The first 36 hours of our Peru Trip!

Blogged by Kalee

*Disclaimer: It is 9p on Sunday evening and we are getting a little delusional so please excuse anything that doesn’t make perfect senseJ

We met at the school Saturday at 10:30 to load everything up and head to the airport (Shout out to Dr. Sneed and Amanda’s fiancé Brian for driving us all to the airport!).  After we unloaded, Dr. Layman, Dr. Cox, and Marsha came by the airport with the rest of our luggage. {This is the part where we add in a funny story that we think is hilarious and worth telling but you may have had to have been there to get the humor…} As Dr. Layman and Dr. Cox were pulling away, we realized that we didn’t have Marsha’s number…thinking on our toes, I started running down the sidewalk after Dr. Cox…to the point where I was right beside their window trying to flag them down. Apparently they thought I was just being overly emotional and not wanting them to leave so they just waved back and kept on driving! J

Once we arrived, Amanda took on the task of getting everyone checked in. The guy behind the counter was taking his sweet time and the people behind us were annoyed at our 7 check-ins, including 14 bags and 7 wheelchair packs…All in all, a great start to our trip. As we proceeded through security, Christin was chosen for an overly friendly pat down, but we made it through without any other eventful happenings. As some of you may know, this was Jordan’s first time flying. She did fabulous and was grinning ear to ear from the time we took off to the time we landed in Dallas. Our layover in Dallas was 4 hours long so we had just enough time to roam a bit, grab a bite to eat at Chilli’s, and meet our final teammate, Carrie, who had flown in from Arkansas. Our only excitement in the Dallas airport was a heroic act by one of our own, Derek. We had plans to get on the Skywalk (the train that goes around to the different terminals) and the front of our group decided to step on at the last second. As the doors were closing before the final 2 of us could get on the train, Derek heroicly used his arms and body to block not just one door, but two! And when I say block, I mean they might have given him some bruising. BUT, the good news is, he saved the day and we all scrunched in an already full train car. Next, we flew from Dallas to Miami. Our wonderful Christin had her shining moment as she couldn’t get her carry on suitcase into a bin…resulting in a delayed flight…no joke yall, we held up an entire plane for one suitcase. We got into Miami about 10:30p and it was a ghost town. After a soothing stroll around the main terminals, we realized that we had read the wrong Lima flight and actually needed to go to the International terminal. So we continued our leisurely stroll for another 20 minutes to our gate. The plan was to get some rest on the overnight flight to Lima and while some of us thoroughly enjoyed our sleep, others forgot to partake of anything but quick and broken up cat naps.

We got into the Lima airport on time and head to pick up our bags. As you can imagine, a group of 8 “white American college students” stand out anyways, let alone adding in 32 bags, a couple pillows, and 8 plastic wrapped wheelchairs! A security guy outside of customs found his way to us rather quickly and started asking us who we were, what we were doing, and who all of this “stuff” was for. He wanted to take one of our identification papers off the wheelchair and after us explaining multiple times that he couldn’t take the paper without 2 of us going with him (more specifically, not letting that paper out of our sight), Carrie found a copy and gave it to him. Don’t worry, Derek and I still followed him and that paper to the manager’s office, who came out to “take a glance” at our belongings. He finally let us through and we made it through the rest of customs without a problem! Praise the Lord and thank you so much for your prayers on that specific account! After customs we took our small parade through the glorious doors and met Bev, Sybil (one translator), and 2 of the drivers for MMI. What a relief to see friendly and familiar faces and know we were finally here!

We packed the bus and van to the brim and headed to the convent. PS: Just in case you didn’t know, because we didn’t fully comprehend ourselves, but the place we are staying is on top of a cliff…overlooking the beach and ocean…like we can walk down to the beach...I know, I know, we are experiencing some tough living this week J We showered, unpacked, ate breakfast, and had a meeting with the Physical Therapists (Jodee, Erin, Kari), Orthotist (Rich), Peruvian PT student (Leydi), and Pat, the pastor of the church who runs the Shalom clinic. It was wonderful to meet the people that we have been praying for and put names with faces! Pat led us in singing and a short sermon before we left for the clinic. It took us about 45 minutes to travel to the clinic and we almost lost our lives 45 times (45 might be a little bit of an embellishment but it really was crazy to be close enough to touch the people. We got to the clinic (actually a rented building while they are renovating a new 4 story clinic down the street) and started to unpack all of our donations. The rented building has a main waiting room, and 4 treatment rooms, so we split up the donations by pediatrics, adults, and orthotic equipment. A couple of us walked 3 blocks over to Louisa’s (a friend of Pat) to pick up wheelchairs that they have been collecting for patients coming in this week. Minus being chased/barked at my 3 dogs while wheeling 9 wheelchairs down a hilly dirt road, we made it safely back to the clinic J After getting everything organized, we headed back to the convent (just in time for the gorgeous sunset!) and Bev blessed us with some scrumptious PHD, known in the United States as Pizza Hut Delivery.  All in all, we are doing well and will sleep like babies tonight. We appreciate your prayers as we head to the clinic tomorrow morning. Pray for the families coming in, not only that we can help them with their physical needs, but also share the love of Jesus with them. Buenas Noches!