First Peru Post. The Itinerary

Well, I have been pondering what to write about our mission trip to Peru for a while. There were a great many things that happened, but they left me with much to ponder and sort out. This was perhaps one of the most personally challenging trips I have been on.  CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PHOTO GALLERY

With that said, I still don’t know where to begin. I could, and will most likely have to, break the trip up over several posts. I can’t see a way to write about so many things in one post. Doing that would cause a very long and disjointed article. It would also be hard for my brain to stay on track. 

I like to journal my adventures on trips like these so I can remember things that happen. This year I was not able to journal everything, but I did get a great deal of it. The problem is since I have returned I have been in the topsy turvy world of company mergers and have had to devote much time to work. This has made it even harder to process the events on this trip. With all of that said, I think it best to start at the beginning and relay the events first. I will give an overview of the daily events of the trip:

• The trip went from July 15-24.  It was organized by Missions Without Borders.
• Sunday-Fly to Atlanta with our Michigan Team. From Atlanta we fly to Lima. This took about 10 hours, so we stayed in a hotel in Lima.
• Monday-We woke early to go to the airport to fly to Pucallpa. We had breakfast with all of the team who had arrived to the hotel during the night. All total there are about 70 of us. Upon landing in Pucallpa we were greeted by the local church. When I say the local church, I mean all of the local churches. There is a lot of unity between the local churches and they were very excited to have us come and partner with them to see their city won with the Gospel. After we got to the camp we received a huge party thrown in our honor. It was very humbling.

From there we needed to get to work. Over the last year our team has raised money to buy food for the poor. After the party we worked together to bag 600 bags of groceries and supplies. This took about three hours to get everything bagged and put away.

The whole team went to Central Park. They had something similar to an amphitheater where we ministered to around 200 people. Many were saved.

• Tuesday-Wake up early and enjoy a nice Peruvian breakfast. All of the juices are raw and very good. The food has a staple of potatoes.

Hop in a bus and drive to the first location. We ministered on the Ucayali River front. We performed drama, dance and skateboarding. We gave testimonies and had an alter call. Of over 100 people, nearly all of them gave their hearts to the Lord.

This was a split session so we also ministered in a river rest section where people went to rest from their work travels. Here we ministered to about 50 people. Many were children. We had a lot of fun with them. We played and made balloon animals with them. We performed some funny skits and gave a few testimonies. Nathan, my oldest son gave his testimony for the first time on a mission trip. I could tell he was nervous, but he did a great job.

Back to the camp for lunch and our next assignment. We went to an area where it is a park and many of the taxi drivers take breaks to play soccer. We ministered to nearly 100 kids and young people by the time we left.

Back to the camp for dinner and to clean up. We went to church. Actually we went to three churches. We ministered in three churches and gave food to the 25 poorest families in each church. Each of the other teams did this. There were four teams, so we went to 12 churches total that night.

• Wednesday-I am sick. We were going to a school. Every time we go minister in a school I get sick. It has happened each year. This is a Presbyterian School run by a Korean Missionary. The school is huge and beautiful. The lady wasn’t very impressed with us as we ministered to the preschool. She wanted us to preach to them. We had to up our game for elementary, and hope to be still on the grounds for high school.

Fortunately we lent the mic out to Pastor Bo. Pastor Bo preached a word in a way the kids could understand. This put us in good graces with the school master again and we were able to pull out all the stops and have fun with the high school. We ministered and lives were touched. This was a very rewarding time.

Split session again. Off to the market across the street. We walked around and got people interested in taking a few minutes to join us in the middle of the market. We ministered, and there were over 100 who came. We saw many lives changed. We also prayed for several sick people here.

Back to the camp for lunch. We headed back out and ministered again in a park. This time we worked with another team. It went well. Over 100 people got saved.

One more session. I am forcing myself to feel better. I am helping our leader with the administration and other duties as I am the youth pastor and am closer to the youth to know who needs to do what, when. I get an opportunity to do these evangecubes. I ask the crowd if they want to hear me in English or Spanish. They chose Spanish. This is the first time I read in Spanish ever on a mission trip. A personal goal. It went well. I need to go home, though.

Back to the camp for dinner. I am too sick to go on. It was a bummer because it as the first night of the evangelistic crusade with Steve Fatow.

Guys come back to the room, but I am fading in and out of reality. I have a 105.3 temperature. There is a difference of opinion between the local doctor and the American doctor. I can’t really remember all of it as I was pretty sick. I just remember drinking some tea at one point and going back to bed.

I might be able to sleep this off… Uh oh… Nathan is sick too. Not good. No one else in the room hears him. I don’t know where I got the strength, but I am able to help him. Several showers later I finally tell him the grace is removing and I need to sleep for two hours.

• Thursday-Now three of us are sick. Fortunately, Mark, my friend from church, doesn’t get everything we have. He avoids the fever. Now it is a serious matter. Nathan and I go to the doctor. We were never sure of what we have, but we know it was expensive to get all the meds.

We get a treat on the way home. We get to drive out of the city into the jungle. This was amazing. The only problem is it is 100 degrees and we are sick. It was wild. 70mph through the jungle. Wild animals, big jumps, wood bridges, all the makings of a great ride, except the weakness, fever, nausea, diarrhea, and thirteen year old in the same condition laying in your lap as he is too weak to enjoy the adventure. Interesting Father emotions here. I will tell you about them later.

• Friday-Getting back on my feet. We ministered in the morning. I did the administration. It went well. Back for lunch and out again. Ministering in a church. Over 200 young people and children in a room smaller than a one car garage. An awesome time. Dinner and out to another church right on the edge of the jungle. About 300 in a slightly larger building. We went to the crusade, but were on the back end of the ministry line so we didn’t pray for many people. Over 1,000 got saved, though.

• Saturday-Fun Day. We were invited to take the maiden voyage down the Ucayali to an indigenous tribe to minister. The ministry that owns this boat has planted 60 churches down the Amazon and its tributaries over the last 75 years. This was a surreal honor. It was amazing to see what they do. They minister like we do, but they also bring electrical power and help to these villages. It was awesome.

We also got to swim. Nathan and chose not to, but he did walk the beach and took some awesome pictures. I stayed on the boat and rested.

That night we prayed for healings at the Fatow Crusade again. This time we were on the front line. There was a boy brought up in the back of a car who was paralyzed. I prayed for him. As a matter of fact I was grabbed by a lady from the other side of the soccer stadium. This was no easy task as there were close to 2,000 people on the ground. This was definitely something God wanted to use to teach me through. I will tell more about it later.

• Sunday-Church. We had our own service. Worship was run by youth from all of the churches who were on the trip. I love worship like this. From there Steve Fatow came and shared. It was pretty light as Steve felt that he really wanted to connect with the group. This was really cool as in the years I have known Steve, he has been one of the most powerful evangelists I know, but there is a real intimidation toward talking to him. I have talked to him before, but this time, he showed us that he was more appreciative of our labor over the week than what “he” was doing as an evangelist. This was another God lesson for me.

There was a time of ministry later on, but the Lord wanted our group to regroup. We spent a lot of time together and my youth shared with me and our team leader about their thoughts of the week. This was good. As I was out for that day and a half, this was necessary. This time also gave us time to minister to our interpreter who was a great blessing to us.

The last night of the crusade… My personal goal was to pray for as many people as possible. I wanted to catch up that lost time from being sick. I prayed with my son, Nathan and we prayed for a lot of people.

Miracles, do you want to know about miracles??? On this night we got to see some miracles. Because of the confusion and noise of 4,000 people at the alter seeking salvation and healing, if someone gave details to me, all I could get to Nathan was the basics of what to pray for. One guy had some form of cancer and his hand was stricken with blackness and withered. He stuck his hand in my face and I grabbed it. I don’t remember what I prayed, but when the Lord told me to let go, his hand had returned to its normal color. Nathan and I also prayed for a man. The man pointed to a tumor on his stomach. Nathan didn’t see it for some reason as he was probably getting bumped all around. He asked me what to pray for and all I could tell him was pray for his stomach. Nathan prayed, and then I prayed. Then the Lord told me to put my hand on his stomach and the tumor was gone. Things like this are just amazing. For me, I hardly know the language, and I rarely ever really know how to pray. This just shows you it is all God.

• Monday-Travel back to Lima. After our flight, we were given a bus tour of Lima. Lima is like Las Vegas. There are bright lights and casinos everywhere. It is a very expensive place as well. A bottle of water in Pucallpa cost 1.5 Sole, and in Lima I paid as much as 5. We had a dinner together that was great. We also went to a shopping area. Then it was back to the hotel. A quick nap for us as we got to the hotel at around 10:30 and we had to get up at 3:45 in the morning.

• Tuesday-Return flights. Not much to say here. We relaxed and it was good. I needed it as I was only feeling about 50% from the sickness earlier. I think we got home at about 9:30pm. It was good to see my wife, my younger son, and my girls.

That pretty much sums up the itinerary of our trip. I will be sharing more on the lessons the Lord taught me as we were there, but I felt I needed to start here. All total, I figure we were able to minister to about 10,000 people over the week.