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AMOR Project Challenges &
Rewards
By Corrie Sample
October 27 & 28 I went in the amphibian
plane to the village of Miraflores to hold a baptism.
And while I was the only person in the back seat,
I was still a bit crowded, as you can tell :)
Miraflores is on the
Ukayali river, so we landed on the river and taxied
to the shore upon arrival.
It was awesome coming down over the boats on the
water and then taxiing on the water for several minutes
until we reached the village.
Mali, the pilot’s wife, led out in
part of the Sabbath service.
We stayed in Miraflores Friday night and held
church on Sabbath.
The baptism was in the afternoon.
Friday night we also held a meeting to welcome
the Sabbath. But
before that meeting started, we were invited to the home
of one of the Adventist families to drink “chicha” a
corn drink that they like best when fermented a bit.
I can’t say that I particularly enjoyed my share,
but I drank it all down.
It has a very interesting savor, partly due to
the fact that during the making of it, they chew the
corn until well mixed with saliva then spit it out.
To this mixture they add water.
Yum yum!
Manuel made a call for all wishing to
be baptized to come forward.
Mostly young people (8-10yrs old) answered the
call, though there were some adults as well.
The old grandmother standing next to the man in
the yellow shirt was a precious old woman that really
latched on to me.
She had walked a very long way to be present so she
could be baptized.
Her husband had been baptized a few months prior
and now she was ready to join him.
I don’t think she had ever seen a white person
before because she kept on exclaiming about my white
skin and how happy she was to see me.
She was so cute :)
Also, before she let Beto
baptize her, as she was standing in the water, she
prayed asking God to forgive her and to accept her into
His family. It
was very heart-touching.
Manuel leads out in the song service at
the
And this shows what Peru Projects is all about. Reaching out to people through the air and launch programs in order to bring them into the fold of God. That Sabbath about 15 were baptized in two different villages. These baptisms were the result of the labor of missionaries who are trained and supported by Peru Projects Inc. And they are doing a wonderful work! Praise God! The
week of Nov. 12-18 I went
This
is Melanie and Jenny.
Melanie was the other girl only here for the
week. Jenny, on
the other hand, is the main director of AMOR Projects.
She and Dr. Matthews work together as the program
directors. She is
very sweet and fun, and has a wealth of knowledge in the
area of tropical medicine.
And this is my tower :) I climbed it three times in the course of the week. I climbed it the first time at night, which was incredible. The land is flat, so going to the top of this tower was the closest I could come to climbing a mountain. I only went up because Jenny asked if I would go up and see if there was cell coverage from the top. She didn’t think I would take her up on it, but she hadn’t gotten to know me too well yet :) Her question to me was “If I gave you my cell phone would you climb the tower and see if there is coverage?” My immediate response was “of course!” Which surprised her. “Really!? Are you sure? You will really climb that thing?!” “Sure!” I only needed one excuse :) And the stars were spectacular from up there :) Then I climbed it again on Friday evening right before sundown with another girl by the name of Melissa.
Then I climbed it again Sabbath morning so I
could have my devotions up with the birds.
Also I wanted to count the ladder rungs to get an idea
of how tall it was.
There were 126 ladder rungs with about 18 inches between each
one. Making a total
of 190 feet to the top.
What a thriller :)
Sabbath morning was really foggy s o the
view couldn’t be seen, but it really was quite pretty
from up there.
The tower itself had a lot of bird poo covering it, but
that wasn’t hard to ignore.
Though it did stink :)
It was such fun to be able
to do something here that is illegal in the U.S.
My brother was quite jealous of me! :)
This is Melissa.
She and Jenny were the main nurses assisting Dr.
Mathews. But they
let me do the shots :)
Here she is working on
filling the prescription written by the doctor from our
makeshift pharmacy.
It was actually quite a nice setup since we were
in a library and were able to put all our meds on
shelves. This was
my area of expertise since I was assigned to work in the
pharmacy for 5 of the 6 days we held clinic.
But I’m not complaining.
I got to practice my Spanish on a ton of poor
people :)
It was my job to give the
correct meds and explain how to take them to the
patient. Melissa
was in there quite a bit too, and we had a lot of fun
:)
She was the only other girl
to climb the tower.
This is me and Ansley, one of the other
student missionaries.
She is a nursing student at Southern University
and is here getting some valuable experience.
We had some fun times :)
Siesta time! :)
After a long hard morning
seeing more than 80 patients, we had a few minutes of
rest after lunch before clinic opened again in the
afternoon. We
usually saw about 150 people daily.
On Wednesday, I got to go out with Manuel
and some of the SMs on a mobile dental clinic.
We took off in the morning in two motokaros for a
village about 20 minutes away.
This particular spot in the road was no problem
on the way to the village, but on the way back there was
a whole big pile of dirt piled on the end of the road
right behind where the moto is in this picture.
The reason we had problems on the way
back was not just because of an extra tall mound of
dirt. It was also
because it poured on us for about an hour right before
we got there. So
it was no longer just a mound of red dirt, but now it
was a mound of red mud that stuck to whatever got into
it. The other SMs,
going from left to right, are Ansley, Karen, and Alex.
We all sat in our motos and waited for 30 minutes
for the rain to stop.
Manuel & I were in the other moto, that
happened to be in front.
So when the rain stopped, we got out and
pushed. There
wasn’t enough man power present, so a little bit of
woman power was added to cover the deficit. :)
It was really quite a
blast!
I think Manuel was having way too much fun! :) It just goes to show that even the obstacles that come can be turned into a fun memory when everyone keeps a positive attitude. :) We all had fun and nobody complained about having to get dirty and muddy, in fact, the dirtier the better!
Masisea was about a 20 minute drive from
the river, so the town leaders had to find some way to
transport us and our meds to the river so we could
leave.
The only thing big enough was the dump truck :) My guess is that it was the same one that dumped the load of dirt in the middle of the road that got us muddy on Wednesday. The reason I think this is that the bottom of the truck was very muddy too. But we just piled all the personal bags and backpacks on top of the black plastic crates that had the meds in them.
I had fun challenging myself by standing
in the middle of the truck and not holding on to
anything. Keeping
my balance on the bumpy road was difficult, to say the
least :)
But I didn’t fall.
But my legs were sore the next day from standing
with legs bent to absorb the shock of the bumps.
This is the church construction site at Once de Agosto, the village right across the water from the base. To date, all they need to do is put the doors in and they will be finished :)
It's been fun to watch this church being built. I was able to help put up the first wall, and now it is almost completely finished.
We had a very interesting church service
here just this last Sabbath (Nov. 25).
An old drunk man attended the morning service and
took a liking to me.
He kept telling me that he knew my family and had
known me since I was a little girl :)
However, I had to sit up
front in order to get away from him ‘cause he kept
getting closer and closer.
It was quite humorous actually. :)
But sad too.
The control that Satan has over so many people
using alcohol is so strong.
Chapels
like this one are popping up in many different villages
all along the Amazon and Ucuyali rivers.
Praise God!
His work is going forward as the Holy Spirit
moves upon His people everywhere to share what they know
about Him. :)
~ Corrie ~
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