with special needs. Camp Blessing is where I decided I wanted to commit my life to Jesus and discovered my passion for people with disabilities to know and experience the Lord. Volunteering as an intern for Live Simply for Peru, my desire is to share the love of Christ through serving the children and mothers within the community. I want nothing more than for every person, disability or not, to know that they are loved, cherished, and completely covered by God’s Grace. 

Becca Ryan

     After volunteering at a Christian camp for children and adults with disabilities in high school I found my passion and I wanted a future where I could work with those who have special needs. I will graduate from Texas A&M University with a degree in Allied Health and hope to pursue a career in Occupational Therapy. I have spent the last 3 summers working at Camp Blessing, which is a camp for children and adults with special needs. Through my time there I have seen the Lord work in incredible ways as he allows us to be the hands and feet of Christ and share his love so that the campers may know him.  I have had some incredible opportunities to take my love for kids and go overseas. I have spent time in Haiti and India volunteering at orphanages and hospitals whose mission is to show the love of Christ to the abandoned and disabled. Through time in these places, working with these precious children that were seen as “the least of these”, I felt the Lord calling me to spend time after I graduated to pour love and truth into children in a different continent.  The Lord has been faithful and answered our prayers and given us this great opportunity to travel to Peru volunteering as an intern with Live Simply for Orphans. 

 

LIVE SIMPLY 4 PERU SCHOOL RESCUE PROJECT 2017

     Cerrillo is a very rural, one street town where generations live off the land. The field worker’s make about $2 a day. Kids begin working at a very young age along with their family. They have one teacher for the single class school for all ages. The school is broken and needs help to prevent closing. Our Live Simply 4 Peru family is joining forces helping with a Feeding Center along with adding additional teaching power for basics in reading, writing,English, computers and sharing the love of Christ. Come along for the journey thru your support or visit!

PERU Mission Teams 2017, PERU Spring Break with a Purpose, PERU GAP Year 2017

This is not your average SPRING BREAK , Family Summer Vacation, GAP  Year Journey, mission trip or retreat!    

We live in a culture that encourages people to put themselves first, but when we live with intention and focus on others, we reflect Jesus to the world.

God doesn't call us to greatness; He calls us to say yes. We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

This spring break or summer vacation, be purposeful with your family and do something good!

Our guests will live as we do, walking in our shoes.

  • Provide love and labor at Casa Hogar Aldea Special Needs Orphanage.

  • Serve at our Live Simply After School Feeding Center at local elementary school for kids living in area of extreme poverty.

  • Repair and improve Single Mom homes making them safe.

  • Provide our community with the gift of safe water, clean hands and healthy bodies assisting with Water Truck deliveries in areas with no fresh water source.

  • Bring hope to families in need, leading to a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Live Simply GIVING AWAY CHRISTMAS

Live Simply for Orphans believes that God’s call to care for widows and orphans is something that should be woven into our everyday lives, Christmas is a time when we are especially aware of the importance of family. Christmas is about hope… hope in Jesus to save the world. For orphaned and impoverished children, hope can be a difficult concept because their parents have abandoned them or they go to bed hungry with no idea if they will eat tomorrow.

    We were able to provide the love of Family in the Special Needs Orphanage at a time when the world is caught up in  the hustle and bustle of holiday celebrations. We are thankful for those of you who have provided donations for the Single Moms, Live Simply Feeding Center and each child in the orphanage! We were blessed to share the gospel of Jesus Christ!

 

We Ate our first THANKSGIVING Meal Because You Helped

     Live Simply After School Feeding Center was blessed to serve a hot meal to SINGLE Mom families trapped in the depths of poverty.  Your help allowed us to serve over 40 meals for THANKSGIVING. As you know, this is traditionally an American holiday but we brought the spirit of giving alive through our FeedingCenter teaching the kids and staff about Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the giving of thanks to GOD for everything that we receive through HIS hands.

Live Simply Street Visitation

Ever since I was a kid, my family spent countless hours knocking on doors simply to share the love of family and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Here is no different, we love walking the dirt streets of Peru, turning heads everywhere we go.

     We met 13 year old Nilfer and 10 year old sister Monica at our After School Feeding Center. We noticed they always ate two or three helpings of food and many times would discretely empty their plates into a plastic bag hiding the food in their backpacks. One day, Nilfer didn’t finish his homework, we told him he had to finish at home. He said he “couldn’t because his family had no power and it would be dark.”  We took him home that night as the LORD chastened our hearts. We were humbled seeing 6 kids living in a           dirt floor, metal shack with no power, water or sewer. Their Mom Cecilia was home sick. Normally she works from 6am to 7pm in the chacra (picker in the fields) making only enough to feed her kids.

     We asked if we could pray with her. As we prayed, she broke down in tears saying she didn’t want to live anymore, it was just too hard. Maisie and Sandro shared the hope thru Jesus Christ. Maisie was able to help her thru the plan of Salvation. Cecilia was broken as she asked the LORD to save her.     

    We visited the family a few days later.  We gave them donor sponsored new clothes and shoes. Sunday we took the kids to our Church for the first time!

 

By: Maisie Clemmer Mendoza

WE FEED OURSELVES SPECIAL NEEDS GARDEN PROJECT

 How cool are these kids rocking the bright orange work vests, sunglasses and cool helmets? It’s hard to believe the LORD hand chose 35 of His favorite kids in the whole double wide world to live a few doors away. We get to share daily life, prayer, love and family with them. We get to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

     We started a vocational training style program for the older boys at the special needs orphanage. We do yard maintenance, cutting grass by hand, raking, picking up trash, watering plants and other life skills. We used your loving donations.

     We saw a real need to make a long term investment in these kids future, we rented a TRACTOR and plowed a MONSTER field to create a sustainable food supply…YUP we now have a gigantic vegetable garden to help feed our kids. This provides purpose and self-worth plus some good eating too!

       This is a privately donor funded Christian home for 35 abandoned kids with multiple, severe disabilities. This home only receives kids with no family in total abandonment. All are mentally challenged with many severe cases. We share life with 6 wheel chair bound kids, 2 with walkers, 2 that crawl, 5 blind kids and 2 with microcephaly. About three-fourths of our children have no ability to communicate…we share our daily lives loving the LEAST of THESE. 

Matthews 25:40

“ And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

 

 

After School Feeding and Tutoring Center

     We immediately saw a huge need in our local community for kids from single Mom homes and kids living in extreme poverty. Many kids go without food all day until a single Mom returns home at night. We decided to feed them, provide homework help and love on them!  This program is geared to single Mom’s families and children who live in extreme poverty. Every child in the project lives in very challenging situations. We feed these kids lunch, have Bible time devotion, we do arts and craft but we also do very basic “need things” such as hair washing, teeth brushing, hand washing, shoe shining, we provide haircuts and school supplies. We simply share the LOVE of family and purpose. For many of our children, this will be the only warm meal of the day. On empty stomachs, kids don’t have the energy to focus, engage, learn and grow. Children struggling with hunger may be more likely to repeat a grade in elementary school, experience developmental impairments in language/motor skills and have more social and behavioral problems

     Many Mom’s work in the fields 10 hours a day 6 days a week earning less than $2 per day. We were providing this for the severely distressed/poor kids in the Live Simply community. This project is seeking ways to prevent child abandonment allowing fully fed kids both spiritually and physically to return home with homework done causing no burden to the family allowing to keep kids at home rather than the streets at night. 

     Chronic child malnutrition affects 35 percent of children. Anemia affects over 46 percent of children under the age of three. Insufficient access to food, poor consumption patterns, inadequate childcare, poor nutrition practices and low educational levels are the main drivers of chronic child malnutrition and anemia in Peru.

    Sponsor our Live Simply Feeding Center and feed a community!

 

Single Mom Obleas Project

     We help prevent child abandonment by embracing single Mom’s needs. We live to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

    Live Simply started a Single Mom Obleas Project to allow our Mom’s to provide for their children keeping the family unit at home and together. We aim to train and offer practical skills for these Mom’s to use to lead independent lives and help support their families. Single Mom’s sell this Colombian dessert using earnings to feed their families. We have a Single Mom making Obleas in our house. We then give the finished dessert to Single Mom's to sell to provide income for her family.

     Our Single Mom Obleas Project inspires, educates and equips Single Mom’s to face the problems that hold them back from accomplishing their dreams and goals that they have for themselves and families.

     Unfortunately, staggering statistics depict the challenges of many women in Peru. A girl is raped every 20 minutes in Peru. Fourteen percent of girls in Peru become pregnant before the age of 18 and 90% of these pregnancies are the result of rape.