BY JESSICA STEELEY
Clarkston News Staff Writer

Children were immersed in Peruvian culture last week during Vacation Bible School at Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church.
“The last couple of years we have been doing cross-cultural events and we’ve had a lot of fun visiting different countries by them coming to us,” Children’s Ministry Director Terri Miller said. “We get to see videos of kids that live in Peru and their lifestyles and different things that they struggle with. It was really fun for the kids to see other kids in a different culture and that’s really important to us.”
Sights, sounds and tastes of Peru were experienced by the kids throughout different stations, stories, songs and videos. “Just all kinds of mediums that we use to engage the kids,” Miller said. “But the best part, the thing they love the most, is the live animals that were able to bring.”
They brought in baby goats, an alpaca, geckos and guinea pigs for the students to see, all animals found in Peru.
The bible school included preschoolers to fifth graders and taught kids about the different terrain of Peru, showed pictures of Machu Picchu and allowed them to taste dried plantains, rice pudding and Peruvian ice cream.
“They [Peruvians] fry bugs, they actually eat guinea pig over a roasted fire. So, those are some different things that we don’t quite do here,” Miller said.
The kids also participated in a mission project where they donated money to help build wells in Peru and provide clean water. They also helped donate clean water to Flint.
“Our mission project this year was clean water, so we did a local and a global side of the water mission,” she explained. Despite doing this vacation school for a few years, Miller said kids seemed to really love this year.
“The video comes on for them to see the Peruvian kids and they’re quiet and intent on just seeing the different things,” she said. “Each station had their own unique cultural touch that they would expose to the kids.”