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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 2 M A R C H 2 011 “ . . T H O S E W H O L O S E T H E I R L I F E W I L L F I N D I T.” . L U K E 17 : 3 3
Just in time
Hanna Melara
“I don’t think I could finish building anything like this in two weeks - probably not even in my lifetime,” I told Erick and Ever one day as they were working on the Km 8 house. They just laughed at me. No, but seriously. I have no idea how 8 guys finished a whole house, bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms and showers (complete with toilets), and a water tower in only two weeks. It all got done, though. And just in time. The day that Doctor Matson’s team arrived, the chicos finished putting the last touches on the house. We are extremely grateful to all the hard work that went in to build the new house at Km 8.
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Down by the riverside
Hanna Melara
Actually it was more like a lagoon. And the sun was beating down really hard. But the spirits of the people at the La Florida church were high.
Why? Because seven people were getting baptized. Three of the seven were from the Km 6 campaign. Everyone was standing on the bank of the laguna singing hymns together. The baptismal candidates went down to the water and one by one were dunked
under. Dying to their old life and rising to a new one in Jesus Christ. On March 26, seven new souls dedicated their lives to Jesus. No turning back, no turning back.
A new Antonio
Anthony Howell
I do believe it was Tu e s d a y morning, I woke up to the sound of a woman in labor, a most unsettling noise at 4 in the morning. Being half awake, I didn’t worry much about it until about 5:20 when Cecilia came knocking and asked me to run into Campo Verde to pick up some medicines. So I found myself banging on the locked front door of a 24-hour pharmacy at the crack of dawn, just hoping that someone would answer. After waking the pharmacist and getting the goods, I made it back to the scene. I didn’t actually watch the birth or anything, I went over to the other
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house and got started on breaking the fast. Lo and behold, news of the newborn reached my ears and I went over to investigate. It was a little boy, Jader and his wife’s little newborn. The first question whenever anyone sees a newborn is the same all around: “What’s his name?” Well they were expecting the baby to be another week down the line, so they didn’t have a name prepared. I, joking around, suggested that they name the little one Antonio. And, for once in my life, someone took my joke seriously. They responded by saying that they liked that name and were considering it. By the time I walked out of that room, full of the new baby’s family, it was decided that they would name the baby after me. Wow. I just didn’t know what to do about that. There is now a little baby boy with my namesake in this world. That’s pretty sweet and I don’t expect anything to top that anytime in the near future.
That got me thinking, why would a family name their kid after a friend of theirs? Because they like the friend and have a lot of respect for him. You know what really got me? Jader told me that if his baby was a boy (he’s already got three girls) he was going to give him a nombre fuerte (strong name) and now his little boy is named Jader Antonio. You have to realize that Jader is probably the strongest person I know. This guy has put six full-length Peruvian hardwood 2x3’s on his shoulder and walked briskly with them. I struggle to carry half that. Giving his son his name and mine just says something crazy. I’m trying to explain it here, but I feel like I’m coming up short. He’s basically telling me that he thinks I’m a strong man in the most sincere and personal way he can. He gave his son my name because of me. I have the perfect word for it too: wow.
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Toilet paper wedding
Hanna Melara
The phone rang at Km 38. It was the Doctor. It was the Doctor telling me that there was a wedding to go to at Los Mangoes. So I put on the nicest clothes that I could find which were jeans and a shirt that my mom sent me for my birthday, and hitched a free ride to Km 8 with the chicos. I had my mission in mind. I was going to go to the wedding, try to stay unnoticed (which is kind of hard to do when you’re a gringa), take some pictures, find out how the evangelism was going, and then leave. I wasn’t feeling well, and honestly didn’t have the energy or will at that moment to step out of my comfort zone. I just wanted to get in and get out. But the moment that my motokar pulled up into Km 6, and I saw
some of the kids that I knew from Vacation Bible School, something inside of me sprung to life. The kids all came running to greet me, practically tackling me to the ground. I found Hermana Marta and Hermano Fausto, and together we waited for the novios at a little open house simply decorated with toilet paper and baby blue balloons. The ceremony was simple. One of the local leaders read a little bit of the Peruvian law concerning marriage and then the pastor read about the first marrige ever; the one ordained by God in the garden of Eden. The couples hugged and kissed each other, and their family members celebrated with them. One of the things that I liked the most about this wedding was the fact that no one was technically invited and yet everyone was welcome. I got to take a picture with the bride and her family even though I had never met before. All of the kids that were running around outside were present, most of them barefoot
and wearing their dirty play-clothes. After the ceremony was over, one of the couples got out some little plastic cups and filled them up with soda. We all drank our little cup and talked, completely content. The thing is, the wedding was so simple, they probably didn’t even spend 30 soles to put the whole thing together, but they didn’t need the stuff. They had each other and they had their family. Oh, Peru. You have your priorities straight.
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Un Nuevo Sol
The SM Team
They all told me before I left. “The months fly by so enjoy your time while you’re there.” And they were all right. The months do really fly. Here we are already. Month 7 of the 2010 2011 year is already upon us and pretty soon it will be time to pack up and go back home. But let’s not talk about that day yet. One of the million things that I am going to miss about Peru is the value of the Nuevo Sol. Unlike the US $1 dollar, which can pretty much only buy you half of a pack of gum or a cruncy potato soft taco at Taco Bell, one single Sol can be used to buy a plethora of useful and often very yummy things. I have collaborated with the other student missionaries and the Peruvians about all the things that 1 Sol can buy. Here’s what we’ve come up with. Enjoy. (To put things in perspective, the value of the Sol in terms of the US dollar is about 0.36 cents.) - 2 pills of Albednazol (worm medicine) - 1 brick - A ride to Campo Verde in a motokar - 10 green mangoes - 5 boxes of matches - 40 minutes of internet in a cafe with airconditioning - 1 hour of internet cafe next door without airconditioning - 1 cucumber - 1 group of palm branches used for roofing - 2 bags of chicha morada on the side of the road in Pucallpa - 1 bottle of water - 2 curichi’s (frozen aguaje treat) - 1 bunch of platanos maduros (ripe plantains) - 2 red mangoes - 20 copies - 10 rolls of bread - 2 glasses of cebada (a lemonade/coffee flavored drink) - I bag of freshly squeezed orange juice - 1 piece of cake - 1/2 of a kilo of rice - 6 eggs - 10 cubes of chicken seasoning - 1 handmade bracelet - 2 rolls of toilet paper
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I started teaching again this semester. The kids have been Jenessa King on their summer vacation for the past two months. I didn´t realize until Monday how much I had missed my kids. It was also a little sad because some of my students had moved on to middle school. So now I have new students, and new names to learn. Speaking of new names. On Monday, we had our first class of the semester with the little 1st and 2nd graders. We played a name game to get to know the kids in our class. We all sat in a circle with one less chair than people. I had them stand up, say their name and something they liked to do. If anyone else like the same thing they had to get up and switch chairs. The person left without a chair would do the same thing. A girl named Rita got up, introduced herself and something she liked. Cool! A girl with the same name as my mom. I can remember that. Next came Sander, he needed a little more prompting. Cute kid though. Then Carlos, the crazy teacher´s son. You´d think he´d be a little more behaved, or maybe not. He yelled his name and dove for a chair before the next kid could leave it. Then Angi, she was in my class last semester, cutest little girl ever and smart too. A few more kids got up, and we were left with one more. The little guy stood up, and said his name. At first I thought I´d heard wrong. ¨Say your name again.¨ ¨Jetli,¨(pronounced Jet Lee). I thought he was pulling my leg, I unsuccessfully suppressed a laugh and asked again. This time a few other kids repeated his name for me. This time I knew. It was too good to be true. I have a kid in my class named Jetli. I turned to Rebecca, chuckled and declared how awesome I thought that was. Jetli and the rest of the kids had a good time learning some English, and making paper airplanes the rest of the morning. I love these kids. Everyday I keep thinking about how much I´m going to miss them when I have to leave in two months. I will cry. It´s for certain. Until then, I just get to have some fun, teach them English, and hang out with Jetli.
Teaching Jet Lee
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Loco
Rachel Downey
Oh campaigns. It’s always the same. We work until we feel like we’re going to pass out and then we do it again every day for a week. It’s great, and honestly for some crazy reason I really like it. I love knowing that we are able to give people something that would normally be difficult or impossible for them to get. And even though sometimes I could literally collapse in exhaustion or frustration I know that it’s all worth it. This particular campaign was fun because we had about 16 more team members. Dr. Matson and a group of students from Eastern Virginia Medical School were here helping us. Five were medical students and the rest were public health students who were doing a study in our community. The medical students worked in the clinic with us all week seeing patients. Here´s how it went - we would see 100 patients in the morning and 100 in the afternoon. I was the boss of the pharmacy and unfortunately, a lot of the time I found myself in there alone! It’s a scary place to be too - don’t be fooled. My stack of prescriptions would slowly grow, and the more it grew the more people I had staring at me through the pharmacy window. They would just crowd around and stare and me. And heaven forbid I step foot out of the pharmacy - as soon as I did I would be accosted by the herd of Peruvians awaiting their medicine. “Senorita! Senorita!” they would shout at me. I got to the point where I would go out, give the meds to the correct individual and turn right around and go back into the pharmacy completely ignoring the calls from everyone. Eventually, when other people were done with their jobs I would have more help in the pharmacy which obviously made things go a lot faster. Every day this week I worked through lunch and one day I got there and there was not even a kernel of rice left for me. That was a sad day. Most days we worked until 7 o’clock and then I had to clean up the hurricane that appeared to have happened in the pharmacy. Two nights of the week we were up half the night with women in labor. We had 3 births in total this week. The only word that I can use to describe the week is crazy. Everything. It was nuts. The third birth happened in a car. The woman was on the way to the clinic and the baby’s head was already on the way out. By the time they got to the clinic and told Cecilia the shoulders were already coming out. She literally got to the mom just in time to catch the baby before it fell on the ground. I have no idea how we made it through this week. God was definitely there giving us all extra strength to keep pressing on. In the evenings we would have worship and that was an amazing time just to wind down. We sang and laughed and shared stories. That was probably the part of each day that I enjoyed the most.
Each campaign inspires me. It makes me love my work here more and it helps me understand how important it is. Granted, there are people who take advantage of it and there are people who are very rude and that make me angry. But then you have the sick kids or elderly - the people who really do need our help. There was a woman with basal cell carcinoma on her face and if it wasn’t for Dr. Matson catching it and paying for her to have surgery then she would have died. Now she has another chance at life. We saw a man with an extremely awful infection in his ear- without us he may have lost his hearing and possibly his ear. I feel so great that I get to do just a small part of Christ’s work by “healing” the sick. Not that we were working miracles, but that we were able to help how we could to make someone’s life a little bit better. Even though this was possibly one of the longest and hardest weeks of my life I am thankful for each experience, for the people I met, and for how God showed me His strength.
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