[moses]

A number of people have asked me to tell about my trip to Peru. Please note that this was a mission trip and therefore will contain some spiritual content. If that's going to cause you to get upset, perhaps you'd be better off skipping this post. If you heard The Fusion Reactor for the last two weeks, you will have heard some of this already, but nevertheless let's dive right in...

First, let me start off by thanking everyone who committed to pray for us on this trip. Your prayers were definitely heard. I had no idea what to expect, except for one thing: that God would move. What I didn't realize was how much! We thought we were going there to work on a children's home and minister to the orphans there, but God had much more in store for us.

19 people from my local church went. The leadership team seemed to think that two weeks would be too much for some of them, so two teams were devised, who would minister for one week each. There would be five people who would stay for two weeks. I happened to be one of those who stayed for two weeks. So the first team consisted of 11 mostly younger people (high school and college age), and the second team had 13 people with a much wider age range - from 18 to 72.

We left Pittsburgh on Thursday, June 12th at 12:25 PM, and didn't arrive in Tingo Maria, Peru until 11:30 PM on Friday. Needless to say, we were exhausted. The longest part was the bus trip from Lima to Tingo Maria. Everyone claims it's a 12-hour ride, but it took us 15. At least it was a nice bus and it was light most of the time. Peru is a beautiful country and the bus ride is a great way to see it as we wound through the Andes (with Frank Zappa's "Inca Roads" playing in my head). The cities of Peru, however, tell a different story than the countryside. There we saw heartbreaking poverty. But we arrived in Tingo Maria safely with only a few minor cases of motion sickness.

Perhaps the most amazing thing was the church there. Our first experience there was the Saturday night youth service, which apparently means anyone from about age 10 to age 80. We were introduced to a song the kids really liked. I'm not sure of the name but we called it "Conquistador." I tried to find out who sang it originally but never got a very clear answer. I can play the music on the guitar but the words are another story. So if anyone knows of a song whose chorus goes "Yo soy un conquistador, yo soy más que vencedor" I'd love to know the rest of the words and who sings it. Our youth group would love it. Much Googling turned up nothing, so I turn to you for help there.

Anyhow, the youth service was our first glimpse of the people's heart. Like I said, much of Peru is very poor, but these people are so rich in the Lord! I can't begin to describe how enthusiastically these people worshiped, prayed, preached, and gave their hearts willingly to God. I regularly attend what I see (saw!) as a lively, Spirit-filled worship service, but these folks put us to shame! There was an altar call and immediately we saw nearly everyone there up front asking us for prayer.

Sunday, amazingly enough, was just as intense... only times 4 because they have four services. Each one was packed and very emotional. I did spend one of these in the children's church but it was just as moving. We also did some street evangelism where the youth group took some sound equipment to the center of town and started singing, dancing, performing skits, and preaching the gospel. Quite amazing. We passed out tracts and tried to understand what the Spanish-speaking locals were saying to us. At least my Spanish improved after an 18-year lapse since I really used it. Frankly, I'm amazed at how much I remembered.

One of the things we learned in church that Sunday was that we would be doing a youth service at the local Christian school every night that week. That's a good thing to know! We also did some devotionals there with the kids during the day in addition to working on the children's home.

The children's home (not to be called an orphanage anymore) currently has one floor and about 8 rooms with bunk beds, bathrooms, a kitchen, and an eating/recreation room. A married couple lives there and takes care of the kids full time. We were helping to build a second floor which will end up holding a lot more rooms. There are hired construction workers doing the technical work, while we did the unskilled labor. Most of what we did involved cutting rebar to various lengths and bending it to form what would end up being the beams in the second level ceiling (and eventually third level floor). That and some heavy lifting of spars (basically fairly straight 4-5" thick trees that had been cut to a certain length) that ended up being the scaffolding for the walls and ceilings.

We saw some of the children who lived there and took a few of the older ones to the youth services that week, but we didn't get to spend much time with them that week. Our schedule was very full already and these youth services often didn't end until after 10 PM.

The second week was similar but different. Youth service on Saturday, church and evangelism on Sunday, work on the children's home, a few women's services and devotionals with the kids during the week, and one final youth service where they told us how much we touched their lives while we were there. Funny, we wanted to express how much *they* touched *our* lives! We also spent a lot of time hanging out with the kids in the children's home and showing them God's love.

Apparently that area in Peru was hit extremely hard by drug trafficking and terrorism a number of years ago, and then it was made even worse by a nasty civil war, leaving a number of kids orphaned. The government has really done a lot in recent years to clean up the drug traffic and there is a permanent military presence in the town to keep things safe. We felt safe, anyhow. Hopefully that's not just our naivety, but we didn't run into any unsavory people or situations.

A special thanks goes out to Shane from Orphan Project, who sent us a bunch of CDs to give away to the kids there. It's nice to be able to give something to people who have nothing, and few gifts are greater than the gift of prog! ;-) We also brought a whole bunch of clothing and games for the kids, which were definitely needed. The night before we left we discovered that we had more than enough money to get back home so we gave all the extra to the couple who live and work there. They told us that they had just been telling the kids to pray because they had no money to buy food for that week, and now they'll be able to eat!

The trip back to the U.S. was much the same as the trip there, only (obviously) in reverse. The bus ride may have only been 14.5 hours this time. It felt shorter, but perhaps that's because it was at the beginning of the voyage instead of the end. We left at about 5 AM Friday and arrived back in Pittsburgh at 3 PM on Saturday the 28th. Everyone had a great time and we're praying that God will bring us back next year.