Impact Peru Team

AGAIN AND AGAIN, OTRA VEZ Y OTRA VEZ

2008-07-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

Hi every body,

My name is Francisco, as well known as Pepe by my only true real american friends to visit us and help building "casitas" for the people who lost their homes in the earthquake of August 15 2007.
Let me tell you that it is always a great thing to gather together with such a brothers.
they perform a wonderful job not only in the construction process, also contact the people and the kids which we had an awesome time at Graciela's church.
please pray for us and the people who had been envolved in this new adventure, we have been doing devotionals at the office during this time, but since now every morning will be part of our routine, is not that a great thing, blessed be God for His provision.
about the team I need to tell you that all them are good brothers and have been blessed by them all this time, but don't send them back(just kidding).

Pepe

Last night in Ica

2008-07-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

Since we were able to finish the second house yesterday, we were allowed to sleep in today. Some of us were out until 10 AM... it was nice to get some rest. The morning was just a lazy time for reflection and light conversation with Pepe. Our plans to visit downtown again would have to be postponed until tomorrow as we made plans to get some dessert adveture in before we left the area. We got an opportunity to visit an oasis in Huacachina. It use to be the site of a natural spring but with the expansion of Ica, the water table has dropped and now the water is pumped in by the government in order to keep the attraction and economy of Huancachina going. Just outside of Ica, in the dunes, there is an oasis pueblo that has a few hostels, restaurants, and their biggest attraction - dune buggy tours. We visited our friend Christina (ex-patriot living in Peru) who runs Dessert Adventures with her husband (http://www.desertadventure.net/www.softywebs.com/clientes/sb/index.html). She arragned a tour for us and promised to have lunch ready for us when we returned.

The dunes ride was exhillarating. As soon as you get over the first dunes you can see why I call this area the Sahara of Peru. Then after riding over a few more dunes you realize that you cannot see civilization or anyting else, other than the sand dunes. The driver was an accomplished dune rider and he was able to whip us around pretty good. He took us down some suicide drops and spun us around walls in the natural sand valleys.

But the ride is only part of the adventure. We were introduced to the sport (and art) of sand boarding. The concept and equipment is the same as snow boarding, but the experience is very different. Tim stepped up to be the first, either from youthful naivete or just plain excitment. We were told to ride the board on our bellies and given instruciton how to stay on the board. Sounded simple and away we went... Wow, what a thrill to go screaming down the dunes laying on top of a 12 inch wide board. Of course for those of us that actually did scream during the descent, we were treated to the wonderful taste of Huancachina sand. Fortunately we did not have any wipeouts and Jimmy got a couple shots of us going down the dunes.

In the evening we were able to invite Betty and family out for dinner. We visited a local Chicken chain (Norky's) and enjoyed a great meal and conversation. It is hard to believe we have already spent a full week in Peru and that tomorrow we begin our trek back to Sacramento. It is great to see three generations of Peruvian women (Betty, her three daughters and her granddaughter) and the hope they have for their futures. I am glad to have met them and hope our relationships through the locals will have an impact in advancing the kingdom in Ica Peru.
I will try and have Pepe log a little something tomorrow morning before we leave for Lima. We have a 1 Pm bus ride to Lima and a 1 Am flight to LAX.
God Bless,
Rodain

Monday = last house built!

2008-07-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

Today is Monday, and we´ve finished our last house. It was quite an experience because we faced much difficulty in building the house to spec. Jimmy noticed the errors, and with a little elbow grease we were able to square things up and finish the house on time. We stayed and had a time of prayer with the people who were recieving this house, it was gratifying to see them recieve this tremendous blessing.
We had dinner tonight (and every night this week) with Pepe, who is our closest friend in Peru. He´s been helping us and working alongside us for the entire trip. Since the last house is done, we can all sleep in tomorrow, which is probably why Pepe has gone home for the evening to catch some sleep.
Tomorrow is our last day in Ica, and we´re going to have dinner with betty and her family. Betty is the housekeeper, and she´s a very nice, smiling person. I can´t think of any other way I´d rather spend my last day in Ica.
Muy sueño!
hasta
Tim

Sunday, The Lords Day

2008-07-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

So today was a fantastic day for all of us! We had the opportunity to attend Gracy´s church and spend some very special time with the children. There were approx. 50 kids all dressed up in their Sundays best, full of excitement. We were all so impressed with their knowledge of the various bible stories they had learned as they each had to repeat what they had learned over the past Sundays. We brought T shirts for all of them and each of them were able to draw on their own shirts what ever they wanted. I was surprised to see that even the smaller ones had put Jesus as the first word on their shirts followed by Loves You or Loves Me and each one of them couldn´t wait to get their picture taken with their new shirts that they had drawn on. After church they all filed out to get their hand full of candy that we had waiting for them and I think we enjoyed it even more than they did.
After church we went downtown and took a walk around downtown Ica. Wow! what an eye opener. Pepe took us to parts that had extreme damage from the earthquake, including a huge Catholic church where almost 100 people were killed. Apparently there was not only a large group of people trying to get out of the church when it began to fall apart but, there were also many people trying to get in thinking this was the house of God and it could survive the earthquake. This caused a traffic jam and then the whole top of the church with the bell tower fell down on them. We will try to post some before and after pictures on the blog in a couple of days to show you the extent of the damage. It has been about 1 year now and not much of anything has been restored with either houses or buildings.
This evening we went back to church for the evening adult service and, although it was great to hear Rodain get up and speak for part of it, the rest of the service was a little difficult to get into in spanish. I recognized some of the tunes to the songs but certainly not any of the words. We just finished dinner at the local hot spot called ¨Norkeys¨famous for their rotisere chicken as it was a packed house even at 9 30 PM. and we are ready to call it a day. Tomorrow will be our last work day, as we will complete our 2nd house. We will then take Tuesday off, due to their Independance Day holiday and prepare for our return on Wednesday. Please pray that we will continue to make an ¨Impact¨on our remaining days here and, for a safe trip home.
Thanks for your prayers and support.
Chris

This is the day the Lord has made...

2008-07-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

We were all very exhausted at the end of Saturday, after a long day of work in the hot sun. Somoene said it is winter in Peru but it did not feel like it yesterday. We were working on the 2nd house and making great progress until a little calculation error turned into a huge problem. Our options initially were to tear down a couple walls to start again or fake it and hope the house would stand. God bless Jimmy for making the hard and correct choice to tear out and start again. Anyway, we were able to salvage some work and get the project back on track.
After another late dinner we returned home where most people went straight to bed.
Today was a new day and held much promise for new relationships and experiences. We did not have to go to the worksite so we all slept in. Since we gave Betty the day off, we were on our own for breakfast. So after toast and coffee we were off to church.
We got to chruch around 10 40 AM and waited as children continued to show up. The church is casual about starting around 10 30 AM. The morning service is strictly for the children and we were here to serve and participate. Adult church is later tonight at 7 30 PM.
The pastors daughters are in charge of the childrens services and it was quickly evident why. They have a great passion and energy for the kids. They started off by leading the children in worship and it was a very active time of singing. The children then had a lesson on Lazarus. There is just the one class so the older children were asked to read the story from a childrens bible for the whole class to hear. The children ranged from 2 to 9 or 10 years old. They have been doing a series on the miracles of Jesus, so after todays lesson they recounted the ones they have learned. It was great to see so many children respond with the correct answers and eager to share about the story they learn. I had decided to join the children and was sitting with them so they wanted to tell me about the prior weeks lessons.
After the lesson we had a little project for the kids to enjoy. We had brought tee shirts and markers for the children to decorate and keep. It was great to see the creativeness of the older children as they already knew what they wanted on their shirts. The young ones needed help but generally were able to tell you what they wanted. Many had variations of ´Jesus me ama´ which is Jesus loves me or ´Dios es amor´which means God is love. We got a great group shot at the end with all the children sporting their new shirts. At the end we lined them up and gave out candy as they left to go home. We will post some of our shots from childrens church later.
We are about to go to adult church so I imagine that we will have another story to share about church later tonight.
Thank you all for your interest and support in Peru and our team. We will be asking our Friend Pepe to blog in the next coming days so you may want to check back to get his perspective of the partnership we have forged.
God Bless,
Rodain

Work day

2008-07-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Ica late Weds evening. Pepe met us at the Las Dunas hotel were we had dinner, a real good Peruvian dinner. Then went over to the house we are staying at, each of us had our own bedroom. Betty was still at the house and gave us all hugs and holas. We all slept very good. 6:30 came very early the next morning, Betty had breakfast and some good peruvian coffee ready for us. We took two taxis to the job site, they were 25 mins away. we are building a 20X16 2 bedroom home for this family, the dad almost lost his leg in a accident. the concrete slab is all done by local people. they need the work. we did most of the framing today and will finish our part of the house fri then it will get stucco to finish the outside. This morning we had a devotion and 4 peruvian ladies sat in on it and it became a short bible study with Pepe doing the tranlating for us; it was great. Had small injury today, Tim hit his thumb with the hammer, we told him he's not a rookie anymore. God Bless all you back home jim

We´ve arrived in Ica, Peru

2008-07-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a very long day for us. We left LAX 1 30 PM, local time, and arrived in Lima, Peru just after midnight, local time. After getting through customs we met our local contact and friend Bill. He got us to the hotel and then took us out for a late night snack. Tim and I took part of a local delicacy, Anticucho de corazon, while Jimmy and Chris went for the recommended Steak Sandwich. It was great to see Bill again, I met him last time I was here in November and Jimmy just saw him last January. We wrapped up our late night - early morning, dinner and got back to the hotel about 2 30 in the morning.
This morning most of us slept in until 10 AM, except for Chris who didn´t want to miss the breakfast buffet... I guess he just wants to get in all the Peruvian cuisine he can. We met Bill for lunch and enjoyed the local favorite of Ceviche. Bill dropped us off at the bus station to head for Peru where we discovered that the bell hop had inadvertantly put someone elses bag in our truck... whoops. Luckily Bill was able to return to the hotel and alleviate the stress of some unfortunate traveler.
Jimmy had kept telling us the bus ride was only a couple hours, but I seem to recall being told that it was a 5 or 6 hour ride... I was hoping everyone else was wrong. Alas, as I checked the ticket, 1 30 departure from Lima and 6 PM arrival in Ica, I got ready for a long bus ride. Oh, forgot to mention, we were glad to even have a bus to travel on... apparently the day before a work strike had stopped the buses from running between the cities. We climbed aboard and set off. The ride was not as bad as the flight, but when we finally arrived in Ica we were glad to get out and stretch. Pepe was at the stop to meet us. It is great to see Pepe again. He will be our guide and laision while we are in Ica. Another late dinner and we finally got to the house we are staying at around 9PM.
Most everyone is heading to bed now, it is 11 PM local time, and we have all unwound from travel mode. Most of us checked email when we arrived at the house and got a few messages out. I volunteered to update the blog and let you all know we arrived and are looking forward to a good night of sleep as we have a full work day ahead of us tomorrow.
No pictures yet to post, but maybe tomorrow we can get a shot of a prior home and the site we will be building.
Thank you all for your prayers and support. We were exhausted from traveling for a day and a half but I am confident restful slumber will befall us and we will wake rejuvenated and strong in the Lord.

Rodain

PS . We are working on international keyboards so if weird symbols appear, realize it probably looked correct for us on this side... of course we may also use that excuse for poor spelling... the spelcheck is in Spanish over here so everything lights up as mispelled.

The First Day by Tim McGee

2008-07-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

Hello, my name is Tim McGee --this is my first mission trip, and I'm sitting in the LAX airport right now at 11am waiting for the next flight at one pm. Honestly, I'm not nervous about anything at this point in the trip. My friends and companions on this trip -- Rodain Soto, Jimmy Record, and Chris Tuter -- are seasoned mission trip verterans. What can go wrong? I feel pretty good about everything. I've never beeen on an air plane before today, and the filght from Sacramento to LAX was superb (eventhough we were traveling southwest airlines, lol). There's nothing like sitting in an airplane window seat on your first flight (in my humble opinion).

After landing at LAX, we switched terminals. Unfortunately, the international terminal is on the opposite side of the LAX airport, and my two suit cases weighed about 60+ Lbs total. So other than that, we've had fun so far.