Medical Campaign - Thursday

At this point in the week, exhaustion usually has hit the visiting team and those of us from the mission. We picked the team up at 7:30am, and everyone headed toward the bus at a slightly slower pace. :) Trying to keep eyelids open and mustering up energy for the day was made much easier once we arrived at Mercado Nazareth, our location for the day. A busy street lined with booths and blankets full of things to sell and people buzzing around got us all going at a great pace. We set up our tents and got things rolling. Lora helped run Triage and crowd control and translated for Jocelyn, the nurse. We saw all sorts of patients and conditions Thursday. Again, we had such a great turnout, we had to turn people away and suggest they come to our clinic on the next day.  We also had some extra help from the rest of the team who had spent the week painting and doing construction in our Arevalo church and our Wichanzao clinic. Everyone did great and made it through the day!

Medical Campaign - Wednesday

Wednesday we packed up again and headed to Santa Rosa, a community not far from our clinic in Wichanzao. We set up tents outside. A tent for triage, a tent for each doctor, and a tent for a nutritionist and pharmacy. We saw patients from 9am-1pm and treated around 90 patients again. We had such a great turnout, we had to give vouchers for free visits to our clinic to those we could not see.Lora translated again for Dr. Huffman for the day. We saw many women and children and some very sick elderly. We treated a very sick elderly woman with a heart condition and dangerously high blood pressure who cannot work and has no family in the area. What a blessing to be able to give her medication that she desperately needs, which she would not be able to afford otherwise, and encourage her to keep on! We treated lots of asthma, allergies, and a virus that many people had been suffering from all week. A great turnout and everyone went home happy. 

Medical Campaign - Tuesday

We picked up at the team at 7:15am and headed to our clinic in Wichanzao. We had planned out our transportation to the clinic to the detail as there was a transportation strike. With the strikes come human blockades on the highway (our route to the clinic) and many people throw bottles and rocks at the vehicles. There are also very few taxis that run on these days. We left early and made it by taking a couple of back roads through neighborhoods where the highway was impassible by the blockades. It was exciting. We arrived and attended in the clinic in the same form as the day before. Lora worked reception, handling patient registration, patient flow, and the cash box. We saw many patients again Tuesday and closed the clinic around 1:30pm. We headed over to the church and enjoyed some wonderful Peruvian food together. We took the team out to Clementina, the developing shanty town by the clinic, and then out to the Huaca de La Luna, some incredible ancient ruins in Moche, just outside of Trujillo. It was a wonderful day!

Medical Campaign - Monday

Monday we set up our campaign at our church in Manuel Arevalo. It is a needy community and the church serves many women and their children. We worked hand in hand with Pastor Eduardo Quiroz and had opened the campaign to anyone and everyone in the surrounding community. We had a pulmonologist (Dr. Doug Mullins, Savannah, GA) which was a blessing as many children and adults suffer from asthma here. We had a medical resident specializing in internal medicine  (Dr. James Huffman, Savannah, GA) who covered the general medical problems. We also had a nurse (Jocelyn Halverson, Seattle, WA) attending in triage, Manuel, our clinic's dentist, and our head nurse, Diana, in our make-shift pharmacy. Lora translated for Dr. Huffman (internal medicine) for the day. We started attending to patients around 9:00am, stopped for a 10-15 minute lunch, and continued until about 3:00pm. We believe we saw around 90 patients total on Monday. We were able to pray with patients, invite them to attend the church, and encourage those who were already members. In addition to providing free medical care, we were able to offer free medication all day. The first day of a campaign is always a little hectic as doctors and nurses from the states are taking it all in and are figuring out how to work with an interpreter, along with figuring out the culture as some basic fundamentals are so completely different. Everyone did great and went home ready for some rest! We would be conquering another day soon...

September Medical Campaign

Earlier this month, we geared up for a large medical campaign. It was a great success. Two doctors, a nurse, a pharmacist, and a hospital administrator (along with other team members) came down from the states to volunteer their time and services. We were able to serve and minister to people from the community, from our churches, and even some who traveled some distance to be seen by the visiting doctors. Lora spent the week helping to head up the campaign, translating for the doctors, and getting to know the team. We'll give you a day-by-day recount...

Ecuador Visa Adventure - Worth the Read...

At the beginning of this month we decided to take the trip to cross the border so that we could officially apply for our resident religious visas. We got a call on a Monday that we needed to make the trip urgently for time’s sake, so we turned around and left on Tuesday morning. We’ll recount the adventure...

We start the morning at the Immigration office here in Trujillo to try and pay a fine for our expired visas. The immigration official tells us this option does not exist. We must pay at the border. We decide to head to the national bank across the street (where you pay the fine), to double check. They tell us that it is possible, but you have to get the code from the immigration official across the street. Ugh. We decide to head on to the border. 

A private auto picks us up with two drivers - an expensive route, but there are no available seats on buses. Once on the road, our drivers inform us that the transportation service only took us to Piura - 5 hours away - NOT Mancora (our destination) - 8 hours away. They do however, offer to take us on to our destination for an extra s/. 300 ($100). We stop in Piura at the Immigration office to see if we can pay our fine there. The official tells us that it is possible, but we do not have proper documentation handy, so we must wait for the border. We decide to go on to Mancora with our drivers and fork over the extra $100. We later find out that we had paid for the full service, and the drivers scammed us out of the extra money. Argh. 

Wednesday we head north a couple more hours to the Ecuadorean border in taxi. We pick up a man along the way who will help us in the process. We make it to the immigration office there. We talk to two men, then the supervisor, and get a fine voucher. We head 15 minutes to the border to wait in line at the national bank to pay our fine. We head back to the immigration office to show our receipt and get an ‘exit’ stamp and are questioned by police/customs. We get back in the car and head the 15 minutes back to the border.

The taxi drops us off and on foot we head into Ecuador, clutching our passports and cash, as all Peruvians have warned us how dangerous it is. After a 5 minute walk, we catch a taxi and drive 15 more minutes to the Ecuadorean Immigration. We get our ‘entry’ stamp and then find out that you must stay 48 hours in Ecuador for them to allow you to leave. With no belongings and very little money, we go for the emergency route. At his suggestion, our Peruvian friend takes a $20 bill and our passports around back, we wait what seemed like a nerve-racking eternity, and retrieve our passports as quickly as they were handed off, with ‘entry and exit’ stamps and all. 

We hail another taxi, drive 15 minutes back to the border, cross on foot, find our other cab driver, and drive the 15 minutes back to Peruvian Immigration. We stand in line for our new ‘entry’ stamp and have to convince the officer of why we are leaving and entering the country on the same day. We get our stamp, pay our helper, and start the 2 hour drive back to our hotel.

We celebrated surviving the ordeal upon our return and were able to spend the following day in a bungalow on the beach. Friday, our auto came to Mancora, to pick us up and take us home... It arrived, of course, with two new drivers. :) 

Moving to the Suburbs

Just a few weeks ago, at the end of August, we decided to move from our apartment downtown. Although we loved the location, we were caught in a bit of a chasm. Not being single interns (who all live in shared housing) and not being a family with children, there is no one here in the mission in our age group or of a ‘young married’ status. We often found that the ‘intern’ group believed we were included in the ‘family’ group and the ‘family’ group thought we were included in the ‘intern’ group. So as we were awkwardly straddling both groups, we decided it would be good to make a strategic move. After thought and prayer, we decided it would be a wise decision to move to “Golf”, where all of the mission’s missionary families live. Here we will be able to build relationships with those who are older and much wiser than ourselves, hopefully glean some parenting skills we admire, and stay more connected to what’s going on in the mission as a whole. We are enjoying serving the families by babysitting the kids and letting the parents take date-nights and have had a blast doing so. We’ve moved from the busy city-center to the quiet suburbs. We now live on the corner of a pretty little park and get to enjoy lush green every day. (Something we never saw when living downtown!) The children all get together in the park every afternoon to play. We are in the second story of a house with lots of interesting character and we feel very safe in our neighborhood. With the move we acquired a terrace with some fun but struggling plants we are currently trying to revive, a television, a dryer, hot water in the kitchen, and hot showers! We are loving it! We were also able to hand our old apartment over to the intern girls who all teach English at the language institute which is just around the corner. The 6 girls were living with a Peruvian family (some for over a year), sharing the family's living space, and were eager to find a place of their own. They were very excited to have closets, their own kitchen and living room, etc. We are so glad that it worked out well for everyone! 

Visitors from Home

At the end of our trip in Lima, we were delighted to pick up our friends James Wagner and Tim Whitley at the airport and bring them back to Trujillo with us. It was exhilarating to have our first friends come to visit. We came back to Trujillo and enjoyed showing them around a bit. They were so gracious to bring Eric’s birthday gifts from the states and a special package from our parents. We really enjoyed the fellowship of familiar faces from home.  We were humbled as they asked some great questions and we realized just how much we still have to learn about our new home! So we’re working on our tour-guiding skills for the next visitors that come down (wink,wink). It was so fun sharing a piece of the land and culture as well as the excitement of the ministry here. We took them to most of our favorite eateries, showed them the hot-spots, had some great conversation, adventured to Otuzco, and said goodbye as they hurried off to make it down to Machu Picchu before their week was over. After a few months in a foreign land and just the beginnings of relationships, it was so encouraging and refreshing to spend time with people that know us. It was wonderful to hear that even with such a pull as Machu Picchu, they hated having to leave Trujillo. We very much agreed. It was such a rich, wonderful time having friends among us!!! 

Lima - Visa Adventure

In August, we made a trip down to Lima to apply for our permanent religious visas as our temporary visas were about to expire. Come to find out, we missed our asking window by 2 days, and our new visas would have to be put on hold until we left the country and re-entered. Although the man we were working with wanted us to cancel our bus tickets home and put us on a plane to Ecuador right away, we decided to wait and make a trip of it when our work schedules allowed a more convenient time. We went ahead and paid a bunch of money and were registered with the International Police to start the fun process. We had a couple of trips back and forth from agency to immigration office to agency, back to immigration office to international police and then back to agency and still not really sure we accomplished much - but we made the best out of it and enjoyed getting to know Lima a bit better. We even enjoyed a taste of American food at Chili’s in Miraflores. It was like magically traveling to America for some skillet queso and a burger before walking out the front doors back into Lima-land. We visited the zoo, went on a quest to find the best Alfajor (special Peruvian cookie) in town... We had a great trip.

Our Growing Church

Last month we were so excited to receive 30 new members to our church in Wichanzao, where we attend, almost doubling our size! A couple of seminary students have been ministering to some neighborhoods surrounding our church community by getting to know the families there, making house visits, pastoring, etc. We held a special service to take in our new members from the Los Pinos neighborhood. How exciting and powerful that the Lord has begun working in hearts in the community and they have felt lead to come and join in the body of Christ. Just a couple of weeks ago, four of the families baptized their children into the faith. The Lord is truly working!

Eric's Birthday

We celebrated Eric's birthday at the end of July and who knew that a couple magazines, dvds, a pocket knife, and a pen could be so exciting! You realize that your standards quickly change while living in a third world country and adapting to a simpler life is a beautiful thing. We had a fun evening at our favorite Italian restaurant in town, and saw Wall-E (in Spanish) at the movie theater downtown. It helped that the movie had very little talking. :) Eric successfully turned 28. Another year onward!

SALI Graduation

SALI, our English Language Institute, just held its second graduation ceremony. We celebrated with the students as they completed their 28-month English program. Truly an accomplishment, these students will now be able to broaden the future of their careers that lie ahead. They come out speaking some fantastic English! We had a great evening rejoicing in the fruits of one of our ministries!

The Jungle - Moyobamba

We spent the end of July celebrating "Fiestas Patrias", or Peruvian Independence, by traveling tothe  jungle with some of our new friends here. A group of 15, half Americans and half Peruvians, headed to Moyobamba on an 18 hour bus ride. 22 hours later, thanks to a rockslide on the mountain highway, we arrived in the laid-back jungle town. We took a boat ride on the Rio Mayo, swam and took in the beautiful views, were awoken each morning by small chirping monkeys, partook of local jungle food, visited an orchid farm, saw the "birth" of a mountain stream and swam in its sub-freezing rushing waters below, ate fish with scales and all, saw how coffee is made from flowering plant to steaming cup, and hiked and camped at the top of a mountain. We came back from the trip having bonded with our fellow Americans and Peruvians like we never could have expected. We look forward to the friendships that began on our trip being cultivated throughout our time here.