It was very hard to leave Costa Rica. Over the past year, we had made a number of great friends, many of whom we know we will not see again on this side of heaven. As the plane lifted off from the airport in San José, we watched out the windows as the green fields and mountains became smaller and smaller. Because of the size of the country, we had not even reached cruising altitude when we found ourselves over the Pacific Ocean. A little more than three hours later, with the majestic Andes Mountains rising above the clouds in the distance, we saw the brown and grey costal deserts of our new home country. We had arrived in the capitol city of Lima.

Billy, Laurie and Sarah Drum, members of our team whom we met when we were applying to become missionaries with The Mission Society, met us at the airport. (The rest of the team, the Ivey family, would meet us in Huancayo.) Following a day errands, contracts, and record checks for our work visas, we took the seven hour bus ride from Lima to Huancayo. The ride starts just a few feet above sea level, and as the desert and the city fell behind us, the mountains rose dramatically in front. Three hours or so later, we were catching our breath as we crossed the continental divide at more than three miles elevation (three times as high as Denver, Colorado). A little further along we passed through the sixth most polluted city in the world, La Oroya, where 95% of the children have elevated levels of lead poisoning due to copper (and other mineral) mining in the area. Two hours later, we entered our new hometown.

A mixture of adobe, concrete and steel, this city of around 500,000 people stood in stark contrast to the city in which we´d lived the past year. It is a city of cultural diversity in which women in traditional clothing eat ice cream cones and talk on cell phones on the city square in front of the Spanish Cathedral. A modern mall has appeared since our first visit, and it may have one of the only food courts in the world where a person can buy cow heart on a stick for dinner. Right next to the mall is the traditional market where one can buy anything from charcoal with which to build a fire to plants to plucked chickens hanging by their feet to fresh (or not so fresh) alpaca meat.

We´re here. We have a lot to learn, no doubt about it, but we made it. Thanks to all of you for all you have done to get us to this point.

¡Qué Dios los bendiga! May God bless you!

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