Perú 6/8/2010-6/9/2010

Photos are here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=186620&id=580751501

6/8/2010:

We got off the ground in Pittsburgh EARLY, believe it or not. There were no delays getting in to Newark, so from what I've heard there must have been a move of God for that to happen. No problems with the Newark to Lima flight either. There was one passenger who started choking and the flight attendants began to give him the Heimlich but it wasn't working. Mike S. from our group was right there and he gave it a try. That worked, praise God!

At some point during that 8-hour flight I began to get a headache, probably due to lack of sleep. I tried to get some shut-eye, but couldn't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. As is the case with me, if I don't get rid of a headache in a reasonable amount of time, I get an upset stomach. I knew I had brought some ibuprofen, but I was quite sure that it was in my checked bag. So yeah, I ended up losing the delicious airline lunch in the lavatory. It didn't get any better until we got to the hotel last night.

I feel much better this morning, and it turns out my ibuprofen was in the carry-on all along! Well we're about to do a devotional before we head out to the airport to finish our travels, first to Huánuco, then to Tingo Maria by late this afternoon.

6/9/2010:
It was another travel day today, but now we're in place and ready to do some serious ministry tomorrow. I'm trying not to think about the fact that we will have to do all that traveling in reverse next week.

Shortly after my last email, we returned to the Lima airport and, after a delay, got on our plane to Huánuco. This was truly a tiny plane, with room for only 16 passengers. We had 14 of those taken just for our team, so it was sort of like traveling in a private bus. A flying bus. Except usually you can stand up in a bus.

We took off and left the pollution-smog of Lima pretty quickly. The flight was really cool, although there seemed to be clouds over much of Perú today. Every so often there was a hole in them and we could look down on the stunning Andes mountains, green valleys, huge glaciers, bluer-than-blue lakes and tiny human cities. Huánuco is situated in the middle of these mountains so when the plane is ready to land, they have to go down QUICK! I tried to get some pictures, we'll see how well they turned out.

There were taxis waiting for us at the Huánuco airport (which might be smaller than your house), so off we went to Tingo Maria. These taxis are really interesting. They look just like old cars we have in the U.S. - they're not painted yellow or anything - but they run on liquid propane. Oh and the speedometer doesn't work. Or the odometer. Or the gas gauge. Or the radio. Or the air conditioning. The rear-view mirror was broken off, and the wind shield had two very large cracks in it.

Nevertheless, we made it safely through the 85 (or so) miles to Tingo Maria in about 3 hours. Sure, you're doing the math and seeing that we averaged about 28.3 miles per hour. I'm quite sure that we were frequently doing about 50 and occasionally 70 down these winding mountain roads.

At last we pulled in to the lovely Oro Verde hotel and got situated in our rooms. (Yes, there's Wi-Fi here too!) Dinner was what is probably my favorite Peruvian dish: Lomo Saltado! That's a great start in my book, and of course I appear to be completely recovered from yesterday's digestion difficulties. We spent the evening practicing for the skits and songs we'll be doing in VBS and street evangelism and I'm looking forward to getting over to the Children's Home tomorrow morning and doing some work there.

Until then, I'll be signing off! If I'm not completely exhausted, perhaps I'll be able to get you another update tomorrow evening.