5 hour ride to 12,000 feet

It is late Thursday night and we are discussing how we have only been here for a couple of days, but it seems that we have done so much. Wednesday afternoon, we went to the clinic in Arequipa and Leticia and Sarah assisted with a few patient treatments while Bev and Janie helped organize the large equipment room upstairs. We have hopes of organizing the supply room while we are here in order to make it a more efficient resource. Wednesday evening, we visited the beautiful downtown in Arequippa to exchange some dollars for soles and buy some coffee. Downtown Arequippa is very beautiful and they call it the "white city" because many of the buildings are built out of white lava stone. It is really neat. Today (Thursday) we took a five hour bus ride across the Peruvian countryside to Juliaca which is a city that sits at 12,000 feet. After arriving, we attended a night Bible study at the church where we will be working at tomorrow. Everyone is very welcoming and hospitable. It is quite cold and dry here, but we are adapting well. We also took a "taxi" ride on a motorcycle pulled taxi. It was a first for most of us! Praise the Lord that we have arrived safely and have many supplies to share with people here. We do have a few things that you can be praying for! 1) Tomorrow's clinic (friday); that we may be able to overcome the language barrier and provide PT to many people here. 2) Ministry at the school tomorrow; Janie is teaching a lesson on nutrition to pre-schoolers. 3) Health; we are all fairly healthy right now, but sleep deprivaiton at high-altitude can take a toll quickly. We hope to post pictures soon, but we are problem-solving that right now.

We made it!

Right now, we are sitting in the guesthouse in Arequipa getting cleaned up and awaiting our first full fabulous Peruvian meal. Everything has gone very smoothly, despite 3 of the 4 of us getting the "red light" and getting searched as we went through customs. We had to pay a $15 "tax" to get one of the wheelchairs through there, but we decided it was worth it since all of the equipment had made it here with us intact with no charge until then. So, after lunch we plan to hit the ground running by seeing patients this afternoon and seeing the Plaza de Armes tonight. We are so glad to finally be here and we are ready to get going!

Prepping for Summer 2012 in Peru

Five of the six members of the Peru Summer 2012 team are converging on Bolivar as we speak.  Tonight we will have our packing party to attempt to pack as much of the donated supplies as possible within the airline restrictions.  Dr. Josh Layman has obtained three donated wheelchairs that we will plan to try to take with us.  I say "try" because we need you all (and all of the prayer warriors you know) to pray that we can get them on with us without being charged. We also need people praying for supernatural skrinkage of donated supplies as we pack.  We have a mountain of donations (which is a HUGE blessing from the many people who got them for us) that we could take with us.  We are going to have to prioritize, but I am praying that all of the things we actually need get packed.  It is kind of exciting to pack when you don't know exactly what you need, and pray for packing guidance.  But it is also hard to make some decisions.  We fly out of Springfield tomorrow morning, and we're super excited!