URGENT Prayer Request

We just received information that our Peru Prayer Walking Team is facing a few more difficulties. Please pray right now for the following situations.

• Walter has been detained by Immigration in Miami after his passport came up reportedly "stolen." Donna is alone in Miami International and awaiting more information.
  
• Brad & Jackie are on the plane and preparing for departure.
• Linda & Gloria are still being processed through security and hope to make the flight that departs in about 30 minutes.
• The group has been split up again but hope to rendezvous in Houston later this afternoon/evening.

Pray for Walter's passport issue to be resolved so he and Donna can catch another flight to Houston.

Easter Sunday

We got up early to worship with the missionaries at their church. The church is a satellite campus of Flamingo Road Church based out of Florida. They have two services, one in spanish and the other in english. We went to the english service but we entered late after we spoke with the UBC congregation via telephone.

The rest of the day will be spent in debriefing the Reapsouth team on our trip and updating the blog as much as possible here at starbucks.

We will be leaving very early monday morning for our flight back. Please pray that our return trip will be more efficient since most of our team must be back at work on Tuesday.

Ciao, Hasta Luego.

Good Friday in Lima

Good Friday in Lima is a big Holiday. Most places are closed and an otherwise extremely busy city is reduced to very light traffic and oddly deserted streets. We took advantage of this day to get rest and reflect on our journey, And fill out some Reapsouth paperwork.

This is the day that we had originally scheduled to return to Lima, and there was plenty to do to wind down the trip. We struggled to fill the rental trucks with fuel and get them washed since there are no do it yourself carwashes. The rental company will pick up the trucks first thing in the morning so we need to hurry and get these trucks cleaned.

San Pedro Day 2

The sun came out just as expected and the vistas around the town are breathtaking. Walter, Donna Brad, Ana made preparations to visit Huachupampa. Huachupampa is a town that the vision team identified as a potentially difficult town to get into. Our goal was to seek out the Mayor and School official to introduce ourselves.

Jackie, Linda and Gloria were to stay behind and continue visiting and praying for the people of San Pedro.

The team headed for Huachupampa encountered trouble with the roads and had to abort the trip up. In fact the road conditions were worsening as more rain began to fall. There were several vehicles, some larger than our trucks, that were having a lot of trouble navigating the muddy roads.

As the rains began to fall again by the afternoon we decided as a team that we should act wisely and depart for Lima because the roads were only going to get worse. We all had a difficult time with this decision, but in the end we determined that it was the best decision to make.

We arrived back in Lima just before nightfall.

San Pedro De Casta

Left Carampoma for the town of San Pedro de Casta. The sky was clear and bright as we passed some extraordinarily beautiful scenery. The scene quickly changed as we reached the the summit where San Pedro is located. The town was under heavy fog, much like laraos but this was cooler and there were rain showers that fell. The town was busy making preparations for the Easter celebrations. The town square was bustling with activity.

Were able to meet with Herlinda, she is a Christian lady that is working with a small local group of believers to begin starting a new church. Herlinda had given away her bible so we gave her two new bibles: one for herself and another to give away. Herlinda’s prayer requests right now are for her health and Family.

We continued our walk for a while and coninued to meet some of the town people and prayed over the children’s playground.

The weather was very cold and rainy so we returned to the hotel for the evening, we decided that Thursday would be a much better as the weather usually breaks in the morning. The plan is that we would send a team up to the town of Huachupampa and leave another team in San Pedro to keep talking with people and possibly set up a bible meeting with Herlinda and Pastor Luis.

Prayer walk in Carampoma

Did some prayer walking in carampoma in the morning and visited Laraos in the afternoon. We found that the people of carampoma are hungry to learn more about Christ and we were able to identify a man who calls himself Abram (not a typical quechua name, probably renamed himself) and identifies himself as an evangelical Christian not catholic. He was in the fields all day so we did not have the opportunity to meet with him, an excellent possible contact for future visits.

We also met Dino, who is a government official in Carampoma. Dino is the communication officer and came up to our hostel rooms in the evening to ask if we would be here Friday so we could tell about Jesus on the radio. Although we will already be back in Lima by Friday we did give him some evange-cube cards and the instructions to use them. He indicated that this would really help him reach more people. His language is a clear indication that he will be a great tool to be used of God in Carampoma.

Laraos is a town that is a little higher up on the mountain, and when we arrived there it was coated in very thick fog and mist. We spoke with several city ladies that were busy cleaning mud and debris from the city gutters in preparation for Semana Santa (Holy Week) activities. We prayed with them and let them know that we were here to see them and not to visit the usual tourist sites.

We also met an electrician from Lima who has been placed in charge of installing electricity to the church in Laraos. He allowed us into the church to see the religious tradition of the people. He also took much time away from his work to show us around the town and eventually introduced us to Sixto who is the City Secretary. Sixto showed us the city Museum and told us about the festivals that occur in June. He is also excited about our future groups coming.

Tomorrow we will make our trip to San Pedro de Casta.

Arrival in Peru

Finally the entire team has arrived in Peru and we have picked up the rental trucks. We met with the Reapsouth team as we packed the trucks for our drive into the town of Carampoma. Anxieties and expectations were high as well as the altitude. Due to all of the shenanigans by American Airlines we will have to cut our time in the villages but God is definitely going to be moving in the Highlands of Lima this week.

Reapsouth has teamed us up with a college student from Idaho named Kyle. Kyle has been working with the Huarochiri people for a couple of weeks and will be an invaluable asset to our journey this week.

We also had Ana and Orlando two young Peruvians who were excellent in helping us navigate the language barrier. “no hablo castellan” was a phrase spoken often by our group.