Greetings from Peru:

I am currently standing at the little refrigerator in my hotel room – The Columbus Hotel – in Chincha, Peru. Why am I standing here? Because it is the only potential “desk” in my room and I discovered that I had WiFi and could get on line.

We had a “great start” to this trip!!!!

The weather in Ft Myers, delayed us departing RSW until 9:18 PM – almost 3 hours later than scheduled. We arrived in Miami with a blessing! We were just 2 minutes away from our departing gate for Lima. That was a life saver. And then our flight to Lima was delayed due to bad weather that delayed arrival of the airplane from New York. We finally pulled away from the gate about 1:00 AM and arrived in Lima about 5:45 AM. – that is 6:45 AM Florida time.

Let me tell you something though! The flight between Ft. Myers and Miami was something else. I have never been on a flight that was so rough. The turbulence gave you impression of being at Disney World on a Roller Coaster – which I hate! It was so bad that the stewardess said it was the worst she has ever been on in the four years she has been with American Airlines.

Our arrival in Lima greeted us with a test of the favor of God. We got a “red light” after we had gathered our baggage. Now let me tell you what that means. You send all your baggage through their screening process and they can assess you any charges they decide from what they see in your bags. We were loaded with potential “charges”.

We had three cell phones for people in Peru. We had high definition camera and accessories. We had our bags stuffed with “goodies” from “food” to “tools” for David and Ceci and the boys. And we had two brand new pumps for their water system. And then you add on the electronics I carry and ... let me finish this section – we made it through this process with only minimal questions and approval from the lady to go ahead and get our bags and depart.

So again the “favor of the Lord” was granted and we smiling walked through the doors to be greeted by David Hodges and Marco Aroni and made our way to the van to take the trip to Jicamarca.

Now we had aroused ourselves from sleep at about 6:00 am (me) and 5:00 - Marilyn. So we had no sleep except for a few “winks” on the airplane. But there was no sleep available because we were to meet a missionary from Baton Rouge, Louisiana for breakfast at David’s house. We made the next to the last turn in the road to go up to the Hodges and were told by Marco that our guest for breakfast was in the vehicle behind us – that was at 8:00 AM here (remember that Peru is one hour behind Ft. Myers.)

We took our bags in and prepared to eat and fellowship. Eventually, about 11:30 AM we were able to lay our bodies down to see if we could catch some shut-eye.

I thought I’d never get to sleep so I took a Tylenol PM. It took affect but the calf of my left leg awakened me with a jolt. But how do you get out of bed quickly when you are sleeping on the top bunk? Carefully and with great pain. I finally got down, walked the cramp out and crawled back into the upper story. I heard Marilyn’s voice about 4:30 PM calling me to supper. As I started to move to get out I felt another sharp pain hit my left leg and here I was – in great pain and still up in the air.

I knew what the problem was. I need to eat some bananas. Why? Because past experiences told me that I was low on potassium and that if I ate a couple of bananas I would be okay. Fortunately, Rosita, Ceci’s niece was headed from town out to Jicamarca and at 9:30 PM we were able to make contact with her just as the cab she was in was passing a fruit stand. She arrived about 45 minutes later and I gulped down a couple and headed back downstairs to bed.

We rolled out of bed this morning at about 7:00 and began the process of locating all of our belongings so we would know where they were and the call to breakfast (after a shower) stopped the process which we finished after eating pancakes, drinking some fresh banana and some papaya juice.

My schedule called for me to be ready to leave Jicamarca at 10:00 for Chincha and a meeting with a pastor who has requested that we become his spiritual covering and then ministry in his church this evening and on Sunday we are at Emanuel International Pentecostal Holiness Church and in the evening at Templo Apostolico Assemblies of God – which was the first Church to open Pacto de Vida University (Covenant Life University) in Peru.

So here I am preparing this blog and knowing that I have a meeting with Pastor Carlos sometime between 5:00 and 5:30.

Anyway, you now know the process of how we got here and what happened.

Remember: Due to the lack of internet contact, there may be a few days between the posting of new blogs, so you will just have to check and see if we were able to accomplish the feat.

For those of you who are on Face Book, Marco Aroni will be posting some up-dates in short fashion that may keep you alert to what is happening and where we are.

Oh yes – Marilyn will be spending the majority of her time with the Hodges and will only be going with me to Arequipa the last part of this week.

God bless and remember us in your prayers.