400 BACKPACKS THAT IS THE MISSION!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

We, Mark and Rachel King (Rachel is the Director of Discipleship Ministries for the SonShine Conference of the International Pentecostal Holiness) and I flew out of Orlando, landed in Panama and then arrived in Lima all on schedule, well a few minutes ahead of time – all without any problems.

Then we began our trek through immigration and customs. Immigration let us in without any questions. Can you imagine that! Then we located, waited that is, on our bags. Three were tagged as “priority” and then the other three, well all we could do was to “believe” after prayer that they would be on the conveyor belt. They were and we moved our luggage and lined up in the “Green Light - Red Light” line. This is where you hand your documents to the custom’s official and then push a button. If it responds with “green” then you proceed to leave, but if it shines “red” then you must run all your bags through the screener.

Mark and Rachel led the way and got the one you do not want to get – “RED”. I received the favor and mine was “Green” and was I glad because my bags had some items which may have raised a question with the officials. So I moved my cart out of the way and spoke to a custom’s official and told him that my friends did not know what to do and so I was going to assist them. Every other time I attempted to do this I was forced to move on out of the area. He nodded and I understood his Spanish to say, “Okay!” At least that was the way I interpreted it and so I proceed to give them help in quickly grabbing their bags and putting them back on their carts and told them to follow me. No one stopped us and so we breathed a sigh of relief and moved out of the customs area.

I could not find the familiar face I was looking for, Marco Aroni and so I used my Peruvian Phone (it is a Ukrainian phone, a Dominican Phone, whatever I need it to be by switching to the local sim card. He answered and instructed us to meet him at the ATM machine where he would pay the parking fee. In a couple of minutes he arrived, we paid and moved to load the Nissan station wagon. Because of my expert packing abilities (no brag, just facts), we were able to get all of our bags into the car and headed for our apartment at the IPHC Peru Headquarters. Dan and Brenda Clowers had graciously invited us to stay in their apartment and use their car, so we quickly moved in and began planning for Thursday.

Thursday, February 18, 2010:

It was a short night amid the tossing and turning but rest did come but morning seemed to arrive too early. I had just finished my preparations for the day when the door bell told me that Marco had arrived with our breakfast – ham, cheese, Peruvian bread, some yogurt and water. And with him was Jenny Rodriguez, Pastor Gustavo’s wife. She had so graciously offered to assist us on our mission for the day – purchasing the supplies for the 400 backpacks. WHAT A BLESSING SHE WAS! It did not take us long to devour the sustenance and head out for the day.

I’ve never seen such a frenzy of activity at an office supply store. Nor had I ever had to walk three blocks to get to one. And I had never had to keep my eyes peeled for “thieves” on my way to purchase office supplies. And you would never walk down the middle of the street to do it! But we did! I mean the streets for three blocks were open only to pedestrians. So we became “pedestrians.”

The people were packed three or more deep when we arrived, but because Jenny had been there and established a relationship with a couple of employees, we were granted “up front” status. Well, that is, Jenny Marco and Rachel. Mark and I stayed in the background and took pictures and chatted with one employee who spoke about as much English as I do Spanish. But we had a good time – well it was really a long time as they went over about every item in two or three different qualities/expense.

Mark and I could see them waving their hands and heads, sometimes up and down and at other times sideways and so we could just about tell what was transpiring. When they were finished I thought well since we purchased supplies for 400 backpacks we will be here for about an hour – WRONG! We were told to leave and they would call Marco and tell him when to return and pick up the supplies. Remember we had walked three blocks to the store? So I began to feel my muscles aching even before we returned!

Well we took advantage of the time and opportunity to get lunch at Pardos where I enjoyed introducing Mark and Rachel to some Peruvian style meals but with the familiar chicken main feature. Pardo’s is a step up from KFC in my book. It was fun watching them as they watched Jenny eat her bar-b-qued “cow heart”. Because Jenny had to be back to her home before the supplies would be ready dropped her off and at that time got a call that we could return because they had our order ready, rather would be ready by the time we got there.

So off we went, found the same parking garage and walked the three blocks back through the mass of humans going in all directions in the middle of the street. We were told to go around the corner where the service department was. We did and the crowd there was worse than the one at the front counter. But the man who had completed our order from the front had come back personally to supervise the collection and packing of our supplies so we once again had favor.

I gasped as they began to carry out the boxes. I knew that Mark, Marco and I would die before we got these supplies to the car. AND! The question was, “How many trips would it take?” But we used our heads, I mean pocketbooks and hired a man with a cart – a large style two-wheeled tip-back Peruvian cart. I could not believe how many boxes he piled on that cart! I did not see how one man would be able to bend over, take hold of the handles and then life that load and steer it three blocks to our car. He did, but with the command that Marco, Mark and I keep our eyes open and watch to keep thieves away he tied everything down and we were off.

We filled the entire back of the station wagon from the front seat to the rear with boxes and they were in their tight. Mark and I had to take a taxi while Marco and Rachel took our vehicle and headed to the Church and our apartment. Marco and Rachel arrived before we did because our driver did not listen closely to Marco’s instructions and because neither Mark nor I knew how to get where we were going. All we could tell him was “that is the building” when we saw it. After one call to Marco and an additional four minutes we arrived safe and sound.

We toted them there boxes into the auditorium, took a short rest, had Marco go to get us some food and led by Rachel, Mark and I followed instructions to set up an assembly line. We ate our pork sandwich, drank our Inca Cola and completed our assembly line with pride. To be sure everything was okay we each took a backpack and went through the process four times to see if we had everything perfectly. Being “perfect” people that we are, we accomplished the feat with ease. Before going up stairs, we did take a few moments to admire our labors.

Why did we set up an assembly line? Because the local church has some people who were to arrive at 9:00 AM to assist us and they would be joined by two young men from Marco’s church.

After some time of talking about the day’s activities and deciding that the car we were using was too risky for the trip to Chincha, and acquiring another for those two days, we planned the next morning’s menu, bid goodnight to Marco and stumbled into our beds.

I tried to write this blog before I crashed but my computer decided it did not want to labor anymore so it acted like an upset teenager (please forgive me teens, maybe it was really acting like a “pre-teen”) and locked up and I lost everything I had written. I wonder what you would have thought about or how you would have compared it to what you are now reading? Regardless it was good and this is great!

I’ll bring you up to date on Friday’s activities when the day has drawn to a close. Besides you have so many great thoughts from what you have read and your brain can contain any more, so relax and rejoice with us.

Dr D and Mark and Rachel