JetBlue Adds Its Southernmost Destination... Lima, Perú!

Resource:  Travel Broadway World

JetBlue Airways today announced new daily nonstop service between Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, subject to receipt of government operating authority. Lima will be JetBlue's 81st BlueCity and its fourth destination in South America. Sale fares for U.S.-originating flights to Lima are available today and until May 3, 2013, at www.jetblue.com/new for as low as $139 one-way from Fort Lauderdale and $199 one-way from the New York Metros and Boston, for travel between November 21 and December 19, 2013.

"JetBlue's low fares and award-winning service have worked very well between Florida and Latin America," said Scott Laurence, vice president of network planning for JetBlue Airways. "With Lima, our first destination in Peru and the southernmost destination in the network, we are confident in our penetration of South America. When you look at Lima's wonderful offerings, including its rich culture, cuisine and great people, we believe both Florida and Lima residents will benefit greatly from the flight, whether visiting friends and relatives, vacationing or on business."

In addition to JetBlue's nonstop service to South Florida, Lima customers will be able to conveniently connect onwards from Fort Lauderdale to other destinations in the United States and the Caribbean including: Boston, MA; New York (JFK, LaGuardia and White Plains); Newark, NJ; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Washington, DC (Reagan National).

Destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean now make up almost one-third of JetBlue's route network. In South America, JetBlue also offers nonstop service between Bogota and both Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, Florida, as well as nonstop service between Cartagena, Colombia and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. The airline also announced nonstop service between Fort Lauderdale and Medellin, Colombia, set to begin in June 2013.

JetBlue's flights to Lima will be operated with its comfortable Airbus A320 fleet and award-winning service featuring convenient, assigned seating; a first-checked bag free; complimentary and unlimited name brand snacks and drinks; comfy leather seats; and more legroom than any other carrier in coach.

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What Are The Pros And Cons Of Short-Term Missions?

Resource:  Got Questions

Although short-term missions have drawbacks, they can be overcome with godly wisdom, training, and heart.

The Pros:

• Short-term missionaries better understand the ministry and purpose of missions. Those who have never experienced cross-cultural missions often have wrong impressions about it. They may view missions as a glamorous ministry with thankful natives coming to Christ each day. After participating in a short-term missions trip, they better appreciate the goals and service of missions.
• Short-term missionaries become more sacrificial supporters of long-term missionaries. A short-term mission trip often increases a person’s interest in and support of missions. God may use a short-term mission trip to call a person to long-term missions. Besides going long-term, multiple opportunities await to support missions. The short-term mission trip itself strengthens missionaries. The church group brings fresh hands to work, enthusiasm for the ministry, and Christian fellowship to encourage. They can help with tasks the long-term missionaries don’t have the time or numbers to do: relief projects, tract handouts, children’s clubs, etc. Once back home, the short-term missionary doesn't easily forget the need. They often become life-long supporters of missionaries through prayer, gifts, and letters. Their passion for missions spreads to others back home.
• Short-term missions develop passion for knowing Christ and making Christ known. A short-term mission trip teaches people dependence on God. They face customs to get through, an unfamiliar language to understand, and culture shock to overcome. As they turn to God for help, short-term missionaries experience the power of prayer. Seeing God move in and through lives, they develop a love for Christ and the Gospel. This passion does not end at the mission trip’s end but should continue to energize the short-term missionary back home. By God’s grace, personal evangelism increases. Prayer and Bible study become a delight, not a duty or drudgery.

The Cons:

• Short-term missions are expensive. If cost were the only factor, short-term missions would not be worthwhile. Some people point out that the money used to fly 30 teens to Perú could be sent to the long-term missionaries there. After all, the youth group could do missions at home: passing out tracts at a park, teaching a children’s Bible club, or helping in a soup kitchen in the inner city.
• Short-term missions may not require “counting the cost." Some who go on a short-term mission trip still don’t understand the sacrifices of missions. They haven’t spent the grueling hours learning the language; they haven’t had to leave family and friends for more than a few weeks; they haven’t experienced the years of service without visible results. Besides, short-term missionaries sometimes only add to the burdens of long-term missionaries.
• Short-term missions may not have a lasting impact. Some short-term missionaries come with the haughty idea that they can single-handedly change the nation in the few weeks they serve. Without regard to the long-term missionaries, native church leaders, or even the Lord, they hand out a few tracts, hold a puppet show, or put a new roof on an orphanage. Their impact on the community fades as soon as they hop on the plane back home. Even with the proper heart attitude and goals, short-term missionaries have more limitations than long-term missionaries. Short-term missions may not provide the time it takes to learn the language and culture, build relationships, and make disciples.

Conclusion: Are short-term missions worthwhile?

God uses both short and long-term missionaries to make disciples of all nations (e.g. the apostle Paul vs. Timothy). The call and heart of both types of missionary are most important. While long-term missionaries carry out the bulk of missions work, short-term missions can lighten the load. Short-term missions are usually most effective under the direction of long-term missionaries and the national church. Although short-term missions has drawbacks, they can be overcome with godly wisdom, training, and heart.

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Room In The Inn

To all,

Many thanks to each of you for your participation in Room In The Inn at Sharon this past winter. We had 172 guests; 23 came to our church more than once during the four months. We actually filled 197 bed-nights, part of 17,354 city-wide. There was a 61% increase in the number of families served by Room In The Inn over-all. Behind the scenes, extra social workers were brought on at the Urban Ministry Center to find more permanent housing for these families.

Beyond the statistics, you helped provide safe sleep, good food, and some bingo fun in a loving, hospitable manner. The drivers got our guests to SPC and back uptown, a distance that many of our neighbors walk frequently! The clean-up crews consistently left the facilities in fine shape which is really appreciated by the next group coming in to use the CLAB. Perhaps most importantly, you brought respect and dignity to people in a desperate situation.

Thank you for what you did and the way you did it.

Yours in Christ,

David Beers

Hola 2013 Perú Mission Team!

I wanted to give you a quick update on our upcoming trip to Peru, now just twelve (12) weeks away!

The dates of the trip are from Friday, July 12 through Monday, July 22, 2013.  The members of the 2013 team and their hometowns are:

• Rose Boelke {West Jefferson, North Carolina}
• Connie Dale {Charlotte, North Carolina}
• Diana Pardue {New York, New York}
• Beverly Vickrey {Charlotte, North Carolina}
• Gary Geisel {Edgewater, Maryland}
• Jim Hogan {Baltimore, Maryland}
• Randy Ross {Charlotte, North Carolina}
• Tom Skinner {Charlotte, North Carolina}
• Van Dale {Charlotte, North Carolina}

Sara Armstrong, Rusty Edmondson and Brenda Paredes will meet us in Lima.

The majority of the team (Rose, Diana, Randy, Tom and Beverley) will arrive in Lima on Friday, July 12th, and return to the United States on Monday, July 22nd.

Connie and Van will travel to Lima on Saturday, July 6th to visit the Paredes family and explore Lima. They will meet the other mission team members at the Lima airport on Friday, July 12th.

Gary and Jim will travel to Lima on Friday, July 12th and will travel to Cusco after the mission trip to visit the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu.

We will spend Friday night in Lima and fly to Ayacucho Saturday afternoon, July 13th.

The Presbytery of Huanta (the “Presbytery”) has asked that part of our team travel to the town of Lircay to help assemble benches to be used a pews in the churches of the Synod of Huancavelica. The other part of our team will travel to Huanta to help paint four (4) churches in and around Huanta.

Gary and Jim have graciously offered to share their many years of banking experience and are developing a curriculum on church and personal financial management to be presented to church leadership and members in both Lircay and Huanta.

The Lircay Team (Rusty, Gary, Jim, Diana and Randy) and the Huanta Team (Sara, Rose, Connie, Van, Brenda, Tom and Beverley) will depart Ayacucho early Sunday morning, July 14th. On Wednesday, July 17th the Lircay team will travel to Huanta and become part of the Huanta Team for the remainder of the mission trip.

We will return to Ayacucho from Huanta on Saturday, July 20th, spend the night there and take the early flight to Lima the following morning, Sunday, July 21st.

In Lima, we will travel to Amen Church (Brenda’s church) for worship and fellowship. That afternoon, we will visit the Inca Market in Miraflores before having dinner and heading to the airport (Gary and Jim excluded) for our flights home.

Sara and Rusty are finalizing our in-country arrangements, including accommodations, meals and travel.

This will be Sharon Church’s sixth consecutive trip to Huanta. Each year I travel there becomes more special than the year before, in part, because I am in awe of the blessing of yet another opportunity to worship and work next to my Andean brothers and sisters.

I am looking forward to the time together with each of you and each of them, a time of faith, fellowship and service to Jesus Christ.

I wanted to share a recent note from Samuel Montes, current Secretary (and past President) of the Presbytery:

“I am filled with excitement and encouragement in organizing the work we will do together in Ayacucho, Lircay and Huanta…the mission is not ours, the real promoter is Jesus and God himself, the One who moves mountains and changes lives… and nothing will stop Him.”

I treasure many aspects of the partnership that Sharon Church enjoys with the Presbytery. The most endearing aspect is how our partnership has enabled and empowered the Presbytery to reach out and minister to its neighbors. “…the mission is not ours, the real promoter is Jesus and God himself, the One who moves mountains and changes lives… and nothing will stop Him.” Amen Samuel, Amen.

A special thanks to each of you for joining this year’s trip to help bolster, deepen and move this partnership forward.

Twelve more weeks, twelve more weeks, twelve more weeks!

Grace and peace to each of you.
Randy

Coffee Fungus Killing Crops And Jobs From Mexico To Perú

Resource:  CBC News
By Lorenda Reddekopp

Wilson Tzunún pulls a brown, skinny branch off a coffee plant and snaps it in two. The coffee plants around us are all in varying stages of death.

The cause is roya. It’s a word that’s almost become a curse in Central America. It’s a fungus, a leaf rust that first shows up as yellow spots on the leaves of coffee plants. Then it curls them up and causes the round coffee fruits to drop to the ground before they can mature.

“It’s something that right now we can’t control,” said Tzunún.

He’s a member of the Campesino Committee of the Highlands in Guatemala. The group helps some of the smallest coffee producers in this country export their organic coffee.

The Guatemalan government has declared the coffee rust a national emergency. So have the governments of Honduras and Costa Rica.

The dried-up, dead plants are an unusual sight, when everything else in this humid region of Western Guatemala is lush and green.

“The roya that attacked before, six to eight years ago, it was controllable,” Tzunún said. “We’ve seen that this is much stronger.”

Coffee Grower Juan Calel

One of the local farmers is Juan Calel. He grows coffee on three small plots. On one of his plots, every single plant is destroyed.

“It didn’t give us anything,” he said, looking out from under his straw hat. “We don’t know what we’re going to do with this situation, because there’s nothing. Everything was lost.”

Calel is in his 70s and his kids have all left home. Coffee provides his entire income, to support him and his wife. He said it’ll be harder to get by now, but he’s more worried about his neighbours.

“There’s a couple with seven kids, young ones. How are they going to support them all?”

That same concern exists throughout this region.

Nils Leperowski is president of the National Coffee Association in Guatemala. “It’s a problem that goes from Mexico down to Peru.”

He goes through the numbers for Guatemala: 70 per cent of crops have damages. Of the 276,000 hectares of coffee in this country, 193,000 hectares are infected with the fungus.

 

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Chicken And Waffles For Perú Mission

Resource:  Lancaster Online

By Roxanne Todd

Those who have a hankering for chicken and waffles won't want to miss the all-you-can-eat dinner at Middle Octorara Presbyterian Church on Saturday, April 20.

In addition to dining on a hearty meal of homemade chicken and waffles, corn, pepper cabbage, applesauce, sweet potatoes and cake, those who attend will be helping to fund a mission trip for three members of the church to travel to the village of Tamshiyacu, which is located on the Amazon River in Peru.

The cost for the tickets is $9 in advance for those who dine at the church and $8 for takeout. Tickets will also be available at the door for $10 to dine at the church and $8 for takeout. Additional information is available by calling the church at 786-3402.

Members of Middle Octorara Presbyterian Church located at 1199 Valley Road in Quarryville, Pennsylvania have traveled to Tamshiyacu for the past several years to help construct buildings, a fence and share their Christian beliefs with village residents.

Dan and Boni Henry, who have taken part in several mission trips to Tamshiyacu, will be traveling this year with Dixie Clark, another congregation member, and her friends James and Ruth Good from Mohnton.

"While we are at Tamshiyacu, as we have every year, we will be helping the pastor's wife, Lupe, to lead a Bible school for the children of the village. We will be delivering mosquito nets to help prevent malaria, flip flops to help prevent parasite infections through the soles of their feet and other needs for people of the village," Mrs. Henry said.

"Parasites are such a big problem," Mr. Henry added.

This year, the Lancaster County visitors will also help build new wooden pews for the church known as Iglesia Evangelica Presbyteriana de la Amazonia en Tamshiyacu.

They will also distribute water filtration buckets to help village residents maintain a source of clean drinking water. Some of the funding for the buckets comes from a Christmas alternative giving program where congregation members donate money to purchase the simple water filtration systems instead of giving each other presents.

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Mining Company Destroys Part Of Nazca Lines

Resource:  RUN Media

By Steven Clarke

An unfeigned disaster has occurred. A portion of Peru’s Nazca lines have been destroyed, and all just because of greed.

The lines were destroyed by the heavy equipment of a Peruvian mining company called Galvez, as they excavated the area looking for base construction material for their newly upgraded mine.

The Nazca lines are a particularly tenuous archaeological artifact, most of them being 10-30 cm deep, and constructed between 400 and 650 AD.

The parched and windless environment is responsible for their survival for last 1500 years, but all that is rivaled by the owner’s greed. The owner of the limestone aggregates company claims that the land and the lines are on his private property and he can do whatever he likes with the property.

The director of research at Ojos de Condor, Eduardo Herrán Gómez de la Torre describes the extensive damage and witnessed the irreparable destruction to a set of lines and trapezoids that existed in the area.

The company responsible for the disaster has not been sanctioned or supervised by the authorities of the Regional Directorate of Culture of Ica, despite of being in this great archaeological reserve.

The site of Nazca lines was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994 (UNESCO Ref 700) which covers some 500 square Kilometers Pampas de Jumana in southern Peru.

Mario Olaechea Aquije, the director of culture of Nasca said that the land is privately owned and the owner is free to work according to his will. The damage which took place near mile market 444 of the Panamericana Sur Highway is not yet clear.

The most iconic images and shapes of Nazca lines were fortunately unscathed and are in no instant danger. But the sites of such archaeological and historic importance need more belligerent legal protections.

As the story is attaining universal impetus, the public opinion and pressure may force the government of Peru to act in support to it. But we only can hope that someone takes the initiative to at least ensure that no more damage is caused to Nazca lines and other archaeological sites.

La Oroya Refinery Will Not Be Sold After All

Resource:  Platts

By Renzo Pipoli

Doe Run Peru's La Oroya metal refinery will not be sold off as previously expected, as the company will instead be restructured, the court-appointed administrator said Friday.

"The creditors of Doe Run [Peru] met this week and agreed to change the mandate from a liquidation to a restructuring, designating Right Business as the administrator," Rocio Chavez, general manager of Right Business, said in an e-mail Friday. "It has given us 60 days to ready a restructuring plan."

Chavez said that if the mandate had not been changed, the plant would have been immediately closed and workers let go, because the prior mandate to liquidate assets was about to expire.

The plant is processing zinc and lead, but not copper. Chavez said the copper circuit remains closed because a project to produce sulfuric acid -- while at the same time cutting emissions -- and make other upgrades is not finished, "which makes that operation impossible."

The refinery stopped operating in mid-2009, after suppliers halted deliveries of feedstock mineral concentrates due to nonpayment. At the same time, the Peruvian government said the company had to invest in upgrades that would reduce pollution. The company's creditors eventually took it to bankruptcy court, leading to the appointment of a temporary administrator.

La Oroya, which before the closure had some 3,500 workers, restarted operations with fewer than 1,000 workers in July 2012, running just the zinc circuit. It restarted the lead circuit later the same year.

Soap Operation Uses A Buy-One, Give-One Model To Aid The Needy

Resource:  Omaha.com

By Emily Nohr

Andrew Vrbas found himself staring out his bus window, eyes fixed on the sights before him.

That particular day two years ago, he couldn't shake the extreme poverty and the reliance on the land he witnessed during a trip through the Peruvian Andes, a path that had become routine for the then-Hastings College construction management major studying abroad, building construction projects and teaching English classes.

Vrbas, a Kansas native, returned to Nebraska with a fire in his belly to do something about the lack of access to hygiene he saw, while keeping in mind how resourceful the people of Peru appeared. From inside a spare room in his college apartment, Pacha Soap was born.

The handmade soap company still based in Hastings is aiming to “raise the bar” for business by using a buy-one, give-one model. That business model has been around for several years, at Santa Monica, Calif.-based Toms Shoes, perhaps one of the most widely known companies to use it. For each pair of Toms purchased, a pair of new shoes goes to a child in need.

Similarly, for each bar of Pacha soap purchased, one bar is given away. So when a retailer orders bars to stock its shelves, Pacha sends double the amount. Then the retailer and Pacha coordinate what local group or organization receives the free soap — such as Crossroads Mission in Hastings (for homeless people) or Girls Inc. in Omaha (for the girls).

In addition to local giving, sales generated go toward hand-delivering or shipping free soap abroad. So far, the company has hand-delivered or shipped soap to Peru, Guatemala and Sri Lanka. Last month, the company hand-delivered 200 bars to the Dominican Republic.

Vrbas, known as the “Head Jaboñero” of Pacha Soap, said his experience in Peru pushes the company to spread the word about hand washing, an act that can prevent fatal disease in developing countries. “It can save so many lives,” he said.

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The Power Of "We": Collective Impact In God's Mission

World Mission Partner Conference At Big Tent

Come to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Big Tent event and discover for yourself how putting God’s first things first can bring rebirth and renewal to your church through engagement in world mission!

How can Presbyterians engage in global mission for collective impact? What tools will help your congregation address poverty, do evangelism, and engage in reconciliation? Discover strategies to advocate for, empower, and partner with sisters and brothers throughout the denomination and around the world through mission. The Big Tent combines ten national conferences under one roof, gathering thousands of Presbyterian pastors, elders, and other church leaders to study, share, worship, and fellowship, and to build up the body of Christ. It’s been called “a giant Presbyterian family reunion” – and the 2013 Big Tent brings that reunion to Louisville, Kentucky, home of the PC(USA)’s national offices since 1988.

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A Project Supported By Presbyterian World Mission

Resource:  Arizona Daily Star

By Perla Trevizo
Article link from Dennis Smith

Mexico Coffee Co-Op, With Border Operations, Helping Ease Immigration Pressures

In the late 1990s, residents of a coffee-growing town in southern Mexico began noticing something unusual.

Women were representing the household in community meetings.

The men had migrated north, either to work at a factory along the Mexican border or to cross illegally into the United States. Daily buses took people north to Tijuana and Agua Prieta.

A decade later, things have turned around in at least one town in Chiapas.

Men have returned to their home village. People are building concrete homes. There's a phone in each house and access to water.

It can all be attributed to Café Justo, said Daniel Cifuentes, 45, who left his village to work in a maquiladora in Agua Prieta.

Café Justo is a cooperative that tries to address one of the root causes of migration: money. The idea is for coffee growers to have full control of their product all through the process - cultivating, roasting, packaging and exporting.

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Easter Greetings From Argentina

Garden Of Gethsemane

Gerardo Oberman is president of the Reformed Churches of Argentina. Here's his Easter reflection...

“At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden…” (John 19; 41)

This is not a casual remark from John.

In the place where they snatch the life from Jesus, in all cruelty and pain, there, there was a garden.

Where torture and hatred try to bring to silence Him who was opening up the way to the new, to light, just there, there was a garden.

Where the religious and political power came together to put a stop to the man from Nazareth who scandalized their fake morality and the corruption of their ways, in that same place there were flowers and the fresh smell of spring.

Where there was the absence of friends and disciples, where there was announcement of cowardice and betrayal, where there was denial and fear in that same place birds sang their daily praise to creation.

Where oppressors smiled and greeted the guardians of death, the breeze danced among the tress and their dance brought with it a fresh perfume of life.

Where two men in solidarity took into their arms an innocent body to place it in a tomb, there, there was a garden.

A garden would soon become the sacred place of the most marvelous subversion of all times: the resurrection.

Torture, innocent deaths, intrigues of power, oppression, darkness, they continue to be part of human history, they are present still today.

But, let us not forget, let us open up our eyes, because there, precisely there, God may have put a garden.

Gerardo Oberman/Argentina

Tr. Roberto Jordan

Under the Mercy,

Dennis A. Smith

dennis.smith@pcusa.org

PCUSA Enlace Regional, Brasil y Cono Sur, Misión Mundial

PCUSA Regional Liaison, Brazil and Southern Cone, World Mission

PCUSA Representante Regional, Brasil e Cone Sul, Missão Mundial

Sucre 2855, 3o 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina

telephone: +54-11-4787-0436

fax: +54-11-4787-0335

mobile: +54-911-6621-8944 (BBM pin 281953C5)

www.pcusa.org/worldmission