A Big Market For Bug Dye

Thank you to Cheryl Magee for the story idea below.

The guts of an insect called the cochineal contain a traditional source of bright red dye — a dye which has now become a booming industry because of a growing preference for juices and yogurts that contain "natural" colorings.

Full story...

A Letter From Jed Koball In Perú

Dear Friends,

I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.  -  Acts 2:17


A year ago an unprecedented darkness fell upon the town of La Oroya. A group of 10 university students from the United States accompanying a group of 10 children and youth from La Oroya were violently attacked by a group of nearly 200 men. Throwing rocks and punches, the men chased the young people out of town.

More...

Trade Agreements vs Democracy

THE ANONYMOUS DEATH threats phoned to Archbishop Pedro Barreto and others in March told them to stop speaking out about the foreign-owned metals smelting plant in La Oroya, Peru.

Barreto, a Catholic archbishop of the Andean region that includes La Oroya, has been a leading advocate for the health of the 35,000-person town, which the plant has made one of the world’s most contaminated places: 99 percent of children there have dangerous levels of lead in their blood.

More...

Flooding Displaces Peruvians

Continuous heavy rains during the first half of 2012 have led to widespread flooding in Loreto, Peru, displacing approximately 208,000 people.

An estimated 52,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed and, as of April, 15,000 people were still being sheltered in tents, schools and other public facilities.  Nationwide, the floods have affected some 650,000 Peruvians.

More...

Never Forget La Oroya!

David Rochkind Photography

Perú Mission Network Partners

Below is a partial list of churches and partners as of March 2012.  They represent a portion of the people but a large percentage of work of the Peru Mission Network. A few of the Peruvian cities and towns that are visited are:  Ayacucho, Cusco, Huanta, Huaycan, Iquitos, Lima, and Moyobamba.

• Asociacion San Lucas, Moyobamba / First Presbyterian Church {Boone, North Carolina}
• La iglesia Evang.Presbit. de Moyobamba / Champion Presbyterian Church {Champion, Ohio}
• Presbiterio de Huanta / Sharon Presbyterian Church {Charlotte, North Carolina}
• La Iglesia Emanuel, Ayacucho / Port Orange Presbyterian Church {Port Orange, Florida}
• La universidad/el seminario, Moyobamba / First Presbyterian Church {Burlington, North Carolina}
• Siete Iglesias alrededor de Iquitos / Amazon Mission Fellowship
• Sinodo Cusco (IEP) / Heritage Presbyterian Church {Mason, Ohio}
• Iglesia Mana de PROFAM Santa Rosa / Trinity Presbyterian Church {Boise, Idaho}
• Iglesias San Genaro y San Agustin, Lima / First Presbyterian Church {Kingwood, Texas}
• Iglesia Santa Anita / Clear Lake Presbyterian Church {Clear Lake, Texas}
• Iglesia San Agustin / Presbyterian Church Of The Lakes {Orlando, Florida}
• Agape/Iglesia el Buen Pastor, Huaycan / First Presbyterian Church {New York, New York}
• Oasis de la Vida, Villa el Salvador, Lima / First Presbyterian Church {Greensboro, North Carolina}
• Westminster Presbyterian Church {Nashville, Tennessee}
• Presbyterian Church of Barrington {Barrington, Illinois}
• Farmington Presbyterian Church {Farmington, New Mexico}
• Broad Street Presbyterian Church {Columbus, Ohio}

The above church members hopefully feel as you do about Perú.  In some cases, the members are even more dedicated to the wonderful world of giving, sacrifice and rewards of visiting Perú.

Boy Helps Strays In Lima

In a poor shanty town in Lima, Peru, a deaf and mute boy is helping dogs, and proving actions speak louder than words ever will.

According to this report, posted on Care2 by Rosemary Underhay, who works with Vida Digna, a Peruvian animal welfare association, they first noticed the boy in a line of people waiting to get medical care for their animals.

“In the line there was a small boy, deaf and unable to speak, who used sign language to tell us we needed to see something urgently,” she writes.

“He disappeared for a while and then returned with a small, cold, miserable puppy covered in an angry, itchy mange and with a nasty, festering wound caused by scalding water, probably thrown at him to scare him away from market stands.”

More...

American Airlines Blankets Will Cost You

DALLAS — If you want a pillow and blanket in coach on American Airlines, it's going to cost you.

The airline will charge $8 for a pillow and blanket in coach class for domestic trips and some international flights longer than two hours, beginning May 1. The international flights are to and from Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, the Caribbean and Central America.

More...

Empowering Women Of Perú

Pro Mujer, an international, women's development and microfinance NGO, is just one of the many projects supported by the Anglo American Group Foundation. Established in 1990 to alleviate poverty across Latin America, Pro Mujer focuses on providing women with access to small scale loans and support to help them create their own businesses.

More...

"House Of Lead: A Story Of Greed"

Amazon CARES Opportunity

Amazon Community Animal Rescue, Education & Safety (CARES) is pleased to announce a new volunteer trip opportunity for Veterinary Volunteers. We have an exciting trip planned with brand new itinerary options during the dates of August 11-26, 2012. This trip will be attended by CARES Founder Molly Mednikow.

The trip will focus on three locales: Iquitos, Nauta, and Requena, a small town near the Brazilian border.

Space is limited, and we expect plenty of registrations due to the great price of just $700 for the full two weeks. That includes meals and lodging!

Be sure to check out all you need to know about our Volunteer trips on our website!

Rennert's Perú Smelter In Trouble

American Ira Rennert is the CEO of the Renco Group Inc., a corporation known for its disastrous environmental record. Renco’s Doe Run Peru subsidiary controls one of the ten worst environmental sites in the world in La Oroya, Peru, according to the Blacksmith Institute. This lead smelter has been a cash cow for billionaire Rennert’s offshore companies. It has also exposed thousands of Peruvians to extraordinary high levels of lead contamination. Most of children in La Oroya have lead poisoning.

More...

Return To The U.S.

Hello to all,

Today was a great day in the Dominican Republic. First, we ate breakfast and loaded up the bus for a 45 minute bus ride to La Romana. Here, we boarded a rather large boat and sailed off for the island Catalina. While many of the students loved this hour boat ride, some were quite relieved to finally reach land. Just before reaching land, we docked up and were able to jump off the boat and snorkel around the area we anchored in. This was a very fun time for the students and everyone really enjoyed this. After bringing in the anchor, we sailed for land and made ourselves comfortable. Some, enjoyed beach volleyball, swimming, tanning, and even cheap massages while others played games and went on walks. It is safe to say we had a BLAST today! Many are sunburnt but all are happy. After enjoying this day we headed back home to score to enjoy dinner.

We had a great devotion tonight led by Coach Brown speaking on how to guard ourselves from the dangers of this world. This really hit home with many of the students. After Coach Brown talked, Matt Hall gave a brief sermon on how to be bold for the Lord. He challenged the students to pray that Jesus would put them in situations in which they were called to be bold for Him. Many students loved hearing both of these messages and made commitments that will impact them in their senior year as well as in their freshman year of college.

As we say our “goodnights” tonight to our last night in the DR, we are packing and playing a few last favorite games. Tomorrow the students will be split back into their groups from when we were to arrive in the Dominican and will be with the same Chaperone. The flight schedule is as follows:

Susan Jones & Shonn Brown group:

• Depart Score at 4:00AM
• Depart Santo Domingo, DR at 6:20 AM
• Arrive in Miami at 9:30AM
• Depart Miami at 11:05AM
• Arrive in Charlotte at 1:10 PM

Kristin Ennis & Derek Drummond:

• Depart Score at 5:45AM
• Depart Santo Domingo, DR at 8:15 AM
• Arrive in Miami at 10:30 AM
• Arrive in Charlotte around 4PM

Pray for our safe travels tomorrow!

Morgan Kirk

Chandler's Return

He is leaving the Score complex at 4:00AM to arrive home at 1:10PM.

Pray for everything to go as planned and everyone returns home safely! Thanks so much!

Dominican Republic - Day 4

Hola!

Hello again to all back home! Hopefully you all are not missing your wonderful children too much by now but just know that they are in great hands down here! Today we had a bit of an unfortunate case in which many students were taken ill. There seems to be a “stomach bug” floating around here at Score and unfortunately a few students came down with it. While many of these that did come down with this bug chose to stay here today the rest they got will be the energy they will need for tomorrow!

For those students that did make it out to the villages today we had a great time serving together! Over half the group went out and played and ministered to the children in the village we went to today. They had a great time playing basketball, running around, holding new born kittens, and just being a light for the Lord. While those students played with children a few other students requested to clean the local nursing home and hospital there. This was a very impacting experience for those that had never experienced those type of living conditions. We all had a great time today and saw the Lord through all the people we saw today. From the old people living in the nursing home to the young children needing love and attention each student was shown something different from God.

After enjoying a packed lunch in the local church, we headed off to one of our favorite places to go down here: Jumbo! For those of you who don’t know what Jumbo is, it is the local Walmart down here in the Dominican. The students love going here and getting food for villages we go out to serve. After making our large assembly line, gathering all the food, and checking out, we headed for our next village.

The next village we went to was owned by the government and was lived in by people who work in the sugarcane fields here. This was a smaller village and the students were really able to connect to the individuals that we saw. Here, we fed about 35 families. Each student was able to give a family a bag of food that we got at Jumbo. After they gave the food to the family they prayed for the family and got to see how happy and thankful each person truly was. Everyone really enjoyed the time that we spent at this village. Tomorrow we have an eventful day at the straw market and another familiar village for those who have attended this trip previous years. Be assured that all of your children that are not feeling well are doing much better now and are almost back to 100%.

Continue to pray that we have endurance, love, and “wellness” for all of us here!

Morgan Kirk

Dominican Republic - Day 3

Hola to all those in the United States!

Today, we finally had the whole group together and were ready to be a light to all the Dominicans! Although the rest of the group arrived yesterday, it was nice to have everyone together today as we shared the gospel of our wonderful Lord. As the day started off we headed for a house called Emmanuel House. This house, unlike many other houses here, was a school to 105 Dominican children ages 5-12. Unfortunately, all of these children were on a week of “break” because the teachers were off training on how to equip their students with more of Jesus in a school setting. Although we were a little sad at first, we were more than happy to find that there were other needs that needed to be tended to. We broke off into groups of 10 and were sent off to do various things and serve various people. Every group ended up going out into the homes of the people around there as well as aiding in painting the outside of the school. While in the homes of the Dominicans, students saw things from a grandmother giving her life to Jesus to sick children being taken to the local clinic to get medicine. All of these things impacted each student greatly and I’m sure they can’t wait to tell you about their personal experience involved in each of these things. Upon returning from Emmanuel house this afternoon, the students had a few minutes to eat lunch and cool off in the pool to rejuvenate for the afternoon events.

This afternoon we went to a center called Compassion. This center housed and schooled about 100 students from 7-15. Here, we were able to sing, do our famous “Daniel and Goliath” skit (with Mitchell Warner as King and Molly Hair as Daniel) as well as hear Chandler Sharpe’s testimony. After we were able to hear the gospel from one of the missionaries who attended this center with us named Kiko. The students really enjoyed getting to see the impact they made on these children’s lives. After hearing all of these things, the Dominican children began playing games and having fun with all of us. We did things from make bracelets, have pull up bar competitions, paint nails and even broke out into a paint fight. (Don’t worry, the painting fights were merely sweet Dominicans painting our faces with as much paint as possible). After being there for about 2 hours we headed home to Score.

We just returned from our first group Score night where everyone staying at Score during this time joined together in worship and fellowship to hear about how truly great our Lord is. The students have begun to wind down and are enjoying some friendly-competition with various games.

Hoping all is well with you all in the States and will be sending another update tomorrow!

Morgan Kirk

Better News

We've just heard that the mission group from Charlotte Christian has arrived safe and sound in the Dominican Republic!

God Is Good!

More Not So Good News

Chandler Schramm and others are stuck in Miami another night.  They will need to be at the Miami airport at 4:30AM to board a flight to New York's JFK!?  After arriving in New York, they will then take another flight to Dominican Republic arriving around 3:30PM.  Sadly, 2 days of missions lost.

A few of the team flew to New York today, then on to Santo Domingo.  Everyone is safe, but tired of the delays.

CONTINUE TO LIFT THESE KIDS, PARENTS AND ADVISERS UP IN PRAYER!

Not So Good News

Chandler Schramm, 24 other kids and 2 adults are stuck in Miami.  Their original flights from Charlotte yesterday afternoon were cancelled.  Other flights were scheduled and the group finally arrived in Miami late last night.  They arrived at a Miami hotel very early this morning.  Needless to say, they missed their flights to Santo Domingo.

We still don't know at this time if everyone will be able to get a flight out of Miami to Dominican Republic today.  We all can imagine that the remaining families and loved ones are very anxious about any decisions and news from these missionaries.  

God has a plan!

PLEASE LIFT THESE KIDS, PARENTS AND ADVISERS UP IN PRAYER!

Good News!

I'm sorry...  I forgot to post this news from Sara Armstrong and Randy Ross earlier...  "Sara said that she visited with Roberta last week and that she is doing remarkably well and plans to cook for us in August"!

Chandler Schramm Returns To The Dominican Republic

Dear friends and family,

I want to share with you a ministry opportunity God has presented to me. During June 9-16, I will be making another journey to the Dominican Republic with a team from my school, Charlotte Christian.

Our trip will focus on playing with, and ministering to, children in orphanages and who live in poverty. We will do this in a number of ways, but primarily we will spend time getting to know them, and then hosting a “vacation bible school” experience for the kids.

We need your prayers of support:

• For allowing God to work in our lives through the personal enrichment that comes from this type of a mission trip.
• We need to pray for the people of the Dominican Republic.  We pray that God may open their eyes and hearts to the message of Jesus.
• We will be visiting many of the children we visited last year.  Pray that Charlotte Christian School can continue to develop a presence in the Dominican Republic on these yearly trips.
• Pray that we will encourage local Christians and missionaries in the Dominican Republic. Our presence will bolster their spirits and support their work through SCORE International.

I'm excited about the experiences that lie ahead. I hope you see the value in what we will accomplish. I need your prayer support. Prayer is the fuel that will allow us to be successful as we follow God's leading in ministry in the Dominican Republic. Without prayer, nothing will happen.

Thank you for your support and prayers!

Chandler Schramm

Mick Jagger Named Perú's Environmental Ambassador

Music legend Sir Mick Jagger has been drawn into a bitter row over an ‘illegal gas grab’ in the Peruvian Amazon.

Peru’s government has provoked fury from indigenous groups after it was discovered that it is attempting to explore for gas in an Amazon reserve despite explicitly promising never to do so.

The reserve is the territory of several vulnerable uncontacted tribes, and a crucial buffer zone for the Manu National Park, listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site for having a biological diversity that ‘exceeds any other place on Earth.’

After visiting the Manu region Mick Jagger was made an Environmental Ambassador by Peru, who described him as a ‘great support in our fight to protect our ecology’. Survival International has written to the Rolling Stones’ frontman, saying ‘Peru’s last uncontacted tribes are in imminent danger… please ask the Peruvian government to stop endangering their lives.’

Peru’s plan to expand its massive Camisea gas project has been clouded in secrecy. Nine years ago it confirmed it would never expand the project eastward into the Nahua-Nanti Reserve, home to several uncontacted tribes, and passed a Supreme Decree confirming the pledge.

More...

Mission Opportunity

Sharon Presbyterian Church's Western North Carolina Adult Mission Trip will take place from October 4 - 7, 2012. We will partner with the Bryson City Presbyterian Church to conduct mission work in and around Bryson City, NC. Bryson City Presbyterian Church has identified families in poverty and with poor health who need assistance with basic repairs to their homes.

The group will depart Thursday, October 4, at 12:00 noon and return Sunday afternoon, October 7.

Anyone can participate, regardless of prior construction experience or skill level. We are planning for a team of 16 Sharon volunteers for this trip. If you are interested in participating please contact David Spivey at spiveys_@msn.com for additional information.