Escape from Juliaca (from Miles, June 24)

Proverbs 16:9 "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps."

Greetings all,

The subject is overly dramatic but I wanted to get your attention. All is well but our plans have changed for this week.

We had a good week in Conima last Tues-Friday which was pretty different than planned due to conflicts with school events but we had a some great contacts with several teachers in the area. We played volleyball with them two afternoons and had dinner with three of them one evening. We did have two Bible school sessions with a pre-school and then on Friday we got to host one of the elementary school at the area "folk dance" contest. That was very interesting to watch. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post (on Facebook) later tonight.

On Saturday as we were about to load up for our scheduled overnight trip to Huancane to worship with Pastor Ruben's church, Sofia met Kristi in the street and was very worried about the miner's strike that she heard about between Juliaca and Puno and how it might affect our leaving from Juliaca on Wednesday. So we took all our stuff with us to Huancane in case the strike threat became a problem. We had a great time in Huancane with Ruben and family. We hiked, ate and worshiped with his wonderful congregation. We asked around about the strike and found that is almost certainly going to happen Monday and Tuesday around the Juliaca area. It was rumored that it would be limited to closing the roads but after last year's problem with the miner's destroying the airport, we were especially concerned with the possibility of not being able to leave on Wednesday. So we discussed and all agreed it was better to be safe than sorry and felt it was best to get out of Juliaca on Sunday.

We attempted to change our flights from Juliaca but the only option was way too expense. So we decided to go to Arequipa (home of Jennifer, one of our translators) and then take a flight from there to Lima. So.... currently we are in a VERY nice hotel Arequipa that Jennifer arranged at a great rate. She is hoping to arrange a school for us to do a Bible storying session tomorrow in Arequipa before we catch our 6:45 p.m. flight in Lima. Our other translator Martin is arranging us a Bible storying session in Lima so we will get to continue our ministry.

Lots more to the adventure that we are having but will share with you later.

Thanks for your prayers. All are safe and sound and enjoying being here.