We all knew that this would be a pretty emotional day. It was our last day in Chosica, the last day we would be able to work in the orphanage and speak in the churches that night. I think we were all pretty tired by this point, but if anything that only made us more determined and more reliant on the Spirit to propel us forward.
At the orphanage, the men set to work on a few last minute tasks. Some of the footers needed cleaning up and maybe a few more inches of dirt taken out. The footer with the huge rock was eventually given up, and the construction guy who was hired on to coordinate the whole thing said that they could probably just use that as part of the foundation. After the three holes were finished, they decided it was time to take the roof off. That sounds pretty daunting if you are thinking in terms of American buildings, but taking the roof of in Peru involves using two-by-fours to bang the thin pieces of tin and plastic loose from the nails that were holding them in. It took a grand total of probably 20 minutes or so. Once that was off, the construction guy and Jaime, one of our Peruvian guides throughout the week, took to cutting the brick on the wall. A few of the team members jumped in and gave them a hand, but I don't trust myself with a high powered electric brick cutter (the only power tool we saw all week. Oh, there was one other task that we were assigned: bending rebar. In the States, I'm pretty sure this is an automated task that goes pretty quickly. Not so in Peru. Instead, they had a board with a groove to put the rebar in, a mark where to make the first bend, and then two nails in the board to guide where to make the next bends. The construction guy showed us how it was done. He placed what looked like a piece of PVC pipe or something over part of the rebar and then simply He-manned the thing into submission. He had his piece done in probably 10 seconds. Some of the guys tried and did pretty well. Alex was a machine and got to where he was almost as good as the Peruvians.
As they cut brick and bent rebar, we still had to deal with the enormous piles of dirt that we had created throughout the week from digging our footers. At the beginning of the week, we had a grand total of two wheelbarrows. Over the next two days, both of the wheelbarrows broke. One of them had been fixed, thankfully, but by the time it was ready, most of the dirt was already out and had piled up pretty high. We didn't want to overload the wheelbarrow either, seeing as it was only recently repaired. We started out pretty slowly, walking small loads through the building, down the courtyard, up the hill, and down the street to where we dumped the dirt. It was a long and arduous process. We had a three man shift of me, Bob, and Jim for a while. Then Lucho saw us and decided to give it a try. We load the wheelbarrow up for him, and as soon as he is ready to go, he picks the handles and starts running. And I don't mean like a pansy jog or wog (walk/jog, also known as the fat-man run), I mean an actual run. He is back in probably half the time that we went. And he doesn't rotate out! He goes again! When he comes back again, he has some rope in his hand and motions for one of us to come with him. As it turns out, he had the brilliant idea of taking the wheelbarrow to the bottom of the hill, looping a rope around a place in front of the wheel, and then have one person sprint up the hill pulling the wheelbarrow and one person sprint up the hill pushing it. He did this four times before he decided it was time to take a break. We all got in the groove of it and really started making a dent in it. We left one medium sized pile by the time it was all done. All I can say is that Lucho is the man!
That afternoon back at the compound, after a nap we decided we needed to play one last soccer game. When we got out there to play, it ended up being the USA versus Peru, with Bob, Stephen, Mark, and I representing the Americans and Lucho, Jaime, and Emanuel representing the Peruvians. Now if you counted, you see that is four on three, and you are correct. We had a goalkeeper and they had none. We played for about an hour, and for about 50 minutes the Americans were ahead, making our parents proud. But in the last 10 minutes or so, the Peruvians turned on the heat. They made us look like the out of shape awful athletes that we were. They beat us. Embarrassing. I need to start practicing now for a rematch.
That evening we headed back to the same two churches that we went to the night before. The service didn't begin that evening until we arrived. We sang as we had done the past few nights. Stephen and I preached on confidence in prayer out of Luke 11:11-13. After our time preaching though, we spend some dedicated time in prayer. Two of our team members, Caroline and Tara, had gotten sick earlier in the day and were not able to come to the churches since they were feeling so badly. Basilio asked the pastor if he would lead a prayer for them. It was a really powerful prayer for healing and blessing on their bodies. After that first time of prayer, Basilio asked if anyone in the congregation who wanted to be prayed over would come down front and allow us to pray over them. After a few seconds and no one moving, the pastor told the congregation not to be ashamed, but be confident in our need. A few people began moving forward, then a few more, then a few more. Before we knew it, the entire congregation was standing at the front of the church. Our team gathered around them and prayed over them. Lucho and his friend Miguel led the prayer. I understood very little of it, but what I did understand was beautiful. It was a great picture of the church lifting one another up in prayer, gathered around as one body, with no regard to language, ethnic, cultural, or national barriers. After we prayed over them, we swapped. Our team stood at the front and we all said our names while the congregation repeated them. The pastor even gave them a test, holding his hand over one of our heads and asking the congregation who it was he was pointing to. They vowed to pray for us after we left. Jackie finished the service by giving out more of the pills for the intestinal parasites, as she had done two nights earlier.
We were so blessed by the church. They taught us through their actions and words just as much if not more than what we were able to preach on throughout the week. I pray that the pastor and congregation will continue to be faithful to the gospel of Christ as they minister in their context and throughout all of Peru and to the nations.
Thus ended out time in Chosica. We headed strait to bed and packed up for the trip to Lima the next morning.
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