Methodist ministry in Chincha, Peru

I'm in Peru this week, working with the Iglesia Metodista here in the area of Chincha (about three hours south of Lima on the Pacific coast). I feel like Peru is a second home to me - this is my seventh trip since 2001, and every time I leave here I leave a little more of my heart behind.

My last visit here was in May 2008. If you want to read a little about that, check out my posts on "A Respite in Lima" and "Chincha, Peru." While a lot of the trip last year was focused around the effects of Peru's devastating 2007 earthquake, this year's trip is much more about helping the church here to move forward in its ministry of outreach, evangelism, and formation in the area of Tambo de Mora - a coastal community about 15 minutes from downtown Chincha Alta.

I'll share more about my trip when I return at the end of this week. Until then, if you'd like to know more about the ministry of the Methodist Church in this area, see the blog of my friend, Pastor Pedro Uchuya, at this website. Pedro is the district superintendent for the Distrito Costa Sur, and you can find his district's homepage here. You can find out more about the Iglesia Metodista del Peru at the national church's homepage.

Chincha, Peru: What we did, where we went, and why we did it

Happy Pentecost!

As I prepare to receive the mission team from Hendrix College this evening, I wanted to share some more information about the activities of the team that flew back to the U.S. late last week. The team consisted of a diverse collection of folks from quite a number of different locations. The people included:

-- Andrew and Emily Thompson, Lynn Cross, Nathan Kilbourne, and Emily Dueitt (from Duke Divinity School)

-- Stephanie and Joe Dunn (from Candler School of Theology)

-- Danny Redding-Rhodes, Jessica Bridges, and Angela Flanagan (from Vanderbilt Divinity School)

-- Rev. Dee Harper (associate pastor at FUMC Searcy, AR)

-- Rev. Cody Schuler (pastor of Edgewood UMC in Fargo, ND)

-- Rev. David Hollis (pastor of the Lee Circuit three-point charge near Opelika, AL)

Of those 13 people, 7 of us had been to Peru at least one time before. And all of us have experienced a call by God to engage in mission work. For me personally, I never see the signs of the oneness of God's people so much as when I am in ministry with my brothers and sisters in the Iglesia Metodista del Peru.

Let me breakdown the itinerary we kept over the course of our 8 days together ... Thursday, May 1, was our travel day, and it was a long one. We arrived at the Nashville airport at 4 a.m., and after spending most of a long day waiting in the Miami International Airport, we hopped on board our international flight to Lima around 4:30 p.m. After landing and clearing customs, we met up with Pastor Pedro Uchuya, the district superintendent of the Distrito Costa Sur (or South Coast District). We traveled with him from Lima to Chincha, and we finally fell into bed around 2:00 a.m. (making it about 22 hours worth of travel in all!).

On Friday, May 2, Pedro took us on a tour of some sites around Chincha. Our contributions to the church's mission in Chincha this year (what we often call, 'project money') were put toward the construction of the district superintendent's office in downtown Chincha. Pedro sees connectionalism as a real key to the strengthening of the Methodist Church in his district, and the physical presence of the D.S.'s office, as well as the various ministries that will be coordinated from it, is an important step in making connectional identity a reality. As he explained it to me, the office of the D.S. will be the central point for the various churches around Chincha, so that they can all be better related to one another. We also visited the Templo Central, or the main church in Chincha, which is right around the corner from the D.S.'s office. This is the church where I have stayed, prayed, worshipped, and played over the past several years. A water issue kept us from staying there this year, but it still served as a central meeting point where we could engage in conversation and worship together.

The next day was Saturday, May 3, and we took a large part of the day to go out to Tambo de Mora, an outlying community about 20 minutes from Chincha Alta. This was a hard-hit area during the August 2007 earthquake, and signs of the devastation are still common. Tambo de Mora is also the site of one of the most exciting mission projects that the Methodist Church in Peru is working on right now. They call it the campamento, and it is a combination of church, community center, and retreat camp. I am going to give the campamento a blog post all its own, so I won't go into much detail here. But this is the place that is closest to my heart, and I have worked on its construction over the past 8 years. Tambo de Mora is a very poor community, but it is clear that the community also sees the work of the Methodist Church there as a great sign of hope. It was good to introduce our team to it, as well as to many of the people who live in that area and participate in the church's ministries.

On Saturday night, Pedro took us to one of the iglesias libres, the free churches, which tend to be much more charismatic than their Methodist cousins. Sometimes we hear about the growth of Pentecostal churches in Latin America as a sign of the work of the Holy Spirit, but as Pedro would be the first to tell you, it's not all good. These churches often reduce Christian discipleship to the religious experience of charismatic worship, and I myself heard the revival speaker say, "The gospel is not social, it is spiritual" (as if there can be a real separation of the two). It didn't take long to realize why Pedro had taken us to the service. He wanted us to see a little bit of what the Methodists in Peru are struggling with. Apparently, Protestants of other traditions are often attracted to the emotional worship of the charismatic churches and drift away from their own communities to become a part of one of the free churches. This is clearly frustrating to Pedro, who pointed out to me more than once the theological problems of the charismatic tradition.

Sunday, May 4, was a day for worship, and we had a great experience at the Methodist Church of Pueblo Nuevo (a suburb attached to Chincha). I got to teach a Sunday school class there, and other members of our group went to various classes for worship and study. We also visited another Methodist Church in Pueblo Nuevo called Micaela Bastidas, which is one of the main sites for the Methodist Church's Ministerio de Alimentacion, or Children's feeding ministry. This program has been going on for several years and receives monthly assistance from Dee Harper's church in Searcy, Arkansas. After a wonderful lunch at a local restaurant El Colque, we worshipped in the evening at the main church in Chincha Alta, where Danny Redding-Rhodes and Cody Schuler tag-teamed the sermon and I assisted Pedro in celebrating Holy Communion.

On Monday, May 5, we spent most of the day in conversation with Pedro at his home in Pueblo Nuevo. This was an important day, as it allowed us to take the raw experiences of the previous few days and refine them through conversation and interaction with Pedro. He told the story of the project in Tambo de Mora, talked about his hopes for a stronger connection between the churches of his district, and talked some about the theological conflicts with the charismatic churches. We also met Dr. John Deaver this day, who has committed to living half the year in Chincha in order to begin a health ministry aimed at preventative health and the care of mothers and children. That evening, we were back at the main church in Chincha Alta, where I led a bible study (in Spanish!).

The next day was Tuesday, May 6, and we toured the Escuela de John Wesley, which is connected to the church in Pueblo Nuevo. Through our connections to both the church and the school, I started getting to know a young local pastor named Obed, who both leads worship at the church and teaches at the school. The status of the school, and its relation to the Methodist Church, are both a little up in the air right now. But regardless, it is doing a great ministry with children (and as I was told, is also the only school named after John Wesley in all of Peru). We also worked at the office of the D.S. on this day, unloading a truck of bricks that will go to build the office's second floor. After sharing some educational resources we brought with Pedro (such as Sunday school curricula, VBS stuff, and Upper Rooms), we ended up back at the main church in Chincha Alta for a bible study (which I taught, again, in Spanish).

Wednesday, May 7, was our last full day in Chincha. After breakfast we had a meeting with Lucho Ruiz, who came down from Lima to tell us about Voluntarios en Accion, the organization he heads out of the bishop's office which seems to be like a combination of Volunteers in Mission and UMCOR in the American church. We later went back out to the campamento in Tambo de Mora, where uber-artist Danny Redding-Rhodes led a painting project to re-paint the emblem of the Methodist Church on the front gate of the campamento. We also had more time for playing with the children there, and Pedro and I were able to give the team a more extensive tour of the facilities and their intended use.

I took the group back up to Lima on Thursday, May 8, from where they flew back to the United States.

The trip as a whole was interesting to me, in that it pushed my conception of what a mission trip is all about. I am a firm believer that short-term missionaries need to allow their expectations of a mission trip to be conformed to the needs and desires of their hosts. I had mentioned to Pedro that I was bringing a group of people who wanted to learn more about the churches in Chincha, with the hopes of bringing their own groups someday. Pedro took that ball and ran with it, and he basically constructed our trip around the themes of experience, education, relationship-building, and worship. As we traveled around from church to church under Pedro's care, we were joining with him in strengthening the ties between his churches as well as the ties between the Peruvian and American Methodist Churches. And at the same time, all the members of our team were soaking in the basics of short term missions. As a way to aid this process, Danny Redding-Rhodes and I set aside conversation time where we talked to the group about mission logistics and the way that the theology of mission is embedded in how you go about preparing for the trip itself.

We did little manual labor on this trip, but in many ways, what we did do was much more important. With the members of this team, seeds have been planted and watered. The great possibility now is that 13 people will return with 13 different groups in the future, thereby expanding the work in Chincha and the relationships between Methodists of Peru and the U.S.A.

That's a heck of a lot to read, but if you are still with me, thanks! And if you would like to know more about the mission in Peru - including how you can be personally involved - drop me an e-mail.

God bless +

Chillin' in Chincha

We've been in Chincha since late Thursday night ... Hard to write a lot because of the Spanish-language keyboard and the crowded conditions in the Internet cafe. This has been a wonderful trip, different in some significant ways than trips I have taken to Peru in the past. Because of the large number of seminary students and young pastors on this trip, we have been focusing heavily on forming relationships with local churches and communicating the story of the Methodist churches of this area to the group. This is all in the hopes that some of the folks will want to lead groups themselves in future years.

Pastor Pedro continues to amaze me with his energy, his leadership, and his love for Jesus. They have been working through some difficult times here lately, due to theological differences with the iglesias libres, the free churches, which tend toward an over-spiritualized gospel and a tendency toward 'prosperity preaching'. Pedro has been sharing a lot of this with me and with the group as a whole, and in some strange ways, it is nice to see a church struggling bravely with divisions that are truly theological in nature (not that our church's struggle over moral issues is not rooted in theology, but our debates over them rarely reach the level of theology from which they spring). As the district superintendent for the Chincha District, it is Pedro's task to help the church through its current struggles and grow it stronger.

As always, the church's ministry with children is among the most awe-inspiring example of God's work that I have seen. In a few days, I'll have some free time in Lima and will try to write more then. For those of you out there who have been to Peru with me before, you would be interested to see a lot of what is happening here.

Your continued prayers for this mission are appreciated!

Worlds enough and time

Well, the last 24 hours of my life have been crazy. I'm in Nashville, ready to fly to Lima, Peru, very, very early tomorrow morning with a mission team I'm leading to work with a community in Chincha Alta. This is the same community I've visited several times before, and it is led by Pastor Pedro Uchuya, who is a friend, Christian brother, and spiritual hero to me.

The last day of my life has been spent grading final exams, packing, praying, and generally not getting a lot of sleep. I had planned to do one big General Conference-related post, and the time just caught up with me.

So all that's to say, I'll just have to do a GC breakdown when I get back!

There has been a WHOLE lot of interesting stuff come out of Ft. Worth over the past couple of days. If you have any thoughts and want to share them in the comments section, please feel free. I did get an e-mail tonight from Carol Bruse of the Texas Conference about the passage of the candidacy petitions. That's exciting news. If anyone at GC wants to comment on that or any other matter, I'll be checking the Internet from time to time in Peru and would love to hear some info!

Otherwise, I will be back from the mission on May 21 and will start posting again regularly - about Peru, GC, and otherwise - at that time. I would also appreciate your prayers for this trip. My experience with Peru over the past few years has shown me the depth and fullness of God's grace at work in this world. The church is a wonderful place to give your life. And friends, we've got all the time in the world for this stuff.

Peace to all +

Palabras de solidaridad

Readers of this blog will note that I have posted several times about the devastating earthquake suffered by Peru back in August. I've done that because of a personal connection I have with the Iglesia Metodista del Peru - the Methodist Church of Peru. In five mission trips to Chincha, Peru, since 2001, I have gained many Peruvian friends as well as a broader perspective on what it means to be a global church.

In my most recent column in the United Methodist Reporter, I share some news about the recovery efforts ongoing in Peru. I've also included some statements that call for us to reach out to our brothers and sisters there who are hurting. I have included information in the article about how it is possible to help out.

One of those friends I've made while in Peru is a fellow brother in ministry, Pastor Pedro Uchuya. In addition to working full-time as an educator, Pedro is also a district superintendent as well as a local church pastor. He is amazing. Soon after power was restored in his hometown of Chincha, Pedro sent an e-mail to many of his friends up here in the U.S. In it, he wrote, "Muchas gracias hermanas y hermanos por sus palabras de solidaridad ... El Espiritu se mueve llevando bienestar y alegria. Grande es Dios!"

Roughly translated, that means, "Thank you very much, sisters and brothers, for your words of solidarity ... The Spirit is moving, bringing us well-being and happiness. God is good!"

I have always looked at Pastor Pedro and his congregation as a real model of faithfulness for my own life. Pedro's response to the devastation in Peru is a further testament to that deep and abiding faith that he possesses. He and his people care for one another, they love Jesus Christ, and they reach out to the poor with hands of compassion and generosity. And what more does the Lord require than this?

Update from Peru

Pastor Pedro Uchuya sent me a couple of e-mails over the weekend. He is upbeat and grateful for the prayers and aid that has been sent to the churches in Peru. He also passed along this website, which is the homepage of his district, the Distrito Costa Sur.

Pedro has successfully received direct aid transfers, which means that money can successfully be wired to him via Western Union. And of course, UMCOR is also working to get aid to the church in Peru through the bishop's offices in Lima.

I posted at more length about earthquake relief efforts here. Please remember our brothers and sisters there in your prayers, and consider contributing to the relief efforts in a tangible way. The overall cleanup and reconstruction process will take a long time, but there is also acute need right now in terms of just getting food and water to the citizens of Chincha, Pisco, and Ica.

Peru Earthquake Relief

The earthquake that struck the coast of Peru on Wednesday, August 15, actually hit the towns that I have visited over the course of several mission trips since 2001. Though the epicenter was a little ways out into the Pacific Ocean, the cities of Ica, Pisco, and Chincha were all severely affected.

My main connection is with the Rev. Pedro Uchuya and the Methodist churches around Chincha. These churches are truly Wesleyan in spirit, believing in personal and social holiness, as well as deeply committed to ministry with the poor and with children. The quakes killed over 500 Peruvians; fortunately, none of the congregation were among the victims. But both chuches and homes have been seriously damaged. I spoke with Pedro on the phone a couple of nights ago, and he said the biggest challenge right now is just getting safe drinking water to everyone. Because water and sewer lines were disrupted by the quake, there is no potable water available.

It's a sign of the times that this disaster is already off the radar screen of the major news organizations. The latest English-language articles I've seen are these two from Monday - one from the BBC and one from CNN - detailing relief and rescue efforts, as well as this one from Fox News on Tuesday telling about the disruption to the region's important fishing industry.

UMCOR - the United Methodist Committee on Relief - is gearing up to bring relief supplies to the affected areas. If you'd like to make a tax-deductible donation to the Peru relief efforts, click on this link. It gives you the "Advance number" that you'll need to designate your gift for Peru.

In the past few days, I have also been helping to connect people who have been on missions to Peru directly to Pastor Pedro. It is possible to send monetary aid directly to him via a Western Union wire transfer. He is using that money to obtain food and water for the Methodist congregations, as well as any other people he is able to help. If you are interested in sending aid directly to Pastor Pedro, send me an e-mail. These donations are not tax deductible of course, but they have the advantage of being put to immediate use in relieving the suffering that is ongoing.

Eventually, our brothers and sisters down there are going to need serious help in rebuilding homes, churches, and schools. Sending aid down to them will help in that, and in the coming months I have no doubt that there will be ample mission opportunities.

Blogging from Peru

Since the summer of 2001, I have been fortunate enough to travel to Chincha, Peru, on five different occasions. The Iglesia Metodista del Peru is active there, doing the kind of ministry that would make John Wesley himself proud. They are supporting poor and hungry children, and taking the glad tidings of salvation to people in deep need.

I have a friend there, a Methodist pastor named Pedro Uchuya-Torres. Pedro is a model of faithfulness to me. Besides working full-time in a school, he has pastored a local church, coordinated city-wide ministries among various Methodist churches, and served as a district superintendent - all at the same time.

Pedro wrote me recently to say that he had been moved from Chincha to Ica, which is a larger city nearby. He'll maintain his residence in Chincha, where he will continue to serve as teacher and administrator at his school. And he will no doubt keep making his over-sized contribution to the kingdom of God.

Pedro also wrote to say that he has started a blog! Check it out here. And drop him a line when you get a chance, to let him know that his brothers and sisters in los Estados Unidos are praying for him and his ministry.