Peru Trip 2013 - Sew Exciting!

As some already may be aware of, our youth group is currently planning and getting ready for a missions trip to the country of Peru this summer! We were supposed to go last year but could not due to some unexpected circumstances.  The main reason for this trip is that we are building a scale model of the Old Testament Tabernacle for the Bible College in Lima, Peru! This is an intense project with a lot of tedious work, of which I know will pay off and be most rewarding! The Bible college will be using the tabernacle as a teaching tool; they are quite excited about receiving the model! The more we work on this project, the more going to Peru is becoming a reality and not a far away dream.  I will be posting pictures of our progress and what we are working on at the current time.

                                    First, here are some pics of Peru!

  Exciting!

 So what we have been working on the past week or so is sewing animal skins together - by hand!
There are four different coverings for the tabernacle; two made of animal skins and 2 made of cloths. Since we are making this scale model at 1/30 it's original size, we had to shave down the animal skins we ordered so that the fir was shorter and smaller, making it seem more realistic. Talk about hard to clean up! People were coughing and trying to vacuum up all the fine fir that got everywhere!

 We cut up the skins into little pieces, then have to sew them all back together! This is because it was made of many animal skins all sewn together. Since we are obviously making everything much smaller then the original tabernacle size, each of these tiny pieces all represent the skin of one animal!

 Let the sewing begin!

 :) Bell, Mariana, and Trinity getting their sew faces on!

 Progress! Bell and I met at Peet's coffee a couple times to work on this together. She's home schooled and I had time before work, so it worked out and we were able to make some progress! I must say the looks we have gotten have been quite hilarious; mostly looks of curiosity, but not everybody has the courage to come ask what we're doing. A few have, though, so it opens a door for me to tell them about our project and upcoming trip, and also about our church! Needless to say, it's been pretty neat! I just love seeing people slowly meander up to the table with a sheepish grin of curiosity on their face.

One lady came up and said, "Excuse me, but I just HAVE to ask! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" lol
I guess she had been watching me for a while to see if she could figure out what I was making, but she obviously couldn't figure out what it was so she decided to ask. Most people are really intrigued and think it's very interesting. This current layer/covering is almost finished! Our next step is sewing together the ram's skins dyed red, which we are using a red type of leather for. (Actually kind of like a suede)
This part is going to be even harder!

We're actually doing hands on stuff now, which is nice. (Before this we were studying and doing the math, trying to get the measurements right for everything. Converting everything from cubits, then making it all smaller is a joy. *Cough* I don't enjoy math very much...) Anyways!

I'll post on this topic more as we continue to make progress!