Given the lack of internet time that I have had as of late, this may be the first that some of you have heard of my transition from Ecuador to Peru. First, just to put you at ease, I am safely in Trujilo, Peru at our new ministry site for month two of the World Race. I’ll give you a brief recap of our long, long bus ride down further south from Ecuador, as well as what our ministry and daily life looks like here in Peru!
The beautiful sunset over the beach located about an hour from where we are staying.
To get from good ole’ Huaticocha to our Peru we first had to take a 6 hour bus ride to Quito. From Quito, a few teams together took a 12 hour overnight bus ride to the border of Ecuador and Peru. From there we went though all of the required customs stations and crossed over into Peru, literally by walking across a bridge with our backpacks, and on the other side we took a short bus to Tumbes, a small town where we would spend the day before another 12 hour overnight bus ride that night to Trujilo. Including the 8 hour “layover” in Tumbes, the total travel time from Ecuador to Peru was roughly 38 hours, for those who were counting. Not the most pleasant experience in my life, and to make things worse I had picked up a serious case of diarreha/stomach flu somewhere between the first and second bus ride and was absolutely miserable on the way to Trujilo. I am pretty good at sleeping anywhere, and usually buses aren’t a problem, but my sickness, extremely bumpy roads and the frequent police stops throughout the night made it pretty rough.
A view of the side of our house we are living in at the unfinished Children´s home.
We made it safely nonetheless. Team Fireproof is spending this month living in an unfinished children’s home in the outskirts of Trujilo, in a section of the city called Victor Raul, unofficially known as the ghetto. And it sure is: dirt roads, cheap clay and brick homes, lots of sand, dust, and trash everywhere, and a general feeling of just grime leave you with a bit depressed. To me the town looked like something out of Afghanistan or the Middle East; it wasn’t quite what I expected but it was rustic and pretty beaten down. The children’s home is down the hill a ways from the “town”. We have warm beds to sleep in, showers with running water, couches to lounge in, and drinking water. Our ministry this month will consist of some construction on the children’s home, visits to a daycare in Victor Raul to play with kids, and trips to the garbage dump to do ministry there. Our team is spending this month with another team, Team Justice League, and we will be doing ministry and living with them all month. My friend Kyle is the leader of the other team, and he and I are good friends, so I have really been looking forward to getting to spend some time with him and his team this month as well. He, Glenn, and I are sharing a room and bathroom.
My first thoughts on this month are positive ones. Our contact here is a 21 year old girl from Connecticut named Annie who actually just graduated from the University of North Carolina (the same place my sister goes to school). Since graduating she moved down here as a missionary and has done a great job of giving us a flexible schedule; actually the fact that she gave us a schedule is a huge blessing, given that we didn’t ever really have one last month. There is also an American missionary family living on site as well. We know exactly what we will be doing for work and ministry, and we are done every day by 4:30. We also have built in trips to the beach, sand dunes, historical ruins and sites, etc. on Sunday afternoons and for our free day on Mondays. I am also loving being able to hang out with Kyle and the other guy on his team, Beau. It’s been great to get some good guy time in and have some fresh faces around this month. We have already had some good adventures exploring the area and spending time at the beach! The construction we have done so far has actually been really fun, laying concrete and building bricks, and I absolutely love going to the daycare in the afternoons and playing with 70 screaming kids. Nothing quite like it.
Myself, Glenn, and Kyle at the beach after church this past Sunday.
The work is fun and the amount of work is balanced, I get to play with kids, I’ve got dudes around, we actually have some basic amenities, there are opportunities for adventure and exploring, and our contacts speak English. I can already tell this month is going to be awesome.
