2004 Trip Pictures

Thursday, August 5, 2004 We left the church on a school bus around 10:40 am (PST. We arrived at LAX around  11:40 am (PST), made it through all of our bag checks and boarding issues and were sitting in the plane by 2:15PM (PST). At 2:40PM (PST), we took off from LAX, left California and headed to our first stop in Lima, Peru. By 11:00PM (PST), we landed in Lima to re-fuel and then took off again headed for Santiago, Chile. We took off from Lima around 11:20PM (PST) and flew overnight to Santiago. D A Y 1   D A Y 1   D A Y 1   D A Y 1   D A Y 1   D A Y 1   D A Y 1   D A Y 1 Friday, August 6, 2004 We landed in Santiago around 3:30AM (PST), got off the plane, grabbed our luggage, and went to board our next plane. We got through all of the bag checks fine and boarded our plane around 4:15AM (PST). We took off from Santiago International airport around 4:30AM (PST) and flew over the beautiful snow covered Andes Mountains. We landed in the Iquique airport around 6:00AM (PST), re-fueled, and then took off again at 6:15AM (PST). We landed in Arica, our final destination flying wise, around 6:35AM (PST). We got off the plane, grabbed our luggage, and loaded it onto our bus. The we crossed over the Chilean and Peruvian borders without any problems and were on our way into Tacna, Peru. We got the the church around 10:30AM (PST), settled into our rooms, freshened up, and started greeting the people we would be working with on our trip. Tito (the pastor of the church) took us all out to eat lunch at this Super Chicken place with really yummy chicken. We left the restaurant, walked about 10 minutes to a little thing called the concrete slide. We played with the Peruvian children there for a while and then left to go back to the church and settle in for the night. D A Y 2   D A Y 2   D A Y 2   D A Y 2   D A Y 2   D A Y 2   D A Y 2   D A Y 2   D A Y 2   D A Y 2   D A Y 2 Saturday, August 7, 2004 We got up by 7:00AM, attempted to take the arctic cold showers, and then ate at 8:00AM. We cleaned up, then all got ready: the puppets packing their equipment and the mimes putting on their faces. We left by about 9:45AM and walked from the church, uphill, to a little open spot where we would perform. While everyone was setting up, the mimes went house-to-house asking for kids to come and watch the show. They got called crazy a lot. By 10:30AM the music started rolling and everyone started performing. Around 12:30PM we were all done with our very first performance for Missions Peru 2004. It went well for the most part. Then we all walked back to the church, ate lunch, then got ready to leave again, and left by 3:15PM to go to a concrete field to perform our next show. After we were all done there, we went to Culto.com for their night service. Everything was in Spanish, so most of us were scratching our heads the whole sermon. Here we met some missionaries from Sacramento and Pasadena. They are really nice people. After we said our goodbyes, we left by taxi, headed back to the church, ate dinner and then went to bed. It was a fairly long day. D A Y 3   D A Y 3   D A Y 3   D A Y 3   D A Y 3   D A Y 3   D A Y 3 Sunday, August 8, 2004 We got up this morning at 7:00AM, ate breakfast at 8:00AM, played cards until 9:30AM, and then went into a special prayer time before service. It's awesome to listen to how deeply and passionately they pray. Then, at 10:00AM, the service started. Tito taught and his sons played worship. It was neat. After service was over, we had some time to kill, so we played Hide-and-Seek inside the church. It was an interesting game because there weren't really any good places to hide since the church was made of concrete, but it was still fun. After everyone had gathered together again, we left and went shopping at a little flea market. which is sort of like an indoor swap-meet. So we looked around for a while, then left to go back to the church to attend a night service at 4:30PM. The worship here is really awesome. Mark Jones got to lead the actual sermon and he talked about "La Luz" or the Light. It was an interesting sermon. Then, after everyone had left the church, we all ate dinner, played some games into the late hours and  finally went to bed. D A Y 4   D A Y 4   D A Y 4   D A Y 4   D A Y 4   D A Y 4   D A Y 4   D A Y 4   D A Y 4 Monday, August 9, 2004 We got up today at 7:00AM, ate breakfast at 8:00AM, and then waited for our building materials to arrive. Once it got to the church, each group of people was responsible for a different part of the wall. Some had the back wall, others the front wall, and still others the side walls. Our original plan was to have the house all built and put up by the end of the day, but things were going much slower, and we barely got the building itself built today. After we ate lunch, we took an hour break from working all day on the walls and went down to the local soccer field across from the church and played soccer with some of the Peruvian kids. Once we were done, we came back to the church and found that we had finally had hot water! WOO HOO!! So we all grabbed our showering items and raced to the showers. The guys' hot water died before the girls, so the guys ended up using the girls showers to take theirs after all of the girls were done and out of there. After we were all done, we went back and finished building the wall. We finished the walls, ate dinner, played some games and then went to bed. D A Y 5   D A Y 5   D A Y 5   D A Y 5   D A Y 5   D A Y 5 Tuesday, August 10, 2004 We were woken up this morning by a good sized earthquake, and everything was a little shaken, but nothing serious. We got up at around 7AM and then had Peruvian Flat Cakes for breakfast. After breakfast, we carried the walls we had built uphill several blocks to the lot we would be constructing the house on. After we put up our first house, we went back to the church to start construction on our second house. While we were building houses, there was an opportunity to go street evangelizing, and a group of 12 went out on the first and only trip. Due to time, the whole team did not get to go, but the rest stayed back to continue working on the houses. Around noon the groups all met together once again at the church to have a great lunch of hamburgers and mac-and-cheese. A couple of people played catch after lunch until the group left to go teach English at one of the schools. After we were done with our English lessons at the university, we went back to Culto.com to hold our second part of the English lesson, which was much more personal in a one-on-one environment. After our lessons, we raced back to the church, got prepared for the night activities, and then help puppet and mime performances in the church upstairs. After our performances, we had a cool activity with stickers and drawing with the kids. Once they all left the church, we sang some songs and then went to bed. D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6   D A Y 6 Wednesday, August 11, 2004 Today we got up around 7AM, ate at 8AM, and then finished building the second house. We took the pieces once again uphill and set them all in place. After the house was assembled, we all left to go get ready for our next event. We left to go to a kindergarten school to perform and make some balloon animals. After we were all done, we left and went back to the church where we had a yummy beef soup for lunch that really hit the spot! After lunch, the girls were in charge of doing the dishes while the guys were in charge of carrying heavy wheelbarrows full of unmixed concrete and rocks uphill to our houses that we were building so a foundation could be made. After we killed ourselves with hard work, we came back, washed up, and left to go to the university to teach again. Then we went to Culto.com for our second English lesson and had a lot of fun there. After that we held a small-group prayer time until around 9:30PM, and by 10:00PM we went to a soccer field  to play (Americans vs. Culto.com). We got creamed! We played until about 1AM or so, then we went back to the church and went to bed. D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7   D A Y 7 Thursday, August 12, 2004 We got up around 7AM, ate at 8AM, and then got ready to perform by 9:30AM at another school. The group split up, some traveling there on foot and the rest in vans. The ones traveling on foot got lost, but eventually the van found them and picked them all up and took them to the school just in the nick of time. After we performed and made balloon animals, we went back to the church and ate lunch. The leaders left to go to Tito and Patty's house to have a special meal made by Patty. Eventually the rest of the group met up at Tito's house, and then, together as a group, we all left and went shopping in the town. It was a lot of fun seeing all of the different things for sale there. We finally finished shopping lat and went to the church to hold the biggest performance yet. We performed all of our puppet skits and all of our drama skits in one night for over 100 people! Then we had cake and bread for dinner and went to bed. D A Y 8   D A Y 8   D A Y 8   D A Y 8   D A Y 8   D A Y 8   D A Y 8 Friday, August 13, 2004 We got up around 7AM, ate by 7:30AM, and then were all ready to perform by 8AM. Then we left at 8:30AM to go to another city to perform at a retirement home. After a crazy taxi ride, we made it there safe and sound, unloaded, and started our show by 9:20AM. We had to do everything fast because the people there didn't have a lot of energy to watch us all. So by 10:20AM, we were all done and packing up once again. We fed them some OJ and bread and then left to go back to the church to eat another yummy meal of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Shortly after we left to go to an orphanage to perform. This place had the biggest impact on most of the team that went because it was just heart breaking to see so many kids there.  We had a good performance though and lead some activities with the kids. Then we left to head off to Culto.com. Once we got to there, we got ready for our "Unplugged" worship night. It was really neat to see how even though there was a language barrier between us, when our group got on stage to sing in English, they were trying their best to sing right along. They might not have known how to pronounce the words correctly, but they knew what it meant in their hearts. After our worship set, we left and went to a pizza shop in the town . After we finished eating, we went back to the church and went to bed. D A Y 9   D A Y 9   D A Y 9   D A Y 9   D A Y 9   D A Y 9   D A Y 9   D A Y 9 Saturday, August 14, 2004 We got up around 7AM, ate breakfast at 8AM, and then prepared for the last performance time. There was a big fiesta at the church at 10AM for the kids, or as Mike D. would say... "Fiesta Para Los Niños!" We blew up balloons, prepared games, had some activities, and then handed out candy. After the kids left the church, we had a late lunch around 1:30PM, which was Peruvian Chow Mien with rice instead of noodles. It was good, and there was a lot of it. Then the team got ready for their last outside performance and went out of Cuidad Nueva into a cold and windy soccer field in the middle of a city called Cono Sur. It was a great way and place to end the last performances. Nick got attacked by the kids in his El Diablo role, which made everyone laugh, except him. So we finished up, loaded up the van, and left to Culto.com for one last meeting. After we were all done, we walked to the market where we did some last day shopping. We all walked down to a cathedral and the Arch, which was the most beautiful part of the trip to some. The we left there, walked alongside a parade, and went to a hamburger joint to eat dinner. Then we all met back up, took some pictures, and the went to Tito's house to head back to the church. When we got to the church, we packed up, and then went to bed. D A Y 10   D A Y 10   D A Y 10   D A Y 10   D A Y 10   D A Y 10   D A Y 10   Sunday, August 15, 2004 Today we got up at 7AM, ate breakfast at 8AM, did dishes, cleaned the rooms and bathrooms, and then went upstairs for the Sunday service. This service was devoted to us missionaries and was an awesome service. There was music, dramas and a small sermon. After it was over, we loaded up Tito's van, said our goodbyes, and went to Super Chicken to finish off our trip. Then we got into taxis and left for the international bus terminal, where we loaded up a bus and left for the border. We finally crossed the borders into Chile with no issues around 6PM. We went to a hotel where we would spend our last night in Arica, found our rooms, put our stuff away, and then all met in the hotel restaurant for dinner. This restaurant was on the lower level right on the beach, which made it really cool. While we ate, we played a game of "I Remember..." about things of our memories on the trip. When we finished eating, we went back to our rooms and went to bed. D A Y 11   D A Y 11   D A Y 11   D A Y 11   D A Y 11   D A Y 11   D A Y 11 Monday, August 16, 2004 It was really nice to have warm showers and a comfortable bed to use last night. Most everybody got up at a different time and went outside to do the last devotional in our missions packet. It was nice to just sit on the beach and finish up the last lesson. After that, we all met upstairs in the Hotel lobby where we had breakfast together, talked a little, and then went back to our rooms to pack again. Once we were all packed, we had some time to kill, so we went into the local town and did some shopping. After shopping, we all met at a McDonald's to eat lunch before catching a bus back to the hotel. When we got back, we checked out, loaded up another bus, and headed for the airport. We arrived a the airport around 1:30PM and went through a crazy baggage check that almost made us late! We ended up leaving Arica, headed for Santiago around 3PM. We landed in Iquique at 3:30PM to refuel and reload passengers. We took off again around 4:05PM and landed in Santiago at 5:48PM, ahead of schedule. We had about a 3 hour lay-over there, so we all went to Dunkin Donuts and ate some food, then played cards for a while. Soon the time came to leave, and we had to say goodbye to Mark and Ricardo. We all got through the like 10 bag checks and then finally made it to the plane just before take off again. We took off from Santiago at 9:25PM and flew overnight into Lima. D A Y 12   D A Y 12   D A Y 12   D A Y 12   D A Y 12   D A Y 12   D A Y 12   D A Y 12   D A Y 12 Tuesday, August 17, 2004 We are all getting tired of plane rides now. We flew overnight into Lima and ended-up landing at 1AM where there was literally 0% visibility. Almost everyone got off the plane except for us because it was an hour and a half lay-over for refueling. Security got tight and checked our bags and passports in the plane while we waited. Finally, we reloaded and took off from Lima around 2:15AM. We all watched as we left South America and headed home. Everyone slept almost the whole flight to LAX except for the last hour or so. We landed at 10:25AM (or 7:25AM our time, PST). We met our bus at 7:30AM, PST, and then were back in the church parking lot by 8:20AM. And that was our trip to Tacna Peru. D A Y 13