2013 Peru Mission Report #4: Tuesday, June 18, at 9:00 P.M. at the Lima Airport. (ACTUALLY SENT FROM CHICAGO AT 9 P.M. WED.)
Dear Family and Friends:
We are at the Lima airport waiting for our flight to Miami at 1:05 A.M. tomorrow. Austin is listening to my I-pod with his earphones so I will use the computer and the time to get out our “final” report from the Peru trip.
Our last service at the site of our meetings (Chllchicaya) was well attended, both with children and adults. We showed the rest of the Jesus video and they sat spellbound even though it was in Spanish rather than Quechua. That took most of our time, but I was not willing to shut it off in favor of a longer sermon because they were so involved in the Life of Jesus and we are here to promote that. I was able to condense my sermon to the basics “What Happens When We die?” The District pastor (Hugo) was there to announce that he will be holding meetings for them on Tuesday night at our site so they can continue to study and get more books and Bibles that we had to distribute. It seems that our sowing work has been very helpful in setting them up for further study.
Sabbath morning was very enthusiastic with an overflowing audience from each of the four sites and in the unfinished church at Pomocanchi. The church had only four arches up but the back wall was up sufficiently to form a backdrop for the services. They had cleaned up the site and put up a screen for a roof that cut down the intensity of the bright sun on the heads of worshippers.
For Sabbath School they divided the group into four sections with four teachers. That enabled better interaction with each group. During the service they called us all from USA to the front and presented us each with a gift bag containing Peru special hats and ponchos of beautiful colors. After the service it was surprising how many of them had cameras or cell phones that photograph. We felt like we were the target of the Peru Paparazzi.
Part of the church service included a baptism of three people as first fruits of many others to come later with further preparation. One of those will be the young lady that I presented with the Bible Felt Set that Mary Alice had worked so hard to cut out, label and organize into groups contained in special zip-lock bags. The lady had been working with children in another church but now wants to become SDA. She had been recommended to receive the set because of her active teaching of children. I left the large suitcase we brought them in so they can be stored in a clean place and easily transported as needed.
Mary Alice had packed a smaller suitcase within that one so I would still have two check-on suitcases to get home what was left after using up or giving away many items. We brought a few souvenirs including those given us by the people. It worked out just right. Mary Alice packed additional clothing so I would not have to wash anything during the time there. It would have been hard to get laundry done and dried within the time we had each day to work at the church site and then prepare for the evening meeting.
Sabbath afternoon after lunch at the Camp where we stayed, the bus took us to visit an ancient Inca Excavation site. We had a guide that knew a lot of the ancient history. It is very interesting to see the comparisons with ancient Bible practices.
By the time we got back to Camp everyone was too tired to do much more than eat a light supper and go to bed. We had to get our packing done for an early exit to Cusco on Sunday morning. I had planned to video the story of Pastor Wes Sanchez who is one of our presenters, but had to forego that since there was no time or energy to do it.
His early Cuban beginnings were filled with drama when the Communists put a gun to his head at age 10 and told him they would kill him if he did not work on Sabbath. He said to go ahead and kill him because he would not violate God’s law to save his life. They admired his courage and let him live. As a pastor he was put in prison and eventually expelled from the country to USA. I learned much about the revolution of Fidel Castro and his associates. At first Fidel favored the SDA church and did delay taking over our institutions for three years beyond schedule. He found refuge at one of our schools when the Batista Dictatorship government strafed the school repeatedly. The Sanchez family was with those that took refuge in the basement of one building. No lives were lost. Mrs. Sanchez jokingly said that the only casualty was one can of beans that had a bullet through it. Of course there was much damage of the campus from the planes’ raid.
At Cusco on Sunday we stayed in the hotel recommended by Virgil
Carner that I passed on to John. It was the best yet with hot water for showers and a very clean environment. The people were very friendly and helpful. In late afternoon we took a walking tour of Cusco and enjoyed learning more about the ancient capital of the Incas. Much of their building construction still exists but with some modification by the Roman Catholics who came with the Spanish that conquered them.
One Catholic strategy was to build churches on ancient holy sites so the Indians would come and worship at familiar and respected places. However, the Indians did not become fully Catholic. They held on to many ancient beliefs and practices and they are now part of the Catholic religion reaching the Incas. It is interesting to learn more of the Inca Civilization and marvel at all they accomplished.
Monday morning early we left our hotel to catch the bus taking us to the train that would take us to Machu Picchu. The bus ride is much longer now because of a landslide that covered a major part of the train tracks. Fortunately, the trains were on the right side of the landslide so visits could continue to that ancient marvel of Inca industry and skill. We learned so many things that I can’t share here now. Their masonry skills were without comparison as they fitted joints and angles so precisely that you could not put a knife blade between them. They understood engineering and geometry and other advanced math skills. One stone had eleven different angles. They used the trapezoid pattern for most of their doors and windows because it is the strongest to hold weight above it.
They also had a government that cared for the poor and widows etc. but would not tolerate laziness. If you were able to work and would not, the penalty was death. Of the 10 commandments, they stressed only two (don’t steal and tell the truth always) but added another, namely WORK. Everyone had something to do to become productive for the group.
They developed countless varieties of potato and studied agriculture to see what crops could grow best at what altitudes. Over centuries (800s through 1600s) they made many advances in growing food in their conditions among the high mountains. The Spanish did not conquer Machu Picchu. They found it empty when they arrived. The people had taken everything of value and moved about 250 miles away into the jungle to start over.
Their religion did include sacrifices including human ones. They had a special group of virgins (like nuns) who were drawn on to sacrifice willingly their lives to the Sun god so he would prosper their crops. I am so thankful that our God does not require such when He asks for our hearts in worshipping Him.
Austin became very ill during the guided tour through those magnificent ruins and had to rush back to the toilets at the gate. The keepers required one sole (about 30 cents) to use the facility each time. So you had to give up your “sole” to get service there. He then ran to catch up with our group and in the process saw more than we did as he climbed the tallest tower area in order to find where we were. He has photos the rest of us did not get.
After the tour while we were waiting for the train back to the bus to get back to Cusco, Austin was throwing up as well as having diarrhea. We fortunately had Dr. Raul Vila with us on the trip. He found a pharmacy and I bought some meds to help deal with the problem. We got Gatorade also to help restore things, but he was throwing that up too. Finally he felt he “had no more to give” but was still trying with dry heaves. At last a little Sprite settled his stomach to the endurable. The train ride was not pleasant for him. We got back to the hotel after 10 and went right to bed. Austin showered and that helped also.
This morning Austin was looking good and feeling good. So something including prayer made a difference. He was smiling all over the place and interacting with people happily.
Our trip to Machu Picchu will be long remembered joyfully. All is well that turns out well. I joked that Austin might rename his experience there “Mucho Puko.”
This morning we were up early again to pack the last things and be ready to leave at 7:30 for the airport. There had been some problems with the airline bookings for our flights to Miami. The Sanchez and Vila families were not in the system properly, ever since their cancelled flight on the way to Peru. It took two hours at the airline window to get it all straightened out. Our flight from Cusco to Lima was cancelled (reasons unknown) so we had to be re-scheduled at a later time. Adaptability!
We did all get on the later flight to Lima and arrived at noon rather than 11:30 A.M. as planned. Once more there was work to do getting some of the members rescheduled on other flights from Lima to Miami since they were not in the scrambled airline computer base.
John, our trip leader, patiently dealt with all the problems spending long hours at the ticket counter to get the schedule settled. We planned to eat and visit some places in Lima. It did work out but later than planned. The taxi van hired for us by the Mission picked us up but the driver did not know where the SDA Hospital was and we spent about an hour and a half driving here and there and phoning frequently while also asking directions. We did get to see more of Lima, but not in a planned way. Finally we reached the new and very modern SDA Hospital now located in view of the Ocean. We had lunch there and enjoyed very good food and pineapple juice produced by our SDA University. It has a very good reputation throughout Peru. The meal was fine but we could not linger over it since we were running late to visit the Museum of the Inquisition here in Lima.
The driver did now know how to get us there and we caught the Spanish tour rather than wait half an hour for the one in English. It is an eye opener about how the Catholic Jesuits persecuted those of another belief than their standardized one. “Man’s inhumanity to man is our greatest sin” is a quotation vividly illustrated here.
From there we had to rush by foot to a nearby Cathedral to visit the Catacombs where they buried the dead (about 25,000 over 300 years). We saw the beautiful paintings by Rubens and others that go back to 1620. Beautiful carvings marked the various rooms too. The Franciscans did the work of burying and now only that Order can be buried in the Catacombs. The corpses of the newly dead were laid on top of old bones of the people preceding them in death. Lime and sand helped hasten the process and keep the odor down so it would not drive out the worshippers in the church above. Some of our group did not get to go because the Vila family were met by friends and did not join us in the tours until too late.
Well, now we are at the airport in Lima and waiting to find which gate we fly from to Miami. A rumor said the flight would be delayed about 45 minutes. That will impact our getting through customs in Miami and connecting with the flight to Chicago.
The Lord has been in charge all along and we know He will be there for this one too. I’ll close this for now and save a little computer battery in case we do get a chance to send this before reaching Chicago and Glenn and Debbie’s home with an Internet connection.
I hope you have not been bored too much with all the little details. This is my diary and we want to remember what did happen. It just illustrates what one faces in a mission trip—even a short one. The joys far outnumber the difficulties!
PS: We did reach Chicago and were met at the airport by Glenn, Debbie, and Mary Alice. It is great to be “home” in USA and with family for a day before heading to Gentry. The real warm shower was special and home cooked food that we are most used to. If there is more of special interest, I’ll fill in details later.
With love,--Glenn and Austin (Grandpa and Grandson)