Presentation Day

Today was the first day since we have been here that I didn't bounce in the back seat of the 4-wheel drive vehicle to get to the new site for Promesa, it was the first time all week that I didn't climb up and down the sides of mountains over 11,500 feet in elevation, it was a day for pulling all the work that had been done in the past week together and preparing for a presentation to the Pastors of the local churches who are the leaders of Promesa.

The team of 13 architects, engineers, surveyors, and construction managers spent this day combining the information, challenging one another and supporting one another.  It was brought up a few times that these eMi trips become a wonderful example of the body of Christ.  We all come to the table with different backgrounds, different giftings, different interests and different ideas.  But we also come with a common calling.  We are all there because we know that Christ called us to this work.  And so we set aside all the things that separate us in the professional work world and we experience unity in the body.  Isn't that Christ vision of the Church?  Why do we have to travel halfway around the world and live with strangers for a week to experience this?

Hard at work - in the homestretch

Enjoying some pastries at a local
Panaderia

It has been a wonderful week with a wonderful group of men and women.


Here is one of the graphics that we used with the ministry this evening to show what the school could look like at build out.

Thank you for all of you who have been following this adventure and covering our team with prayer.  We have had a wonderful trip, and it has been awesome to get to spend a little bit of time with some of the Quechua kids.

Deep into Design

It seems like the days are getting longer each day that we are here in Peru.  Doesn't have to do with the season, but more a function of the amount of work to be done.

The site that we are Master Planning for a new school that at full build out will have a capacity of around 1,000 kids is a 35 acre site that is very steep with multiple valleys intersecting the site.

From the dirt road at the bottom of the picture above, we are working on laying out a new road that would provide access to the grove of trees that looks like it is kind of glowing.   That grove is about an acre in size and is about the flattest land on the whole site (18% slope!).

The access into the land and the slope of the land are the greatest design challenges that the team is tackling this week.

Today, we will wonder into an artisan market here in Cusco and enjoy some of the local excitement.  After that, we will be trying to get the design wrapped up so that we can present to the ministry Saturday night.

On Wednesday, some of our team visited Machu Picchu, and a handfull of us spent the day in Cusco.  Here are a couple pictures from that day.

in the Plaza de Armas

Yummy meat market!

Team members John Pillar and Anita Wong

Bill Tatum sharing some of the conceptual plan with the ministry.

Praises:  

• On going health and safety.  Our team continues to be healthy and safe!
• As the team works more and more together, great relationship are being built

Prayer requests:

• Today should be the final field day.  Pray that the survey equipment cooperates (we have had some issues) and that the field crew can collect the necessary information.
• The late nights and long work days are starting to wear on the team.  Pray for excellent sleep when it is time to sleep, and alertness when it is time to be awake.
• Pray that when it comes time to communicate the teams vision of the Master Plan to the ministry that we can clearly communicate through the language barrier.
• Pray for the family that we all left at home.  They have been missing their family for a week now.  Our families miss us and are ready for us to be home.  Pray for God's grace for our families.

Falling behind...... Day 3 & 4?

I will have to admit at least two things at this point.  I don't really remember what day I am on, or when I started counting, and I am starting to fall behind......  Yesterday we were very busy running from one thing to another and the day finally ended somewhere around midnight.

We started by attending the church that meets here at the school on Sunday.  Gary MacPhee got to share a message from his heart while Chris Raber (missionary) translated.  It was a great message challenging the local church to be partners in the work of reconciliation that God has given to the local church.

After church we traveled out of town to a Trout farm that one of the local Pastors started.  They raise trout from fingerlings and use the trout as the source of food for a restaurant.  I was the odd man out when we loaded the vehicles, so I got to travel with one of the pastors, his wife, his two kids, and his mom and dad.  For those that are counting that is seven in a five passenger pickup truck.  Somehow I ended up with the two boys, Samuel and Mateo on my lap.  I think I will continue to try to be the "odd man out".

Here is a panoramic of the trout farm.  Water flow is spring feed by gravity through the four ponds.  He has done an excellent job of using the natural topography of the site to control flow.

Here is a picture of a our lunch that we ate.  The fish was WONDERFUL!

On the way home, we were all tired, I think that Danika, one of the missionaries daughters was the only one the gave in.

Our day ended with our team of 13 all sharing testimonies of our lives and what God has been doing.  It was a great time of sharing, however, 13 people sharing 15 to 20 minutes each made for about 4 hours of testimonies and stories.

Praises:

• We had a great conversation yesterday afternoon with the school leaders.  It was good to hear their hearts.
• So far everyone is in pretty good health

Prayer:

• We are starting to get tired as we burn both ends of the candle - pray for good sleep when it is time.
• Continued health as we eat more and more different foods.
• Pray for safety - we will have teams on site doing digging of test pits and surveying for the next few days.  Lots of opportunities for mishaps.

Day 2 - Lima to Cusco

Yesterday, the advance team was well taken care of by the kind folk at the New Life Childrens Home.  Along with touring the existing orphanage and church facilities, we got to see some of the ongoing construction that they are working on to be able to house more kids.

Here is one of the existing dorm rooms.  I am certainly not an expert on orphanages, but it seemed to be well laid out where each group of 6 kids or so would have a "nanny"  that would live on site with them.  The kids were in separate rooms for gender and age bracket.








At this point, I believe that the facility could house 25 kids.  Once the expansion is complete, they will be able to house up to 50!

Here is one of the classrooms where the kids attend during the day.








The ministry prepared meals for us at the orphanage, and I was so excited to see one of my favorite memories of Peru on the table.  The rest of the team didn't quite know whether to believe me or not when I told them that they HAVE to try Inca Kola.  They don't know me very well yet, so they all agreed to try some.  I think their reaction was pretty much what every adult thinks...  Hmmm, very sweet bubble gum flavored pop.  And then move on to more familiar things like water for drinking.

Here we are standing on the second floor of one of the dormitories.  The Ministry is currently seeking funding to complete this dorm, but asked if eMi could come to the site and see if things are generally headed in the right direction.

 Yesterday afternoon, we had some extra time so we drove a few minutes out of town where there were some Inca ruins that we could see.  It was kind of surreal to stand there looking at this extremely arid and harsh land thinking about how 500 - 1,000 years ago, people had carved a living out of this dirt.

At 2 am this morning, we left for the airport to meet up with the rest of the team.  It was great to begin the process of connecting as a team.

As we flew from Lima to Cusco, the sun welcomed us to a new day, and then as we were approaching Cusco, we flew over some absolutely magnificent mountains.

And here are a couple pictures as we were driving through the streets of Cusco on our way to the house where we are being hosted for our time in Cusco.

And yes, there were kids at the orphanage.  Here is one of our eMi interns Su Hwan being attacked by a couple of the boys.

Praises - 

• Whole team is here, safe, sound, and with all our luggage!
• Good work was completed in Lima, and the beginnings of some ongoing relationships.

Prayer Request

• Health as the team gets used to the altitude.
• Clear understanding of the schools vision for growth.   This will require clear communication between the ministry leaders and the architects.
• Patience for the team as we are all tired and still don't really know one another's names.

Day One - Denver, CO to Lima, Peru

Part of our team completed day 1 yesterday.  This is what we can call the "Advance" team.  This team is made up of our project leader Gary MacPhee, interns Josiah Moore and Su Hwan Lee, volunteer Brent Ellingson from Canada, and myself.  The purpose of the advance team is to spend a day assisting a local ministry here in Lima with some construction management/oversight.

I will try to get some updates out everyday, but no promises......

Our day yesterday started with an 8am flight out of DIA, and ended with a 12:20am arrival (delayed until 1:00am) in Lima.  It was a long day, but connections worked, baggage arrived, and we all still had some humor in us when we arrived in Lima.  Alex and Christian (from the ministry) waited for us at the airport and got us back to the ministry.

This morning I woke up to these views out our second story window.

The ministry is located at the base of the foothills to the west of Lima.  Last night, we drove through some very thick fog to get to the ministry, and this morning it looks like we will have lots of pictures of low clouds....

The ministry that we are working with this morning is called "Peru Missions".  You can check out their web page and learn about some of the work that they are doing.  Our time here will be spent:

• Observing their current construction project (a dorm and the New Life Childrens Home), documenting the project with photos and measurements, and reviewing plans construction records for the next steps.
• Tour the other buildings of the children's home, church and school
• Look over the new land and talk about new school ideas for that land.

The rest of our team will be spending today traveling from all over the United States as well as from the U.K.  Very early in the morning tomorrow (3am), we will get a ride back to the airport where we will meet the rest of our team and we will all fly out of Lima at 5am on our way to Cusco.

Praises:

• Safe travel yesterday for the advance team.  Josiah was the carrier of the total station (survey equipment) and did a great job being patient with the customs officers as they tried to figure out what to do with him.
• Some good sleep and a nice warm shower this morning.  We were all able to sleep well for five hours or so this morning, and the ministry here has a nice facility to house us.

Prayer requests:

• Safe travel for the rest of the team
• As we observe the construction to date, and look at what the ministry is trying to do, pray that we would:
• hear their heart for those that they are reaching
• that we would catch the vision 
• that communication would not be a barrier
• that we would be able to make wise judgments regarding our assessment of the construction.

For those of you that enjoy geography and knowing where everything is, here is a link that should take you to a google map of where we are:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=-12.108631816666668,-76.81727151666666&iwloc=A&hl=en&z=16

Starting work

It has been a couple months since I have been working.  Some would say that packing up your house, moving your family halfway across the country, settling into a new home and community are all work, but it has been a while since I have woken up everyday at the same time, showered, spent time with God, ate breakfast, drove to work, turned on a computer, and did whatever it is that engineers do.

When I quit my job back at the end of June, I did not miss it at all.  However, I really enjoy getting back to the schedule of working.  It is good for man to be idle.  So here I am, only half time at this point, learning new systems and structures and organization.  Learning how to get to the bathroom, where highlighters are located, how to scan a document, etc. etc.

Looking up from my cubicle is a great reminder
that the ministry of eMi affects the whole world.

The immediate task that sits in front of me is preparing for a project trip that I am co-leading to Peru that will have me traveling from September 25th through October 7th.

There are a few reasons that I am excited for this upcoming trip:

1. I have not been back to Peru since our family lived there in 1979 and 1980.  I am sure I won't remember things from then, I can't even remember what I had for dinner yesterday, but it will be good to be back in Peru.
2. This will be my first opportunity to meet (face to face) John Pillar, who is one of the other eMi staff who will be re-launching the Latin America office.  We will have the opportunity to work together, talk, worship, eat, sleep, etc, etc, etc. I am looking forward to having some opportunities where we can share our vision of the future for the Latin America office.  We also have a volunteer on the trip who is considering joining eMi and helping out with the Latin America office as well!  Very very exciting, and a huge answer to prayer.
3. Along with going to a great place with some great people, we are going to be serving a wonderful ministry.  The Easter Mennonite Mission has a school in Cusco that has too many kids for the available space.  They have purchased some land on the outskirts of Cusco, and we will be developing a masterplan for a new school!  That masterplan will allow the ministry to make realistic plans moving forward, and give them a shot in the arm toward bring reality to a dream.

I will post some more information on the trip in the next week, take a lot of pictures on the trip, and will work toward getting updates on the blog (maybe even from Peru!).

Hope that the summer has treated you all well.  Seems to have gone too fast for our family.  Please stay in touch via comments, or e-mails, or calls, or visits!  

In Colorado Springs

I have gone silent for a little while, please know it is not because I haven't been doing anything....

We are now in Colorado Springs, the kids are in school, the boxes are spread evenly around the house, and Wanda and I are worn out!

It is hard to know how to summarize all that has happened this past month.  Let's just stick with the move.  Overall, everything went perfectly!  On August 8th, just one week ago, we had the "load the truck" party.  We had many family and friends from Redmond, Oregon City and Newberg come help out.  Some would say that with the number of people that showed up to get rid of us, and the efficiency with which they loaded the truck, that folk were excited to get rid of us.  I prefer to interpret those actions as gifts of love.  It was difficult to leave that house, on that street, in that community, with that church.  There is no way we can adequately express the feelings of gratitude we have for all of you.

For the past couple months we have been wondering if we can reduce the amount of stuff that we have to fit in a 26' U-Haul truck.  Part of the process included the church garage sale, numerous trips to Goodwill, selling and giving away many things to friends.  All the effort paid off, and we were able to fit in the truck!

Tim Conley volunteered to help drive the truck and van out to Colorado, It was great to have another driver to trade around so that we could all stay alert on the road, well some didn't stay alert.

The truck and van worked great on the road, we had no issues, other than trying to get a 26' truck with the Jeep on a trailer through gas stations....

The Whole Caravan

When we arrived here in the Springs, our house was ready to move into, and about 10 or 12 people from EMI showed up to help us move in.  Which was very helpful as our house has three floors, and the truck unloading zone was not very convenient.

We are deep into trying to get the kids settled in three different schools.  It is mind boggling how much work that takes, but Wanda has been doing an awesome job of staying on top of who has to be where at what time and with what stuff.

School for the kids really gets going next week.  We were planning on attending the EMI orientation that week.  However, that would have had Wanda and I out of the house from about 7am to 9pm everyday.  We made the decision that it just wouldn't be good for our family to do that on the first week of new school in a new place.  So Wanda and I will attend a few of the sessions during the day, and then attend the orientation in January.

I am planning on beginning work with EMI on September 3rd, and hit the ground running since I will be going on a project trip to Peru at the end of September.

Our monthly support is at about 43% now, so when I start with EMI I will be working about half time, and will continue to work on ministry partnership development.

If you would like any more information on any of what has happened in the last month, please feel free to contact us.

One closing thought.  It was two weeks ago that I was sitting on a beach with Wanda in Cozumel, Mexico.  I was thinking a bit about all that sat in our immediate future.  I was overwhelmed with the realization that I can't do this.  I can't make it all work, I can't fix it, I can't wish it into being, I can't buy it, and I can't ignore it.  All I can honestly do is lay it down at the feet of Christ and then rest in His ability to do it.  That is not an easy place for me, but I think it is the right place for me.