i know this a long blog but hang with it, it takes you from Peru and Boliva all the way to Africa.
Since my last post I have switched cities, countries and had a change of plans.
Our first city switch was to Iquitos, Peru, continuing on with our Nauta contact Jorge. All 27 World Racer’s, Jorge’s family of 4, 3 missionaries and 2 of our cooks lived in Jorge’s home, that is adventure within itself. I was very thankful after over a month of living in the elements with little shelter to have Jorge’s roof over us.
We spent two weeks in Iquitos working with Iglesia Berea a small but passionate and hungry congregation. The church meeting place is a small rectangular thatched roof area with wooden benches. Each day our teams would head out together in a bus to the church at 10 o’clock. Once we got there we split up into our teams and walked the dirt roads of the surrounding neighborhoods to meet the people. Some of our guys led some discipleship/seminary type classes during this same time, these people, young and old, were eager to learn more about Christ. Around 1pm we all would have lunch and then at 3 we led a program (we continued to call it Fiesta con Dios) for the children of the neighborhood. About the time that finished up some of our squad led a program for the youth of the community. On Tuesday’s and Friday’s we stayed later for worship services and we would get back between 9 and 10:30pm. These two weeks were packed with long days but great times of loving and serving the King.
For me during these two weeks I learned a lot about listening to the Lord’s voice and being bold enough to follow through with what he said. The first morning before heading out I spent some time asking the Lord how I could serve him that day. The Lord spoke to me and told me I would meet a mother and a child that day and immediately I envisioned a mother and a baby. The girls of my team set out when we got to the church to explore the neighborhood. We walked around for a while greeting people, during this time I was fighting my ill thoughts of walking around in the heat for over three hours just saying “hola” people. I prayed that God would lead us into something meaningful. As we were walking I glanced to my left and was enticed by a mom and a baby sitting in a doorway, not remembering at all what the Lord had said just wanting to play with babies. We as 20 something women were enthralled to find four mothers with four babies in the small room in the front of the home. The babies ranged in ages from 7 days old to 4 months old, all of the women related, 3 sisters and a sister in law. We spent a while in that home that morning and found out that a few people were ill in the home and one of the sons who is 12 hadn’t been to school in three years because of his poor eyesight. We prayed for the ill and for the sight of the young boy, Robison. From that day on we were hooked on loving this family.
We ended up finding ourselves being bolder in our witness with the “baby family” as God stretched us to tell more about his story. Marcelita, one of the babies became better overnight. I prayed that she would be healed of her chest congestion and that if she wasn’t that next day that I would take her into the doctor, sure enough that next day her chest congestion was gone. Praise the Lord! During this time we learned that Robison had had surgeries to repair his eyesight but he still needed glasses, which the eye doctor had the prescription for but they couldn’t afford them. Through the money that our supporters have given for this year we were able to bless Robison with new glasses. I kid you not the glasses were almost a fourth of an inch thick. Robison was able to start school again while we were still in Iquitos. It was so wonderful to be able to love this “baby family”. They were very receptive to our love of them and they even began coming to church with us.
Unfortunately on our last Sunday at this church I got really ill with the lovely stomach junk, so I wasn’t able to go to church and see say goodbye to all of my new friends. I was kind of bummed but I was thankful for the time I had had to be with them. Then when we arrived at the Iquitos airport I was so surprised to see the whole church body there to send us on our way. They had moved their Sunday night worship service to the airport. While we were waiting for the gate to open (there’s only one) they sang songs and we sang with them, most of the songs we sang at Fiesta Con Dios. My favorite was the Alleluia and Praise ye the Lord song, but in Spanish the second part is Glori a Dios. We competed Gringos against Peruvians. It was sad to part with them but we were encouraged by their love and the thought of finally getting to see another country, we were off to Bolivia.
From there we flew to Lima and unfortunately in our short layover we left four people behind as we flew on to La Paz, Bolivia. We spent about five days in La Paz, which is a town set in the midst of the mountains (looks a lot like Europe, not South America). It was a great break, we all were able to relax and enjoy walking around the city. From there we took an eight-hour bus ride to Cochabamba, which is one of the largest cities in Bolivia. We were very surprised to find that we would be sleeping in beds for a while in a home for missionaries, called the hacienda. After about a week in Cochabamba we were all set to head out to Chapare, the jungle, but at that point my teammate Kim and I had sinus infections. So Kim and I had to make the decision to separate from our crew for the two weeks while they headed out to the jungle. We were able to see a doctor the first day and we found out that we both had sinus and intestinal infections. So we hung out at the hacienda and read, slept, hung out in the hammock, and watched movies. It was a sweet time of rest for both of us, we definitely missed our teammates but we had peace that we were right where we needed to be.
Our teammates ended up working long hard days on an orphanage. The majority of the time they scraped and varnished all of the bricks of the two-story orphanage building. They worked so hard that they ended up coming home early, so we didn’t have so long to not be with our teammates. Bolivia has been a great month but we are ready to move on to Africa.
Tomorrow we head out on an 8-hour bus ride back to La Paz and we spend the night there in a hostel. Well almost a night, we will fly out at 6am from La Paz and head towards Miami for a layover and then on to New York City for a 12-hour layover, from 10pm to 10am. From there we will fly to United Arab Emerites for a layover and then on to Johannesburg, South Africa. After that we will head out to Swaiziland for our debrief and then we will all split up for the next three months over five different countries: Malawi, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Swaiziland. Needless to say, please pray for our safe travels and that we don’t explode on each other during our four days of travels. I don’t know how internet will work in Africa, so I hope to blog soon after I get there, but until then I love you all, thank you for your prayers.
