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MOR PROJECT
TO U C H O F L OV E P E R U A M O N T H LY E M A I L P U B L I C AT I O N I S S U E N O . 4 1 F E B R U A R Y 2 011 “ . . B U T T H E G R E AT E S T O F T H E S E I S L O V E .” . 1 C O R I N T H I A N S 13 : 13
A new church for Santa Elvita
Just two short kilmeters away from Km 38 in the community of Santa Elvita, good tidings of great joy will soon be proclaimed to all people. Ok, maybe it’s not going to be as dramatic as the birth of Jesus, but the church members of Santa Elvita sure are excited about the construction of their new church home. The current church services have been held at Hermana Lucia’s house under a roofed addition between her house and kitchen. It’s nice to meet in family enviornment, but for a long time now, the members have been wanting to give God their best. With the land purchased, they can now make their dreams a reality and
start worshiping together in a real church building. The land, which is located right behind the school, already had a small house on it. But instead of tearing it down, it was decided to just move it over a few yards to make room for the church building. The house will be used as a Sabbath School building for the kids and also a general meeting building, while the churchstructure will be only used for worship services. Jenessa King and Rebecca Daniel are the student missionaries this year who are members at the Santa Elvita church. They too got to participate in the building of their
church. They shoveled lots of of dirt to level the floor inside the church. “I’m glad that Santa Elvita is finally getting it’s own church,” says Jenessa. “I think as a result of the church being built a lot more people [in Santa Elvita] will be brought to Jesus. It was also a really cool experience to be part of a project like this.” I think she’s exactly right. After the church is completed the plan is to hold an evalgelistic series in the new building. We know that God is ready to greatly bless Santa Elvita and the surrounding area.
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Under the hojas
Hanna Melara
In the 6 kilometer stretch from Campo Verde to Santa Elvita there are lots of fruit stands. Every one that you pass makes your mouth water just a little bit more than the one you saw before. The coconuts and oranges are stacked precariously high, the bright yellow bananas hang from their hooks, keeping watch over the rest of the fruit. After an afternoon of games with the kids at Santa Elvita, Jenessa and I were making the walk back to our Km 38 home. We had a pit stop in mind at our favorite fruit stand to get a fresh squeezed glass of orange juice. With the pulpy goodness
as our motivation, we continued down the road talking, the sun beating down on our already sunburnt shoulders and necks. Pretty soon we heard, “Gringitas! Profesoras! Ven aca!” There was a small group of moms under the shade of a fruit stand across the street. They were all motioning for us to come over to them. “There are many kids in this area who want to learn English,” one of the mothers started in Spanish. “Can you come here and teach them?” Jenessa promised to return the following week to see for sure how many kids would be interested. And sure enough, on Monday morning when she arrived there were 10 eager faces waiting for her. She
taught them the letters of the alphabet and some animal names and then finished with a game of letter bingo. These kids love to play. But what kid doesn’t? The next day Jenessa taught colors and then made a color matching game that all the kids participated in. Jenessa finished off classes for the week by teaching parts of the body accompanied by the body song, which, of course was a huge hit. There’s just something about teaching these kids that feels extra special. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re all really excited to learn English. Or maybe it’s the magical enviornment of being underneath the palm hojas with the coconuts looking on. Whatever it is, Jenessa is just as excited to teach here as the kids are to learn.
Fiesta!
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Sometimes life gets busy. But it Hanna Melara never gets too busy to stop and celebrate the birthday of a friend. This February 13 marked the 22nd
birthday of Jenessa King, a volunteer from Calhoun, Georgia. Birthdays are always a special occasion filled with lots of cooking, lots of eating, lots of laughter, and lots of eggs. Eggs? Yes, eggs. A Peruvian birthday tradition is to get an egg cracked on your head in a surprise attack. Sometimes there are multiple attacks, like three in the case of Jenessa’s fiesta. But even though eggs stink and it’s a pain to change your clothes 3 times in one night, it’s fun to have everyone gathered together to share in celebrating a special day.
Surgery is one of the most amazing things to Lauren Christensen be a witness to, let alone be able to assist in. I had my first opportunity to assist in a surgery today! There was a little girl who came to our clinic who was having problems breathing because of a tumor that was obstructing her airway. It was a very sad case. She is only two years old, and she needed a surgery to remove the tumor, but her family did not have the money to pay for it. Getting the surgery was imperative because otherwise, the tumor would eventually close off her entire airway and she would die. We decided that something needed to be done and so between the eight of us missionaries, we came up with the $300 dollars that it would cost for the
The life of a 2-year-old
surgery. We found a head and neck specialist that heard our story and agreed to do the surgery at a cheaper price. The only things we paid for was the anesthesia and the cost of using a room for the surgery. Before the surgery, I was elected to be the surgeon’s assistant, which in and of itself was very cool but terrifying at the same time. They sedated Celeste a little bit before they brought her back to be put under anesthesia. She had been in the hospital for 10 days previously, so she had a healthy fear of anyone in the medical profession, and she fought anyone who tried to come near her. When they brought her back into the room, I was the only person who she recognized and so I had the responsibility of keeping her calm while they tried to find a vein large enough for the IV. After she was asleep they used an instrument to spread her mouth wide and the doctor began the surgery. I didn’t do very much during the surgery, but I did hold the tongue back so that he could see, and I was holding the suction to keep the area as blood free as possible. The hardest part came when Celeste
started to wake up. She was very disoriented, confused, and scared. Her mom was looking in at her from outside the window, and she started crying because she couldn’t do anything for her baby. Celeste woke up crying, and she threw up a little bit. When the mother was finally allowed to come in, Celeste immediately calmed down. After we were released we rushed the family back to the clinic to administer medicine for the pain that Celeste would soon feel from the surgery. The surgeon pulled out a lot of tumor from that poor child’s neck. There was still a lot more to pull out, but he stopped because he thought it was cancerous, possibly lymphoma, and she really needed to go to Lima to get it taken care of. He took out enough for us to get it analyzed to see what it really is, but he’s pretty sure whatever he took out will grow back and she’ll have to go to Lima. For now, though, she can breathe better and the mother doesn’t have to wake her up when she’s sleeping to make sure that she is still breathing. Life seems so unfair to give a two-year-old a problem like this. She hasn’t been on this earth for very long and she’s already fighting for her life. We’re praying that everything turns out alright, and hopefully she doesn’t have to go to Lima because I don’t know where the family would get the money for all of that care.
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Ong house update
Hanna Melara
The month of February has been spent in dedicated work to the Ong’s house. I know there have already been updates in newsletters past about the progress of this project, but I hope you’re just as excited to read another update as I am to report on it. As you can see from the panoramic photos (the bottom one being the most recent), a lot of progress has been made this month on the inside of the house. Every day there are more bricks that have been layed and so everyday it looks a little different from the day before. Hector Leon, who has been in charge of the project because of his extensive knowledge of working with cement and bricks, told me that he likes working on the house and that he feels like it’s going really well, even though we’ve had a lot of rain in the past week. Encouraging news, I’d say, on the Ong House front.
Vacation Bible School
Hanna Melara
This month we had a Vacation Bible School program for the kids of the community. Every night Anthony or Jonathan pick up all the kids of Santa Elvita, Yerbas Buenas, and Los
Pinos and bring them back to Km 38 for the program. Every night we sang lots of songs, learned a memory verse, had a special health presentation from Senor Salud, and then divided for the lesson. The older kids went with Rebecca to do Bible studies while the younger kids listened to Bible stories and did a craft. On the very last night we had a bonfire and roasted marshmallows and drank lemonade. The kids loved seeing their friends every night and learning more about their best friend Jesus.
One of the things I love the most about Peru is the importance placed on playing. I’ve seen this in every community that I’ve visited. At the end of every day, the people get together to play. Volleyball, soccer,
Take time to play
Hanna Melara
anything. They just play. I think there’s something to be learned from playing. With playing comes laughter and fun and a sense of community. Something that I think is missing in a lot of places in the United States. I challenge you this month to play. Play with your kids. Play with your husband or wife. Play with the people in your neighborhood. The joy that will follow is irreplaceable.
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A typical day at Km 8: In photos
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