when leaving last saturday, i really had no idea what to expect for the upcoming week. that night, jim and i, along with tom, micah, and micah's wife beth- all from the office- met up with 5 volunteers from the states who would be joining us for the week. a few people from the church there (iglesia alianza cristiana y misionera, or christian missionary alliance church) picked us up and took us to the families that would be hosting us for the week. micah and beth stayed at the pastor's house, 3 of the guys stayed in another, 4 in another, and being the only other girl i was placed with another woman who was a doctor and her daughter, nidal. it turned out to be wonderful. i had some great conversations with them, and got to hear how God had been working in their lives. i was so blessed by their hospitality. here they are below.
speaking of hospitality, we were extremely well-taken care of while working on the design at the church as well. they were such an example in serving joyfully. socorro, marina, and carlos kept everything running, and lupe (below left) cooked full meals for us three times a day.
we were very well-fed.
our first full day there was a sunday, and the team attended one of the morning church services. and in normal latin fashion, we were greeted with a handshake, besito, hug, or some combination by just about every person in all three services. although it can be a little overwhelming in large groups, i've really grown to love the warm and very personal greetings people give here. i'm not sure if it's most of peru or only this church specifically, but they offered a certain type of hug- as they call it, "a buffalo hug". during the service, after introducing each of us on stage and having us announce if we were single or married, they informed us that the men were going to have a lesson in hugging this week. being a girl, i was spared with only the besito, but the rest of the team got the full experience and from what i hear, this is not a hug for the faint of heart. needless to say, the latin culture is a very affectionate one and have no hesitations about sharing that with foreigners... as for the service, it was amazing to have the opportunity to worship with the people we were there to serve. some of the songs they sang in spanish were ones that we knew in english, and we were able to join in there. there's something i love about worshipping with God's people in different parts of the world. it may be different words, but it's the same God and the same grace and you still understand each other. it was pretty different than my church here in CR, but i really enjoyed it. there was a lot of very upbeat music, accompanied by dancing and a great sermon. below is a picture from the service.
after the service and lunch, we met with a lot of the pastoral staff and some engineers in the congregation to discuss their vision for our design and some technical aspects.
the head pastor for the church was gone until monday night, so we didn't meet with him until tuesday. during this meeting, we also learned quite a bit about the heart and focus of the church. their basic vision is to start with the restoration of families, many of which are broken from addictions, poverty, adultery, and more. they said that God has done an incredible restoring work in many of their families and that's where they believe He has called them to start and to move out from there. they have divided the community around them into 7 zones, and right now they have pastors for all but places to meet in only 4. from there they want to plant churches in 7 more cities in peru, and then 7 countries around the world. the churches range anywhere from 120 to a thousand members each, and start with Bible studies in homes that are led by leaders raised up from within the church. they want to use this church design as a modifiable template for the others eventually. i realized that going in i expected their vision to be on a much smaller scale considering their limited resources. but after listening to them talk, it was clear this was where God was leading them and they had faith that He would see it through. i think it was an awesome challenge to our way of thinking for all of our group. the Lord has already provided for half of their construction costs through the commitment of a church in wisconsin, and they are really lifting it up to God and trusting Him to provide the rest. after hearing about all of that, we moved into more technical talk.
there were some engineers in the congregation that were able to give us some great information on typical design practices in peru and building codes. they were a huge help throughout the week. below is the group after the meeting.
from pastor antonio rojas, we learned a lot more. he said there were really 2 parallel ministries: the church and corazones felizes (happy hearts, a ministry for the children in impoverished areas of lima). from age 5-12, pastor antonio polished shoes in the streets and expressed that he can really relate to the suffering of the kids. in his words, his dream is to have a beautiful building that these kids who have never felt carpet on their feet or have known anything nice can know they belong to. where they have family, are shown the love of Christ, and where their needs are met. through the help of other ministries, happy hearts now has 130 volunteers and professionals within the church that help. they eventually, with more land, want to open a school, hospital, and orphanage for the kids. right now that part of the vision is shown through what they are able to do: a program to provide some school materials, a foreign medical team that comes in once a year and keeps health records for the kids, and lawyers from the church have been able to have kids removed from situations where they were being abused or neglected. he said that their mission is to not only help the poor, but to raise them up. there have already been many very poor families in the church that after finding Christ have been able to clean up their bad habits and the things they were involved in,have been able to get their kids to school, and the kids have done really well. the ministry clearly not only had a big heart and vision for the future, but was really working, praying, and moving toward it. below is a picture of the pastoral staff, with pastor antonio in the middle. these guys clearly had a deep love and respect for each other, and were committed to growing as people and as a church. they encouraged each other, studied and prayed together, and held each other accountable. they were a really solid and incredibly fun group to be around.
throughout the week, we'd have devotional and prayer time starting in the morning before 8, then breakfast, then we'd meet as a group and coordinate our day, then work until sometime after dinner in the night. below is one of our coordination meetings.
since this project is an urban one which is somewhat unusual for eMi, there wasn't the normal amount of water/environmental civil engineering. so instead, i helped out in the mechanical areas. in that group there was one electrical engineer (dan), two mechanicals (matt and carl), and me. we decided to name our mini-team "la bomba," which appropriately translates to "the pump" in spanish. needless to say, we had a team song.
i mostly helped with plumbing design (which was pretty new to me), but we worked on A/C as well. there were two more guys working on the architecture and three on structural. at the end of the week, we were able to present a preliminary design to the ministry that consisted of a six story building with a basement, two auditoriums, classrooms, pastoral offices, places for job training, a clinic for the kids of happy hearts, a recording studio, places to hold classes for seminary, and a futbol field on the roof for the kids.
they were really pleased with the design, and we were glad that we were able to provide something that really aligned with their vision and was an encouragement to them in the work they're doing. the week was busy and intense, but refreshing too. i went to serve but was blessed by my time with these people in too many ways to count.
the day before we left, the church offered to show us a few more parts of lima. martin (mar-teen), the hombre that runs happy hearts, spent some time taking us around that afternoon in an 11-seater van. during that time, we were able to expand our where's waldo collection to include peru.
and for our closing team lunch, he took us to a buffet with traditional peruvian food. as you can see, it was quite the learning experience.
i realize this was kind of a novel, but i hope it gave a good picture of our time in peru!
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