Breakfast was again at 8:30 but I had been awake since 4:45. Too much noise outside the hotel with the busy street. Breakfast is usually simple. Just a crusty roll and a small cheese/ham omelet. But, we have delicious fresh fruit juice each morning. Today we have both papaya and orange. Our after breakfast devotional was given by Dave. He is from Santa Cruz, California. He is in his late 50’s or early 60’s and this is his first mission trip. He gave a very good, from the heart, testimony, bringing tears to many eyes.
About 9:30 we were ferried in Jose David’s car to the main Nazarene church in Pisco. It is not far from the hotel so it didn’t take long for all of us to get there. It is also home to Pastor Luiz and his family. The church, like most buildings here, is in a continual state of construction of some type. Because we have some extra time during the day we do plan to help with some brick laying on the second floor a couple of mornings this week. Jose David, who has worked as the W&W coordinator for Peru told us of his plans to complete the building. Part of the walls on the second floor have been done but there is no roof and many of the walls still need to be placed. We then spent some rather humorous moments attempting to learn to speak a little Spanish so that we can go out on Wednesday afternoon to invite people to the showing of the Jesus Film for that night. Most of us were fairly passable with what we were to say but Paul just absolutely couldn’t pronounce anything and gave up even attempting. At least he can stand there and pass out the flyers.
We then came on back to the hotel where we ate ham/cheese sandwiches and chips for lunch. We also had “homework” to do. We had to write the place, date and time for the Jesus Film showing on lots of flyers. We will be showing it in two different areas on two different nights this week. Then we had time for a short siesta before meeting at 3 p.m. to go visit the site of one of the little churches Pastor Luiz pastors. His main church is the one we were at this morning. When he arrived in Pisco in 2011 there were about 6 people in the church. There are now about 40 people in the church. He also pastors two other small churches. The one we are going to see now runs just a few people…..the other one is very small also and the building is not very safe. There are many earthquakes in this area and that building needs some repair so the few people who attend there are now coming to the main church. We will see that church later this week.
So, at 3 p.m. Pastor Luiz came to the hotel with a taxi. Three of the team joined him in the taxi and the other four got into Jose David’s car. We went down through the town to a small wooden building. As we approached the land where the building was Jose David’s only comment was “oh my”. It seems that before Pastor Luiz came that church had closed completely. It had been closed for some time. During the time it was closed no one bothered it. But, then Pastor Luiz reopened it and held a service. The day after the first service the church was robbed…. of all it’s chairs, it’s sound system, even some doors. And, the people in the neighborhood started using the grounds around the church as a dump yard. The church has cleaned up the grounds more than once but people continue to dump their trash there. The church even put up a fence…and the fence got stolen. When we drove up today the grounds were full of trash and rotting food. Pastor Luiz opened the doors of the building to a nearly empty room with a couple of small board and brick benches and a pulpit with the Church of the Nazarene symbol carved in the front of it. There were holes in the fiberglass roof. We are told those are from rocks thrown through the roof. Jose David’s desire is to build a concrete wall around the property with the wall eventually becoming part of a permanent church structure. He believes the neighbors nearly will help to keep the church protected if there is a proper wall built. We prayed for Pastor Luiz and the church while we were there.
We then walked….”only a couple of blocks down the street” to where the video will be shown. But it was more like 6 blocks this way, 4 blocks that way, 3 blocks this way. And finally we came to an intersection where we stop and Pastor Luiz says “right here”. Some of the church members live near by. So, I guess that is where we will be showing one of the evening videos this week. Our taxi left us at the church so we piled all but Pastor Luiz and Dave into Jose David’s car (can you say crowded?) while those two caught a ride on a little mototaxi…one of the little 3 wheel motorcycle taxis. We went to the plaza in the center of town where we visited a little grocery store for a few items and then spent some time in the main plaza of town. Apparently in 2007 there was a major earthquake in Pisco in which the entire plaza area was destroyed. It has been nicely rebuilt but just two blocks away there is very definite evidence of destroyed buildings that remains untouched.
Making our way back to the hotel some of us stayed there while some of the guys went shopping for cheap shoes to wear while working on the church building the next few days. Nobody wants to ruin their good shoes with concrete/mortar while laying block. After they returned we had supper of cod, rice and fries with a cold chopped vegetable salad. The cod was actually fairly good, considering several of us were not fish eaters. There was no fishy taste at all. Paul had been insistent today at the grocery store that we buy something he could make a hot sauce/picante from so his tomato sauce/vinegar/hot pepper sauce tasted fairly good on the fish!
Evenings are fairly non-eventful so far. Tomorrow we start evening services or JESUS Film showings every night so tonight is just time to relax. To bed early. Good night all!
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