A Calling Home

Okay so this past week has just been so hectic...In fact, I just don't even know where to begin. I am sitting here in just stupidity not knowing where to start. Okay...

So we were suppose to receive the Creative Ministry Team in Coracora on July 5th but there was bus was so late arriving to Nazca that we didn't see them until 8:30 a.m. the next morning. But back to the night of July 5th. Albee and I decided to wait in the plaza for the CMT's arrival while the Ben and Allen led a Bible study back in our hostel. But before Bible study started the guys waited for the Popular Grove team from Tennessee and brought them to the plaza to meet us while we waited for CMT. Meeting Walt, Tammy, and Greg was so awesome! They were all so cool...While waiting in the plaza, I decided that I needed to go eat a dinner. So Albee and I went to a Hamburgesa stand and I ordered me one hamburger and french fries and a coke. After eating, we went back to our hostel and grabbed a couple of alpacha blankets because it was getting to the point of freezing in the plaza. We went back to the plaza and some kids started talking with us and then they just start running through the garden picking flowers of all sorts and giving them to us. Albee and I have no idea what to do, we just sit there and say thank you as they bring us flower upon flower. Well Albee decides that maybe we can start giving the flowers back to the kids, so we start handing the flowers back. Next thing we know, the kids start ripping the flowers apart and begin showering us with the flowers. There are flowers and peddles everywhere on us. We get up to shake it all off and the kids start chasing us with peddles and pine needles and whatever else they can find. At this point, Albee and I decided the best thing to do is probably leave the plaza for a few minutes. When we come back all the kids are gone but the plaza is now a mess with flower pieces and peddles and it was just a hilarious time.

Well 9:00 p.m. comes around and the guys finally come back to the plaza and Albee and I head to bed. At this time, I start feeling really sick to my stomach for some reason. Not sure why but I am feeling super sick to my stomach. So I decided instead of trying to wait it out for the 10:00 bus from Puquio, I need to get in the bed and try to sleep. At about 3:30 in the morning, I just start throwing up. I think that I got food poisoning from the hamburgesa stand, I don't think she deep fried my hamburger enough. I only threw up for about 5 minutes and I tried to catch me some sleep thinking that it was all over. At about 8:15, I woke up feeling sick again and it ended up being diarreha. All day, I either layed in my bed or was on the toilet. I even took medicine for nausea and all it did was send it out the other way. It was not a good day at all.

Besides being super sick on July 6th, we also found out that day about a summer missionary here in Peru that was killed in a car accident. It hurts a lot to think about but Greg's death has brought us all a much deeper passion to see God's kingdom come here in Peru. We have a much deeper purpose now, time is so short. I am definitely learning that serving the Lord comes with a price, whether it be time, or health, or even my own life. I am serving the Lord wholeheartedly! Greg had just graduated with an engineering degree from Ole Miss and had a great job awaiting his returnal from Peru. In fact, we found out at mid-summer about him passing his final test to become an engineer. It is all just crazy, I met Greg at LTC and then we talked a good bit at Orientation and at mid-summer debriefing. There were two other missionaries in the wreck, Lydia from Georgia and Claudia from Peru, but they are both very good. The team was about 3 hours outside of Cuzco looking for villages to do demographics for and to research about to try and find State side partners to sponsor those villages for future missionaries. The driver of the vehicle lost control and ran into an embankment. Both girls are good and were both stable enough to be flown back to Lima to be checked up on there. I can't imagine how hard it must be for them, please keep them in your prayers during this time. I am sure that they are having their ups and downs with this. On the day of the 6th, the CMT and I spent the morning sleeping while the Popular Grove team and Allen, Ben, and Albee went to church that morning. In the afternoon, Allen took the teams to the orphanage and the CMT did a presentation there. I am not sure how things turned out there because I was stuck in the bed all day.

Also we found out on the 7th that there was going to be a huge worker´s/bus strike beginning on the 9th. The Popular Grove team and two of the girls from CMT were told that they needed to leave that day to get back to Lima before the strike begin. So Walt and the Team and Beth and Elza from CMT left Coracora about 2:00p.m. to head for Nazca and then to Lima the next day. We begin to wonder what the rest of the CMT would need to do but they were still missing one member who went to visit his old village for a day. They could not leave Coracora without the guy, so they contacted Mike and Mike told them that they needed to stay in Coracora until they called Mike again and asked if it was safe for them to leave. On the 7th, we took the Popular Grove Team and the CMT to a technical school in the morning. This was the only school meeting with all the strike talk going on. The CMT performed a skit and we did some music and then Tommy from CMT shared a message. We saw a lot of people raise their hands to accept Christ, just pray that their decision is genuine and that our team here in Coracora will be able to disciple these people within the next two weeks.

We started seeing some strike action on the day of the 8th, but it wasn't dangerous enough to keep us from being out in the city yet. With the CMT, we held two events in the plazas on the day of the 8th and it was lots of fun. Didn't seem like any strike action going on, there was a lot of people there in the plaza. The strike just made Coracora seem very dead, every store was closed and there was no place opened selling anything unless they sold through the bars on the door. It was really interesting. We saw our picarones lady come to know the Lord and that was amazing! We saw several older adults accept Christ and many children to raise their hands to accept Christ. Pray that these people are also genuine too and that we will be able to disciple them within the next two weeks also. We also held a Bible study this night in two groups. One with 4 kids and the other with 3 adults. The kids told us about a tremor in Coracora at 4:00 in the morning. I pretty much slept right through the tremor and am definitely sad.

So, to the day of the 9th. The huge strike day. The whole city was dead besides those screaming up and down the streets about whatever they were screaming about. I am not exactly sure who they were screaming at either. We are about 19 hours away from Lima and the only thing that is hearing these people are the mountains. We don't quite understand the point in having a strike if nothing is changed and the person you are striking at can't even hear you. On this day we decided to take the CMT to they Hot Springs to get away from the city and how dangerous it could be. About halfway there, Katherine (from CMT) and I turned around and came back to the city. Neither of us were feeling really well. I had still not gained back energy from the day of stomach bug and Kat was sick with a cold. We came back to the hostel and hung out with Nick (from CMT), who was sick, and Ben who was starting to get a sore throat so didn't want to try and push himself to get to the hot springs. We had a grand time napping and watching the strikers and just hanging around talking. We also found out this day that a huge earthquake (like a 6.2) had hit Arequipa and the tremors that hit Coracora yesterday morning was the effects of that earthquake. On the afternoon of the 9th, we took the CMT back to the orphanage to hangout with the kids and it was just a grand time. I was so glad that I got to join them this time. On the way there we saw how crazy the strike really was. The roads were filled with huge bolders blocking the roads and they were everywhere.

On the 10th, we all kinda slept in and the CMT spent their morning packing stuff up. The team should have left yesterday but there was no way with how strong the strike was. We heard that it was way to dangerous to even try and travel on the Pan-American highway because there would be strikers everywhere, throwing rocks and bottles through the windows of any vehicles traveling on the road and putting rocks in strategous places to cause a vehicle to run off the side of the mountain. People just get crazy here during strike time. Thankfully though, the strike ended at about midnight and that was also when all the rocks and glass were being removed from the roads. Albee and I ate lunch with the girls from CMT and Ben and Allen ate lunch with the boys from the CMT. It was a great time just being able to talk to them and being able to converse with other girls. All three of the girls are absolutely amazing! They left on a Sanchez bus at 3:00 and I was sad to see them leave because they have all encouraged me so much in my walk and in my ministry.

Now, we literally only have 14 days left here in Coracora before heading back to Lima and that is just crazy to me. The time has flown by so fast and I cannot believe that we are starting to have to wrap things up. Just pray that our focus remains here on Coracora for these next 14 days. I am definitely afraid that I am going to lose focus as the time grows nearer. I am so sad to be leaving this place but at the same time I am so ready to get home and see my family and my dog and get back to Miss. State and see all of my friends and eat more food than rice and chicken and bisteck everyday. Pray for a leader to become apparent to us within these next two weeks. We are praying for someone that we can leave behind in this community and that will continue the mission and continue Bible studies.