Personnel Coordinator

Our current SIM Peru personnel coordinator is leaving at the end of the year, and in May I was asked to consider taking on the role (which is part-time).  I spent a couple of weeks praying and thinking and asking advice (including from some people at Barnabas – thank you for your encouragement!), then said yes.  June was a handover month when I started to learn my new job, and now I am doing it!

So, what does the job involve?

I see it basically in 2 parts - helping people to get here, and helping them once they are here. 

I deal with enquiries from people looking to come to Peru with SIM long-term.  This means I need to know a lot more about our teams and the different ministries we have – when things start up again and I’m able to travel I’ll hope to visit all our areas so as to be able to answer questions and advise people what the opportunities might be.  It’s quite exciting to think of helping people discover God’s plan for them.  I’ll also need to coordinate (but not necessarily always do) the orientation process when they arrive, and any information they need before arriving.

Then I’m also responsible for “People Care” within the mission –this is something that everyone is supposed to do to some extent, but key things that I’ll do are to arrange annual reviews, deal with any issues (like conflict within the team or misconduct, which I hope won’t be a big part of the job!) and encourage people to take appropriate rest and training.  I’ve not done much of this before but it’s something I’m keen to grow in, as I see how important it is for me and for others.

Where is the time coming from?

The personnel job should take up about half of my time, and a big part of my decision process was figuring out whether this would be ok.  There are a couple of roles I’ve been doing that come to an end about now, which frees up some time.  I will also spend a bit less time on water projects, but plan to still visits villages – just 2 visits a month rather than 3.  I’ll also need to reduce the work I do with youth and students, focusing more on the student group (I’ll still be involved with the youth group to a lesser extent as part of my church membership). I’ll be heading into my third term here, where the plan is to train up a team of people to take over the work.  This is another challenge coming up, but having less time available may actually be a good thing, forcing me to give responsibility to others.

How’s it going so far?

It’s quite good timing for starting the job, as I’m still working from home and unable to travel.  There are lots of SIM systems that I’m getting to grips with – although this for me may be the least challenging part of the job as I’m good at documents!  I’m looking forward to being able to visit all the people and ministries again, and am prompting myself to do things via phone if possible – talking is rarely my preferred method of communication if email is an option, but I know that a key part of the job is knowing the SIM Peru members well.

How can you pray?

• As I learn my responsibilities and work with all the different cultures and personalities in the team – that God gives me a great love for them and that people feel cared for.  
• For new enquirers, that God guides them to where he is sending them, and that I can help.
• For the SIM Peru team as a whole to care for and support one another
• For the right time-balance between different elements of my work when travel becomes possible again
• For the next few months when I was planning to be in the UK and now have no idea what will happen!

 

 

 

Abancay in lockdown

Greetings from Abancay!  Life here has reduced to a few things I am able to do, and yet the time always seems to get filled.

I’m not allowed to leave my house apart from for essential shopping, although it’s possible to apply for a government permit to carry out work.  Of course I can’t travel to the villages I would usually be working in, and there are no meetings.  This means the work I do has changed rather over these past 2 months.

I have two “projects” at the moment:

• I’m producing a facebook live video devotional 3 times a week. This is aimed at students and young professionals who might not have the motivation or skills to seek God when the church has ceased all activity (my church has no online presence).  To start with, this was a very scary thing to do but I’ve got more used to it as the weeks have gone on.  It’s great that at least some of my target group are watching, and occasionally I hear from them that they have been encouraged. 
  
  I’ve been mostly focussing on the presence of God with us and the certainty of being able to trust his goodness despite circumstances – so I’ve been thinking a lot about this too. 

• Peru, like many countries, has been working out an economic aid package for its citizens but has not always been able to reach everyone who needs it.  Lots of private organisations as well as individuals are identifying local people who need help and giving out food parcels.  The small SIM Abancay team has been doing the same, using some of the funding we’re unable to spend on our usual ministries.   So far we’ve done this twice, getting the government permission to be out and distributing 90 food parcels, many to Venezuelan refugees who receive less government help.  The idea is primarily to provide practical help but we’ve also been including Bibles and encouraging people to seek God in their difficulties.  
  
  Last week we had just run out of food boxes when we encountered another Venezuelan lady  - we still had a few little bits, which we gave her.  It was mostly sugar which she’d just come to the shop to buy!  She’s a Christian but hadn’t got involved in a church in the two years she’s been in Abancay – she also didn’t bring a Bible with her and her husband is not a Christian.  So she’s on our list for next time, and we’ll bring her a Bible.  In the meantime we prayed with her there on the pavement – it was the highlight of my week!

A typical day?

• I wake around 6.30 as I sleep with my curtains open since the lockdown – I am really appreciating windows!  
• I go downstairs to the cornershop to by fresh bread and some vegetables. 
• If it’s a video day, I get dressed and ready to present – otherwise it’s an exercise day so I find a workout video on the internet and jump around, possibly waking my downstairs neighbour! (I’ve been slowly getting to know her during the quarantine, which has been great.) 
• Then I spend some time reading the Bible.  It’s lovely to have plenty of time to do this properly – rather than a rushed 5 minutes while I’m eating breakfast and before running out of the door.  This year I’m studying Jeremiah – there’s a chapter for every week – and it’s amazing to read the relevant themes of desolation in the country, although also interesting to consider the different purposes God might have – for Judah, punishment, but for today? 
• My building has a flat roof so I tend to go up and walk around while the sun is setting and it’s a good time to phone people – sometimes from the villages I’m unable to visit, or the young people in Abancay.  Many people seem concerned about God’s purposes in this as well as about their health.  I also have people I phone just to relax! 
• I’m in much more frequent contact with people from the UK, partly because everything has gone online – including my midweek group at Barnabas! 
• There are also admin jobs to do – planning for my videos or for the food distribution project, various tasks for churches (like writing this article!). 
• I miss being able to visit people in the evenings, particularly my godson who only lives 2 blocks away, but I am learning, along with the rest of the world, that it’s possible to watch films and play games with others from different houses.

Here in Apurímac we have comparatively few cases of Covid-19, but the numbers are slowly going up.  This means that the economic impact of the pandemic has been much greater than the health impact.  Markets are the cheapest place to buy food but are also some of the most crowded places.  Financial constraints and worries mean that people often don’t respect the guidelines in place to keep them safe.  Of course we don’t know what will happen in the coming months.

It’s been helpful to see that the words in James 4:13-15 are more obviously true these days.  I’m learning to make plans only about a week or so in advance, and admit that they, as well as my very life, are in God’s hands.

Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’

This of course includes my plan to have my Home Assignment in the UK later this year!  So I may or may not see you in 2020, but in the meantime I’m enjoying “seeing” many of you more than usual.

Guest post - Emily's visit

Life with Lizzie: A Peruvian Adventure

Emily McBride visited Lizzie White in Peru for a couple of weeks this August

Lugging a suitcase load of edible British goodies through international airports is perhaps somewhat less than standard holiday baggage, which would perhaps explain why I am always the one stopped by airport security, or maybe that’s simply down to my suspicious features… Who knows! As someone who is most likely too old for gap year style adventures, but just can’t help herself, I feel incredibly lucky to have had many opportunities in my life to visit missionaries abroad. I’ve jumped right into those chances with both feet because it’s wonderfully exciting and, frankly, FUN: going on exciting adventures, widening my view of the world, understanding life from a different perspective and seeing incredible places.

God has provided me with all these opportunities to visit missionaries and, goodness knows why, but they seem to find it encouraging. This is handy because I usually feel my motives are fairly selfish; I get to see the world and hang out with really interesting people, like Lizzie, who always end up influencing my thinking in some way. Whether if it’s a privilege or a calling (both?!), it makes the travel feel as though it has a purpose other than solely satisfying my wanderlust. I was reminded that Barnabas means ‘son of encouragement’. Being an ‘encourager of missionaries’, what fun: sometimes God blesses you by using you to do what you love anyway – how jammy! (He’s pretty great like that).

The best thing in Abancay is Lizzie herself. She and the couple of other missionaries (a dentist and her husband, who’s a teacher and now dental assistant) and their two lovely little boys are the only Westerners in the city! [ed. - and another missionary family Emily didn't meet] Lizzie is entirely in charge of her day-to-day life; she’s everything, right from her boss to her admin assistant, from her driver to her factory worker, from her presenter to her project manager.

Lizzie is endlessly practical, simply summarising that this is where God wants her to be at the moment, so it’s where she is. She now doesn’t notice anymore all the things that fresh Western eyes see, such as the vast number of gaping holes around the city that are very easy to fall into; the fact that the barrier has fallen away on her route to the morning prayer meeting, leaving a 20ft drop to the side (‘It’s only recent,’ said Lizzie, ‘happened in January, I think.’); the terrifying driving (which she tells me is the second most common cause of death in Peru) [ed. - I've now checked, it seems it's the 4th most common cause of premature death] and perilous journeys; and the general inconvenience of not having Amazon delivery.

Lizzie is astonishingly chilled, giving me the opportunity to drive her 4x4 on the precarious mountain roads; planning a church youth session despite being ill and arranging to trek up an Andean mountain; and preparing an hour-long church session with children (possibly aged 3-13), despite only having been asked to do so the night before! (Lizzie is taking on the Peruvian culture by just saying yes to these kind of last minute requests).

Lizzie is understatedly ‘useful’, an adjective to which she aspires, teaching about water hygiene and providing water filters (also known as saving lives) and spending lots of time with young people by organising bible studies at the university. It was exciting that one student from the university came over to join the little outside bible study because she wanted to practise her English with the blatantly foreign, blonde girl in the group. She then stayed and engaged with the Bible study and I hope she will come back again.

I was also struck yet again by the amazing, global Christian community. As a Christian, you have a genuine family all over the world. It is astonishing and precious that I can go to such random, out of the way locations and experience significant generosity, hospitality and ‘real life’ in places that are so far removed from anything I know. Travelling the world as a Christian is, I believe, the most authentic experience you can have as an explorer of different places.

On visiting one of the villages, I thought to myself how significantly different compared with mine the lives and experiences of its inhabitants were and half wondered what God thought about them. He spoke to me very clearly with the words, ‘These are my kinda people’. I realised that of course they are - He was born in a random, out-of-the-way, unheard of, insignificant village, probably in a building made of mud. He was then brought up in Nazareth, a city that reminds me of Abancay, Lizzie’s current home, which is a new and developing city. Other Peruvians have given it the nickname, ‘Pikiwasi’, which roughly, and slightly offensively, translates as ‘bed of fleas’, [ed. - pikisiki - but the meaning  is similar] reminding me of the comment, ‘What good can come from Nazareth?’ The people who I met and who Lizzie spends her life serving are Jesus’ kinda people.

After our village visit, I was shocked to learn that Lizzie has visited an estimated 50 villages, some requiring arduous treks to reach, and all requiring treacherous expeditions up mountains to find, in order to improve the lives and well-being of the communities and encourage the small churches that often meet in people’s homes. She is caring for, loving and making a difference in the lives of Jesus’ kinda people.

Putting it all in context:

A huge spider (probably the number one reason God hasn’t called me to be a missionary in Peru).

A joyfully elated Emily after completing the most gruelling 3 day trek in the Andes – bitey flies, dust, heat, altitude, steepness, endless kilometres and I couldn’t have done any of it without…

The wonderful Lizzie! Whose kind encouragement I needed every step of the way.

And the stunning views helped

The end goal and in my opinion ‘more spectacular and MUCH less crowded than Machu Picchu’ Inca ruins, Choquequirao (which sounded enough like ‘chocolate cheerios’ for me to rename it thus)

All in a day’s work; Lizzie explaining the whys and hows of water filters:

A road-block on the way to work

Lizzie doing some kids work during the evening church service in a village

Lizzie’s friend, Deena, who accompanies her to villages and Avalina, who provided us with mountains of home-cooked food and a bed for the night (yes, one between the three of us – still surprisingly comfy!)

I was fascinated by how tiny Lizzie’s front door is

Tasty fruit, even though it resembles frog spawn. Getting fresh food into her diet can be a challenge for Lizzie. From my perspective, in the Peruvian diet, the different food groups seemed to consist entirely of 50 different types of carbohydrate. And vast quantities of them.

Guest post - the Lowe family's visit

Visit to Lizzie White – Abancay, Peru 25-28 May 2019 by Adrian, Catherine and Reuben Lowe

On 24th May we flew to Lima, arriving in the evening, and then took an onward flight to the tourist city of Cusco early the next morning Saturday 25th May. We took a “taxi” to take us on to Abancay which involved 5 hour drive up into the mountains. We climbed out of Cusco at 3500m, down to 1800m before a climb to 3800m, from where Abancay could be seen a dizzying way below at 2400m. We lost count of the number of bends, but it was a tarmaced road with safety barriers in most places you’d want them.

We met Lizzie at 4pm and we went for tea and cake, before we headed for an early night after 48 hours of travel to get there.

 
Abancay has a population around the size of Shrewsbury, but is not a tourist town – in fact we saw no other westerners apart from Lizzie and one of the two SIM families. SIM = Serving in Mission and is a mission agency that helps place people in the field and provides back up to them. “Shops” are generally a single unit opening straight onto the street and it can take time finding everything that you need. Lizzie explained there are no Garages as we would understand, you have to find the right person for brakes, another for lights etc. Also much housing is behind locked gates/doors so it is difficult to just call round.

Lizzie’s church was a 5 minute walk away so we joined her there. She leads worship at her church, twice a day, most Sundays. Time keeping is a relaxed affair – we were early despite arriving 20 minutes after the official start time. It is an evangelical church and most of the congregation had gone to a village to support an anniversary celebration. This is done to help keep the church in the villagers' consciousness and also as an outreach . The service was in Spanish and Cathie found it hard to follow because it was fast and quite different to European Spanish. Reuben and I didn’t try! We did recognise a couple of chorus tunes though. After church we went with Lizzie to a local zoo and “mirador” for lunch. Lizzie explained that Sunday lunch for Peruvians is always for family and they would not think to invite her which we found sad. We realised that Facebook etc. is such a lifeline for Lizzie.

Most of Peru is nominally Catholic, but we found this seems to be something of a veneer over the deeper animistic beliefs of the Incas and their predecessors – gods to be appeased. Lizzie is working through an agency made up of three evangelical church groupings in the Apurimac district called AIDIA (pronounced idea). The main work is evangelism and Wycliffe has supported a bible translation into one of the Quechua languages (spoken by 450k). A dedicated team has worked on this for 10 years and it’s in the final years. AIDA decided to expand social action in 2014 with water as the focus, hence Lizzie’s role as a Water Engineer.

On Monday we were up at 5.30am and Lizzie collected us at just after 6am in her 4 by 4, she had to wait at the bakers for bread which we had for our breakfast! We were accompanied by one of AIDIA’s evangelists Cesilio and another lady called Natividad. We aimed to get to a village called Marjuni where Lizzie wanted to check on the use of water filters she had previously distributed at an affordable cost. In addition, she was due to speak to children at the primary school about the importance of clean water and good hygiene. The first hour of the journey was on tarmac and involved many bends as we headed up a gorge. The second half was not for the faint hearted and involved climbing 5,000 feet on a dirt road cut into the mountainside. Imagine the Burway without tarmac and with sheer drops of 2,000 feet. On our return down the mountain at the end of the day we had a close encounter with a small lorry. We still do not know how we managed to pass only that the angels must have been with us. After this experience we promised that we would pray for Lizzie’s safety daily!

 
The people in the high mountain villages are subsistence farmers growing many varieties of potatoes, maize and cereal crops. Although it was their winter they were harvesting when we visited. The “fields” are terraces well above the village (cultivation takes place up to 4000m) and it is very hard work. This means that people often look older than they are and certainly suffer from ill health. Lizzie is trying to introduce the use of water filters (which are the size of a bucket) so that people can drink safe water. She makes her visits when the evangelists go out to the villages because these people are known and trusted. The whole process of getting to know people and trying to persuade them to use the filters is a long process. The government provides chlorination to the water, but the local town mayor had decided to install a new system at Marjuni, but it was incomplete and his term of office over!

 
At the school Lizzie gave a public health talk with some very good visual aids – teaching is in Spanish though the locals speak Quechua. The children were very engaged. Lizzie then visited the houses where she had sold water filters, but no one was in. It is very painstaking for her, she can have up to 8 villages on the go at one time, visiting up to two a week, as the journeys are demanding and this was one of the close ones. Lizzie really would like to train up Peruvian Christians to help with the work and eventually take over from her.

 
We were pleased to get a shower on our return to Abancay – not something easily available to the villagers, and Lizzie does not have a hot water supply – she has to boil up what she needs, and cold water cannot be drunk from the tap – Lizzie uses one of her own filters. Toilet paper cannot be put down the toilet as it will block the system, it goes in a bin – we got the hang of this after 3 weeks!

In the evening we went out for a simple meal with Lizzie and one of the other families – Brendan and Erin and their 2 young boys. They have been in Abancay for 10 years, but still look about 25. Brendan is helping prepare bible stories and aids for bible teaching , whilst his wife Erin runs mobile dental clinics – even X rays, the kit all just fits in a 4 by 4. This is a popular service.

On Tuesday morning Lizzie took us to AIDA HQ where we joined the morning prayers and then met the Bible translators – five pastors spend week mornings. It is all on computer which tracks all changes and they have external consultants in the US and UK, but final decisions are by Quechua born speakers. We met the linguists who are preparing teaching material, and the AIDIA director Luis, a very energetic man. He started a Christian school in 2015, which has 93 pupils of which 80% not from Christian families. We shared in mid morning break – tea and a snack (rice!), after which it was time to say goodbye and take a taxi back to Cusco.

What I do and why

Here's a brief summary!

Visitors, New Year, and a mountain adventure

My first visitors of the year made this great video about their week in Abancay.  They arrived JUST in time for New Year, and in the next few days we enjoyed a walk up to a glacier, and pitched our tent the highest I've ever camped.

Landslide season again!

A few days before Christmas, Dina and I set off for Chinchinya with A LOT of stuff.



We had:
 - 18 Samaritan's Purse shoebox gifts for the children
 - other miscellansous gifts
 - about 100 small paneton breads
 - my guitar
 - our rucksacks
 - teaching materials
 - 2 very large birthday cakes, with easily damaged cream icing! (ooh good, said the twins' mum, you'll be driving from Abancay, please pick up 2 cakes for me)



Halfway there we got a phone call from the village telling us there had been a lot of rain and the river was uncrossable - "hah" we thought, "maybe for a car, but we have a 4x4..."


It really was uncrossable... a lot of sinking sand to get stuck in, followed by large boulders to break the suspension over.  We didn't make the attempt.



Instead we found a convenient place to leave the car, unloaded all the stuff, and waylaid every child we found on their way home from school in the larger village down the hill!



We made a strange procession as we carried everything up the hill - but it was really great for getting to know them more, and helping them to overcome some of their nervousness of us!





In Chinchinya, Dina and I had a meeting with the church leaders to think back on 2018 and plan for 2019.  They said that said that my work with the filters, as well as giving visible improvements in water quality, has helped change attitudes towards the church. There has been a lot of opposition since a few of them became Christians and started the church, but now people are starting to see that the church wants to help the community. What an encouragement!








Next day, after an evening of Christmas (and birthday) celebrations, we were ready to walk back to the car and drive home.  I ended up taking about 14 passengers and 3 huge sacks of grain down to the next village!