Back from Peru

Well, where do I start? How about with a WOW! I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Peru on a project with Extreme Nazarene. (WWW.Extremenazarene.org) Our goal was to complete the house that the first group of 40-40 missionaries would live in as they ministered to the small jungle town of Puerto Maldonado. It really was a daunting task. When we arrived, we had a lot of work to get completed. Plus, how do you acclimate to 95 degree weather and close to and above 90% humidity fast? We arrived in Puerto Maldonado on Friday, Oct. 23, a little before noon. After grabbing our maxed out luggage and loading on the top of a small bus, we trekked on to our motel. As a friend called it, a 5 star one at that. However, he didn't mention that it was falling stars! Once moving our stuff into our rooms, we assembled and went to the Nazarene church to receive a brief of our goals. AFter that we walked to the new building site where a team left two weeks ago with a good start. Still, getting this house ready to be moved in would require a lot of work. After touring the site, we had the remainder of the day to rest up, explore some etc. My cozy room was right off the main drag, with the large neon sign providing sufficient lighting to overcome any darkness night time might provide. In addition, my room lacked a fan. So, being used to dark, quite and relatively cool evenings at home, I was battling a host of obstacles to a good night sleep. It was so warm, when I turned over, my sheets were damp with sweat, plus the constant honking from the traffic and the night light, I struggled to doze off. After 3 nights of this, I casually mentioned this to Mike and He was surprised I didn't have a fan, so after speaking with the staff, I had a fan that evening!
Our team consisted of people from Alaska, California, Idaho and Oregon. 30 in all. I have never seen a team work as hard, long or sweat as much as these folks. And, to top it all off, no bickering! Look at the website extremenazarene.org for pictures and more stories of this trip.
What topped it all off, Olivia, my oldest, was one of the missionaries that moved into this house. Ever since she was knee high to a grub, she had a calling to be a missionary. I was awfully proud to be able to help build this for her and her wonderful team mates. Although it was fantastic to get back to the states and home, a part of me longs to be down there working.