Three days and counting

Jesus Huarachi has been amazing. He's the Clerk of the National Friends Church of Peru, and he has put together quite a full, and varied, itinerary for us while we're in Bolivia as well as Peru. He's found Friends to meet us at the airport in Sucre, and to get us back there for our return to La Paz. He's traveling to La Paz (he lives Arequipa, Peru, almost 400 miles 'as the crow flies')to meet us personally. I am taking some documents to Jesus that he needs to apply for a visa to come to the FWCC Annual Meeting in March near Baltimore, MD. If he gets his visa, my hope is that we can extend a similar welcome to him. His 'ministry of hospitality' has calmed any fears or questions about what we'll be doing or where we'll be laying our heads to rest each night.

I've never been to Bolivia or Peru

It’s a given that whenever I travel to visit Quakers (Friends, with the capital ‘F’) I’ll probably have to write a report about it. Only a few folks actually read what, at the time, seemed pretty interesting and relevant to me. So it seemed to make sense this time to try to do that in a more practical way….and thus this bit of blog writing.

While many of you will be counting down the minutes to midnight on December 31st, FWCC General Secretary Nancy Irving and I will be flying in the darkness almost due south of the East coast of the US to La Paz, Bolivia. A few hours after we land, early on the 1st January 2010, we’ll be on another flight to Sucre, which, at 9000 feet, is about 4000 feet lower than La Paz airport (really in El Alto) and makes for a good place to acclimate to the altitude before we head back up to La Paz and then on to Peru.

Our plan is to spend about three weeks visiting various Friends’ groups in Bolivia and Peru. We’ll attend two yearly meeting sessions – those of the Iglesia Nacional Evangélica Los Amigos, of Boliva and of Peru. We’re hoping to meet folks from the other yearly meetings, too. With a World Conference of Friends coming up in 2012, there’s a lot that Nancy wants to share with Friends here. It is the first trip for both of us to South America. My role in all of this will be to interpret (Spanish only, sorry, no Aymara) for Nancy and to represent the organization I serve as Associate Secretary - FWCC Section of the Americas. Our plates are full…the proposed itinerary is packed…and I pray that we’ll be up to the task, physically, emotionally, spiritually of what we are called to do.