I Think I Heard Something

I think I hear a sound...  Is it a groan?  Is it me?  Is it the house?  Is it a dog?  Is it something in pain?  Is it outside...  or is it inside?  I hear a stretching sound.  I hear a tearing sound.  It sounds like a zipper!

It's Time To Get Out The Duct Tape!

I Guess You CAN Stuff Too Much In A Suitcase

Recent News From Huanta

Hola:

Samuel Montes sent a revised proposal late Sunday night. In addition to attending the early evening Sunday School celebrations Monday – Friday and providing funds for the rewriting of the Bible Institute curriculum, we will be painting the living areas for the Bible Institute students.

The old kitchen and bathrooms near the outdoor sinks will also be demolished with new ones constructed. We will be providing funds for the new ones. It’s unclear exactly if we will be involved in the demolition or construction or both. The plan is to have the kitchen and bathrooms completed before the Bible Institute students arrive in August.

Now I am excited!!

Randy

Water Of Life

Resource:  Living Waters For The World Newsletter
By Suzanne Allen

News From Our Partners in Peru

Sara Armstrong and Rusty Edmondson are Presbyterian Church, USA Mission Co-Workers in Peru who have been essential to the success of the Westminster Presbyterian Church of Nashville, TN’s Living Waters Ministry in that country. They have translated for us, advised us, traveled with us and introduced us to other Presbyterian congregations. They have worked alongside us as we built water systems and taught hand washing and germ theory and developed relationships with our partners in Peru.

Sara and Rusty are wonderful people, representing our denomination in a powerful way and doing God’s work every day in Peru. They are also the means by which we stay in touch with our Peruvian partners when we are not in the country, and sometimes they even do repairs if needed!

Recently, Sara and Rusty attended a meeting of the General Assembly of the IEPRP, the Evangelical Reformed Presbyterian Church of Peru (our PC-USA counterpart in Peru). Here is what they told us happened at that meeting:

“After a brief annual report on our work at the IEPRP General Assembly, Elder Ulderico Castro stood up unexpectedly and asked the Assembly for permission to speak.

He told them that, through our offices, the Westminster PC LWW team installed a system in his church in Suyobamba last November.

He said, “Brothers and Sisters of the IEPRP, I want to tell you in more detail about the LWW system. This group spent over a year writing the agreement. They visited Suyobamba several times to design the system. When it came to the installation they did what they said they would do. The system gives fresh water. More important it has become a social ministry for the church. (Ministry to the community around the church is a new idea in Peru). Now our church sells water at 2 soles per bidon (about 60 cents). We now provide water for our community, the school and the clinic. It has become a wonderful social outreach for our church. It is a blessing. Their work is more than what Sara and Rusty said (referring to our brief report). It is deep and profound. The PCUSA and LWW are profound ministries that help us be in social ministry in our community.”

He added that other churches should take advantage of it. Westminster, Living Waters, Rusty and Sara were given applause for the work they do.

Read more...

Drugs, Healthcare And Poverty In Peru

Hi Van!

We just had a 5.4 scale earthquake that sent us flying into the street. But everyone is fine. We had a hot tea to calm down and are back at work.

• Interesting article here:  Peru Changes Anti-Drug Program.  The man mentioned at the bottom, Ricardo Soberon, was one of our speakers at the Peru Network Conference in 2012.
• Here is the latest today on health care in Peru, still frightening but better:  Peru Praised For Progress In Healthcare
• And here is a thoughtful but complex article on poverty reduction:  International Analysis: The End Of Poverty?

Bendiciones de Sara

2014 Mission Update

Hola Everyone!

With just a little over six (6) weeks until our mission trip, I wanted to provide everyone with an update.

The 2014 team consists of:

• DeAnna Booth {Bryson City Presbyterian Church} Bryson City, NC
• Laura Booth {Bryson City Presbyterian Church} Bryson City, NC
• Connie Dale {Sharon Presbyterian Church} Charlotte, NC
• Brenda Paredes {Amen Presbyterian Church} Carabayllo, Lima, Peru & {Sharon Presbyterian Church} Charlotte, NC
• Randy Ross {Sharon Presbyterian Church} Charlotte, NC
• Annie-Kate Sahlie {Christ the King Presbyterian Church} Wilmington, NC
• Marsha Jean ("MJ") Shetron {Sharon Presbyterian Church} Charlotte, NC
• Tom Skinner {Sharon Presbyterian Church} Charlotte, NC
• Beverley Vickrey {Christ Episcopal Church} Charlotte, NC
• Van Dale {Sharon Presbyterian Church} Charlotte, NC

I look forward to serving with each of you and getting to know you better during our time in Peru!

All international and domestic flight reservations have been made. Brenda Paredes and I are currently working on our ground transportation in Lima, Ayacucho and Huanta. Sara Armstrong and Rusty Edmondson are working on our accommodations in Lima, Ayacucho and Huanta.

We will again ask each participant to take an additional checked suitcase this year which will be packed with children's clothing, shoes, craft items, etc. The donations will most likely remain in Lima as we have been made aware of an area church with impoverished members with tremendous needs for such items.

If you are in Charlotte on Sunday, June 8, 2014 and would like to help sort and pack the donations, we will meet at Sharon Church at 3:00 pm in the basement of the Barbara Ward Building, formerly known as the Annex Building. Let's plan to go to dinner afterwards at Genaro's Peruvian Rotisserie or Monterrey Mexican Restaurant, both located on Park Road near Highway 51.

The 2014 trip promises to again be one of witness and service to an amazing Christ. Thank you for participating in this journey.

Blessings to each of you!

Randy Ross

A Letter From Sara And Rusty

Dear Friends at Sharon Presbyterian Church

We just heard about your February gift of $500 to our ministry here in Peru.  Thank you!

A friend is headed to the U.S. today and so we are jumping on the opportunity to send you mail.  As you know, we work with teams.  This year we will travel with nine of them and assist others such as the team Randy Ross will lead to Huanta in July.  It was really good to see him here on his brief visit in March too!  We are placing volunteers in several new locations this year.  We'll be in the U.S. for five month this fall and winter.  As you can tell, it will be a full year.

We thought life would be slower in the sunny summer months so I signed up for Quechua language classes.  Many of our partner churches have members whose first (and only) language is this ancient Inkan dialect.  It has been really interesting to see how language study has opened the culture to new understandings of these people who have been our partners for 6 years now.

Our dream of a long slow summer (January to March) with beach days never really came to fruition.  We had a lot of visitors, and we finished many chores on the "to do" list.  We also attended the General Assemblies of both of our partners denominations and caught up on all their news.

Now we are readying for eight teams in ten weeks.  Six of them are new to Peru and several of the locations where there will work have never received teams.  Everything is new!  The logistics are a huge exciting challenge.  But this is our work;  to be a bridge between PC(USA) churches and their Peruvian partner churches.  We help both sides to new understandings across the gaps caused by different business, church & work cultures.  Add to that barriers caused by four languages and native cultures and it gives you some idea of why we love the challenges.

We enjoyed our last visit with the church.  We'll be back in the U.S. on interpretation mid August.  We plan to be on the east coast through the end of September.  We'll be visiting Charlotte so let us know if there is a possibility of visiting you.  We are just starting to plan our trip now.

Thank you all again for helping me in this challenging work.  You make it possible for so many Christians to work in new and unexpected ways, establishing the kingdom of God.

Saludos Fraternales de Sara Armstrong y Rusty Edmondson
dos_zapatos@yahoo.com

Iquitos Gets High Speed Internet

Resource:  Peru This Week

By Hannah Vickers

The jungle city has had 11 new antennas installed, giving it an internet connection that’s 10 times faster.

Residents of the jungle city Iquitos now enjoy an internet service that’s 10 times faster, thanks to 11 new antennas in the area, reports El Comercio.

The new service was officially launched today with a ceremony. Regional president of Loreto, Yván Vásquez Valera thinks that the service will make a big difference to the city that’s not accessible by road. “It’s the first time that Iquitos will stop being isolated,” he said at the ceremony.

President Ollanta Humala promises that the new higher velocity internet will bring more investments to the city. The new bandwidth is the result of a S/. 180 million investment from Peruvian telephone company, Telefónica del Perú.

Despite being the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest and fifth largest city in Peru, the location and difficulty of access can make Iquitos somewhat isolated. The rubber boom of the early 20th century caused a huge influx of people to the city, which also brought wealth and social development.

Now, Iquitos is a popular tourist destination and many tourists’ first stop when visiting the Peruvian amazon. Iquitos is only accessible by plane or boat, so visits to the capital of the Loreto region have to be more carefully planned.

Paracas, Perú Tourism

International Hotels Are Investing In New Locations In Paracas

Resource:  Peru This Week

Paracas Natural Reserve is expected to become the second favorite tourist spot after the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru due to its upward trend in visitor arrivals accompanied by the increase of hotel-oriented investments.

“The natural landmark has become a very popular destination for travelers from within Peru and abroad,” Paracas National Reserve’s head Steve Marthans said.

The country’s top natural reserve, located in the southern Ica region, attracted a record high of 200,572 tourists in 2013, up 12 percent from the visitors mark recorded a year earlier.

“The reported rise in overseas tourist arrivals is resulting in the growing interest of large-scale international hotel companies [that are] gaining presence in the area,” Marthans said.

Furthermore, the tourism official stressed that the opening of several new five-star accommodations and resorts in Paracas has been a key factor which has boosted its annual visitor growth.

Lessons From A Peruvian Jungle

Tommy Larner Teaches The Importance Of The Great Commission

Resource:  Baptist Press

By Tommy Larner

Iquitos, Peru (BP) -- In August 2011, I saw the Amazon River for the first time. It was while I was traveling from Lima, Peru, to Iquitos, a city of approximately 700,000 people located in the Amazon Basin of Peru. 

The city is surrounded by rivers and is only accessible by air or boat. Little did I know that during the next two years I would fly into the small Iquitos airport 13 times and with repeated opportunities to look at the world's largest river.

Every two months, my wife and I go to a jungle camp two hours outside of Iquitos to train national believers in cross-cultural missions principles. Beth and I also have been involved in two conferences for pastors and leaders in towns outside of Iquitos. One of these was down-river on the Amazon and allowed us a much deeper understanding of the life of our Peruvian brothers and sisters as they labor to proclaim the Gospel among the people living in villages in the Amazon Basin.

During the two years that we have continually visited the Iquitos area, my life has been deeply touched by the lives of those we go to teach and train. Those with whom we work in this jungle area see me as their teacher. They show me great respect, which in itself is very humbling. But as I listen to them and observe their lives, they teach me some very important lessons about what it means to follow Christ -- and I believe I learn more from them than I could ever teach them.

Several powerful traits in their lives have become obvious to me. Foundational to everything else, many of these servants of the Lord demonstrate a single-minded devotion to Christ. Jesus is at the center of their lives. They are simple and humble people who are motivated by pleasing their Master. It is common to see well-used Bibles, and prayer is an important part of their lives. In times of corporate worship they sing with great enthusiasm and listen attentively as the Word of God is proclaimed.

Read more...

Lunch & Conversation With Frank Dimmock

Frank And Nancy Dimmock

Frank Dimmock is returning to Sharon Church for a lunch and conversation Thursday, March 13, from 12:00-3:00 p.m. in Room 202 of the Barbara Ward Building.

Currently the Global Poverty Alleviation Catalyst for the PCUSA, Frank served as a mission coworker in Africa for 30 years, where his wife, Nancy, is still serving.  Mission Connections

Everyone is invited to visit with Frank and learn about the larger church in mission.  RSVP to the church office if you want to attend, 704-553-0869, ron@sharonpcusa.org.

Sad News...

Good morning:

Many of you know Javier Ruiz, our trusted friend and driver. We write you this morning to sadly inform you that his brother, Carlos Ruiz, passed away Monday, Feb 24. Carlos was swimming at a local beach with his family and hit his head on a submerged rock in the surf. He was taken to the Naval hospital and died after surgery. Sara and I attended the family hosted wake yesterday. Carlos recently retired from a career with the Peruvian Navy and will be buried today in Lima with full military honors.

When Javier needed an extra "taxi helper" he would call on Carlos, nick named "big boy" by Javier. Those "team members" who rode with Carlos commented how he kept them entertained and laughing. Carlos would drive slow, calm and arrived to the destination relaxed... and before those who rode with Javier.

If you would like to send a short note to Javier, send it to my email address at dos_zapatos@yahoo.com. Javier's laptop is with his daughter Lizzy who is in Arequipa visiting her mom's family. I will print and give it to him this weekend.

saludos de rusty y sara

My Daughter's Citzenship And My Mixed Feelings

Resource:  Reflejos

By Marco Ortiz

The bitter cold felt this past January 29 wasn’t an obstacle for the 99 individuals who attended their naturalization ceremony in Chicago.

Among these new citizens was my daughter.

Seeing her standing there, waiting impatiently for her turn to receive her certificate of citizenship, I couldn't help recounting the long road she had to travel to reach that goal.

First, at the age of two and a half, she saw me leave Peru not knowing that, because of the bureaucratic immigration process, she would wait seven years to see me again.

I remember the many times she asked me on the phone with her innocent voice, “Dad, when are you coming back?”

If I traveled back to Peru then, I could have lost several years of preparation working through the system to establish my own legal residence. I had no option but to wait my turn in the long line of people waiting before me.

I tried to explain to her why I came to the U.S. I explained that at that time there was no work in Peru, that the economy was very bad and that the terrorist attacks were a constant threat, so I came to the U.S. to be able to bring the whole family later.

But at the end of my detailed explanations, she would repeat the same question, “Dad, when are you coming back?”

That was a question I couldn’t answer and one that put a lump in my throat. When I finally was able to return to Peru, and went to the U.S. Embassy in Lima to apply for residence for my children, they said I needed to get a DNA test to prove I was their father.

Read more...

The Exotic Disease Detectives

Resource:  BBC News Health

By Anna Lacey

When a patient goes to the doctor, most expect to come out with a diagnosis. But what if your disease is a mystery? Then it's time to call in the exotic disease detectives.

"I travelled to Peru last summer and about a month afterwards noticed what looked like a large boil," says Bob Gilbert, who lives in east London.

"It was continuously scabbing over. I couldn't understand it."

After waiting three weeks for it to clear up, Mr Gilbert finally visited his GP and was given a course of antibiotics.

This was followed by two further GP visits, investigations at four different hospitals and concerns about both tuberculosis and cancer.

It was only after being referred to the Hospital of Tropical Diseases in London that he finally received the correct diagnosis - New World cutaneous leishmaniasis.

"When I saw him, I was able to make the connection based on his travel history," says Diana Lockwood, a consultant at the hospital and a professor of Tropical Diseases.

"We were then able to confirm the diagnosis by performing a test on a sample of the ulcer."

Leishmaniasis is a parasitic disease spread by bites from infected sand flies. In most cases, it causes open sores on the skin (cutaneous leishmaniasis) but it can also infect and damage the organs (visceral leishmaniasis).

However symptoms can take weeks or months to develop - meaning that many people might not make the link to their foreign travel.

Read more...

Remembering Roberta Tello

Roberta Tello In 2012

It is with the heaviest of hearts that I tell you that Roberta Tello, our dear sister and deacon of the Cristo Rey Church in Huanta, Peru, has lost her twelve year battle with cancer. Roberta is now with her Lord and pain free.

Roberta was a woman of great faith and optimism. She was a frequent and tireless volunteer at her church and for many years helped prepare meals for the students and leaders of the Bible Institute of Huanta and Sharon Church mission teams. Even after losing one leg to cancer two years ago, Roberta continued to work in the kitchen at Cristo Rey, convinced that her call from God was to help feed those called to serve others and take the gospel to the people in the Andes Mountains.

Roberta will be missed by all of those touched by her.

Randy Ross