For those of you who don’t already know, we spent month three in Peru instead of Bolivia. At first I wrestled with the fact that we were only going to be going to 10 countries (Peru for 2 months) instead of 11, but after being in Chincha, Peru for the last month, I am glad that we stayed.
Our team was with Team Veracity this month staying at a church made of brick walls and a roof of tarps and a few wooden beams. We had a bathroom and a cold shower (I think I spent over half of the time convincing myself to get into the water than actually showering) and a make-shift kitchen with two gas burners attached to a propane tank and a refrigerator that never got cold. Half of the building had no roof, and this is where I set up camp (along with our pet rat lovingly named Gus). Most of our team set up tents in the main part of the building, but I set up a hammock and slept under the stars for the past month (I am lucky it never rains in the desert!).
We worked alongside the pastor of the church (Pastor Nestor) for the month. Here is what a pretty typical day would look like in Chincha:
8:30—I wake up to the sun beating down on my hammock (great spot at night when it’s cool; not so great in the morning when the sun is directly on you!)
9:00ish—Pastor Nestor knocks on our door to take us to a church member’s home. Here is a list of some of the things we did for church members:
~Painting the rooms and outside of a home (in very bright neon colors!)
~Digging 3 meter (yes, that is 9 feet!) holes to be used for toilets (okay, so we only made it to 5
feet that day, but that is still a huge hole!)
~Digging trenches to build foundations
~Making mud and building a wall out of adobe bricks and mud (adding mason to my resume
post-race!)
12:00—Most often, the family whose house we were working in would make us lunch. This gave us a chance to sit down and chat (through very basic Spanish/English) to the church members.
16:00—We head back to the church to shower (some days) and get ready for the evening (which often included grocery shopping or cleaning up the church for worship).
18:00—We sit down each night and have family style dinner prepared by teammates.
19:30ish—On Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays worship services were held at the church. We were often asked to give a testimony or a sermon and to lead worship. (On our second day in Chincha, Nestor brought us a guitar, and I began learning how to play more. Two days later, I was leading worship for the services.)
20:30ish—Service ends and one of two things occur: everyone gives hugs and heads home and we have team time or a dance party ensues with the kids.
22:00ish—We go down the block to Nestor’s house to play volleyball with people in the community (on a court in which the net is strung across the very narrow street and where the sidewalk is fair but the roof overhangs are out!).
23:00 (or much later)—I head to bed under the stars!
Each day looked similar to this schedule, however, we also spent time doing sports ministry at the soccer fields and track down the street, children’s ministry at our church and at a church 15 minutes away that Pastor Nestor helps out with too (I got to color with crayons a lot this month! J), and prayer walks around the community.
Overall a very busy and tiring month! Nestor is truly the only reason I was able to keep pushing through each day, even though it was a lot of work. He exudes the love of Jesus in everything that he does. His passion for the lord and his love for the people in the community is unending. You can see it in his eyes and in his energy each day. It was so encouraging to work alongside of him this past month!
