Where does your help come from?

 1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—

   where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the LORD,

Flying over the Andes Mountains in Peru. 

   the Maker of heaven and earth.

 3 He will not let your foot slip—

   he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel

   will neither slumber nor sleep.

 5 The LORD watches over you—

   the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,

   nor the moon by night.

 7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—

   he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going

   both now and forevermore. Psalm 121 (NIV)

I took this picture out of the plane window as I was flying from Lima, Peru, into Ayacucho where I volunteered for a week back in 2009. Just like my trip to Africa three years before, there were many times when God had my back on this trip as well. It's a good thing that He always has my back. I surely do need Someone watching over me, keeping me from harm 24/7. 

There's more than Incan Ruins out there

When you think of ancient civilizations that lived in Peru, the first - and probably only - one you think of are the Incas. Before that time however, the Wari civilization thrived in central Peru. The capital city, which at one time supported a population of 10,000, lies in the mountains between Ayacucho and Quinua. Between the years 550 and 900 AD, this culture flourished, and though the Incan culture is much more famous, the Wari lasted longer and made their only contributions to the world.

Due to lack of funding, these ruins have not been completely excavated and are not totally understood.

But the ruins definitely have their own beauty and allure.

over the mountains

I flew out of Appleton on Saturday morning, the day before Easter 2009, on my journey to volunteer in Peru. I had a long layover in Atlanta, but that was ok because I have a friend from college who lives there and she met me at the airport just to visit for a few hours. Believe it or not I have a friend from high school in Atlanta also, and she is going to meet me for my long layover on the way home.

When we left Atlanta for Lima, Peru, three stewardesses made the usual announcements in three different languages – English, Spanish and an Asian language. I am sure that it was just me being paranoid, but as we flew over South America, it seemed that they announced less in English and started only speaking Spanish.

I had been trying for months to teach myself Spanish, but it is tough doing it on your own. Even if I could afford the fancy Rosetta stone software, I think I need to have someone else – a real Spanish speaking person - in the room to interact with. As it was, I got pretty good at my numbers and when to say Buenos dias, Buenos tardes, and Buenos noches. I think I memorized how to say “My name is Chris and I don’t speak Spanish”, but that was about it. I drove my husband nuts watching the Spanish speaking networks on satellite TV.

And all that effort went right out the window when that plane started descending into Lima. I can only assume that it is because of the weather coming in off the Pacific Ocean, but it seemed that all flights into and out of Lima from the outside world occurred only late at night and flights into and out of Lima within the country occurred early in the morning. Which means another long layover both coming and going into Ayacucho.

About that time, I started wondering why I had decided to volunteer in Ayacucho instead of staying in Lima. I arrived in Lima around eleven pm, and my puddle-jumping plane to take me across the Andes Mountains to Ayacucho wasn’t scheduled to leave until five am. As it turned out, due to weather, that plane didn’t leave until seven am. And all I could remember of the language was the numbers, which was at least a good thing, coz all I listened for on the overhead speakers was “uno tres dos uno”. The number of my flight.

Once I got on that twelve passenger plane and we were in the air, any misgivings I had about my final destination lifted along with the clouds. The view of the Andes – completely breathtaking.

Ayacucho, it is!

Back in the fall of 2008, when I started to get inklings to take another trip, and I thought that the trip should be to Peru, I heard from a friend of ours who had moved to the upper peninsula of Michigan a few years before. As happens when miles separate friends, we had lost touch, when seemingly out of the blue, Judy contacted us and invited us to her new home for a visit. Somewhere in the conversation it came up that her church was planning a mission trip to Lima, Peru, to work with an orphanage. She was struggling with whether or not she should go and invited myself and another friend, Joyce, to go with.

You know me, all you have to say is “trip” and I am packing my bags. Having never traveled so far, not having passports or any immunization, Joyce and Judy both had to think long and hard about this. In the meantime, I went home to study up some more.

Unfortunately, for them, my two friends decided that at least for now, this trip was not meant to be. For me, however, it was a sign from God that I should stick with my original dream and go with Cross Cultural Solutions.

Lima, the capital and largest city in Peru, really didn’t seem the proper fit. CCS offered another Peru location, however, a city by the name of Ayacucho. Set high in the Andes Mountains, this city of 150,000 is known as the city of churches, as it claims to have 33 churches, one for each year of Jesus life. In reality, no one is quite sure how many churches there are, but there are a lot, and they are all old and full of personality.

The coat of arms for Ayacucho. I need to get me a coat of arms; they are so cool.