Dear Friends and Family,
I’m missing you all but enjoying
the home that God has given me here in Curahuasi.
Lessons take awhile to sink in. I feel like this season of my life God has
really been letting 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 sink in and helping me it apply it to
aspects and areas of my life.
My
version:
“If I could speak Spanish, Quechua, Aymata, and German
perfectly, but I didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging
cymbal. If I could speak the perfect
spiritual truth in to the lives of my patients and others, and if I understood
all of God’s secret plans about whether my patients will heal and live and if I
possessed all knowledge about the body, illness, and what is the underlying health
and spiritual problem of my patients and those I encounter during the day, and
if I had such faith that could just pray and the people are healed, but I
didn’t love others, I would be mothering.
If I gave everything I have to the people of Peru and given up 6 digit
salaries in the US and even sacrificed my body by never sleeping or resting and
just care for the people, I could boast about it, but if I didn’t love others,
I would have gained nothing.”
And how does this “love” that it the only thing that God
asks from us look?
When I’m truly living and serving with this kind of “love”
I’m: “patient and kind. Never jealous or boastful or proud or rude. I never demand my own way. I’m not irritable, and never remember who’s
wronged me. I don’t rejoice about
injustice but rejoice whenever the truth wins out. I never give up even though I keep failing,
never lose faith (even when though my friends no show me all the time and
frequently don’t follow through on their word), I’m always hopeful, and endure
through every circumstance of fatigue, over working, and call.”
Ask any resident or missionary doctor, this type of love for
those you serve and care for each day is hard to maintain when you’re
overworked and run ragged. The only
answer God’s given me to achieve this love is more time with him alone in
nature, in prayer and in the word each day.
Also after reading the book “Sabbath Rest” I’ve begun blocking off a day
to enjoy the small things of life, not do any of the have-to’s and watch as the
world (and Diospi and Peru) doesn’t fall apart because I’m not “working.” As
God said in Exodus 16: 28-29 when the people disobeyed him and went out to
collect mana on the Sabbath, “How long will these people refuse to obey my
commands and instructions? They must realize
that the Sabbath is the LORD’s gift to you.”
It’s been a good lesson to learn here before I go to other
parts of the world where maybe parts of my immediate “world” actually do
partially fall apart, or at least have to wait a day so that I can spend some
extra time with God.
This has revolutionized my perspective on my days. This last six months has been a joy. As my Spanish and cultural understanding
improves my relationships continue to grow deeper and deeper with the Peruvians
I work and go to church with.
The Church
Sunday morning bible class.
It starts at 8:30am Sunday morning so that it’s done in time for church,
because currently the church is only one room.
Before the owner let the church use the room next door during services
for the kids class, but now the building next door is rented by a furniture
store. Please pray that the church can
find a better location at a reasonable price so that the children can learn in
their class while their parents learn from the pastor.
Lunch at the new Chinese (Chiefa) restaurant after Sunday
morning services. From left to right:
Esther is an ICU nurse from Austria, Dana is a nurse anesthetist from Germany,
my mom and my dad (who visited for the month of May).
From left to right: Jemerson the pastor of the church I’m
attending, Juvenile who works as a nurse
at Disopi, and Glicerio a member of the church.
Left to right: Dad again, Me, and David one of the
professors at Diospi’s school (which is now kindergarten through 8th
grade).
The IEP had another medical/evangelical outreach trip. This time to a town called Antilla. The main way to travel there is in camiones
(these trailers pictured above) because the road is so bad. We went by private trucks because I’ve had
too many patients because of camiones that rolled over, and the aunt of
Rosemerry (one of the government nurses that attends the IEP) was killed within
in the month because a camion rolled over.
In a camion its 5 hours standing (because they stop to pick up
loads/supplies). But you can imagine how
hard it is for the elderly people and those with small children to travel to
larger towns.
There’s
a local health post in Antilla, but they have the only pharmacy, and because
the road is bad they’re usually pretty limited in their supplies. The government is able to staff the health posts because they decide
where nurses work. And all doctors have
to work on year in a rural setting before they can do their residency. The hours of the health post are Monday
through Saturday 8a-7p and Sunday half day.
The staff works 20 days or so and then has their free days. They had advertised before we arrived, so
that when we got there there were more than 100 people for me to see
(impossible). The doctor at the health
post ended up helping me see patients.
We were there a Saturday and a Sunday.
The nurses at the health post knew the people and who was from the
farthest away (elderly, widows, and single mom’s had come from 3-6 hours away
walking) and helped decide who we would see.
It was a great set up because the health post staff was greatly
encouraged, the people had more confidence in their doctor afterwards, and the
health post told me they’d check up on any patients with chronic diseases that
needed to be followed but would never travel all the way to Curahuasi.
A group of 15 members of the IEP church went. Mostly young
people, but an older couple whom where a hoot too! From left to right: Mark is
an American premed student interested in missions who came and worked with me
for almost 2 weeks. Anna is a volunteer
from Germany. Dana is a German nurse anesthetist. Donna is a Peruvian nurse from Puno. Esther is an Austrian nurse. Marcos is the traveling pastor who works at
Diospi Suyana Hospital. He visits patients in the villages and helps them
connect with churches or form churches in their village if there isn’t already
one. He’s who knew about Antilla. Antilla has a Catholic church, and the only
evangelical church is an Assemblies of God.
The older couple. David. Me. Rosemery a nursing student working in the
government health posts. Sarah is a German nurse. Sadith is a pervian lab
technician from Arequipa who works at Diospi.
Jemerson the pastor of the IEP church and Miqui who works in IT at
Diospi where with us but not pictured here.
Above: Marcos trying to decide who gets to see “the doctor.” To the right: Mark seeing what I do all day. He enjoyed most surgery and previously was
thinking about ortho. He spent most of
his time at Diospi with the surgeon.
We’re all hoping he’ll come back in 10 years as an orthopedic surgeon.
Jemerson, the pastor, is in the middle/back in the photo on
the left. Again he is translating for
me, since most of the patients only spoke Quechua. He loves it because he gets a lot of
opportunities to share the gospel because Jesus is the only real solution for
the majority of their problems which include stress, anxiety, and rage.
While some of us were taking care of patients, others in our
group had a program planned for the children (photo on the left). In the evening Saturday, after clinic we had
a program with a skit, games, singing and a short lesson for the whole village.
Sunday, after a
couple hours of clinic we attended the local evangelical church. They were so honored to have us. As is typical in the Quechan culture, every
single one of us were invited to share a word or our testimony with the
congregation.
Prayers
for Tuesday night prayer group at the church, young adults group Saturday
night, and our up coming church retreat next weekend [we’re going camping and
white water rafting :) ].
Monday Night Woman’s
Group
Monday night is always a surprise. Sometimes there are many young girls, other
days young adults, other days older women, and other days an even mix. Coming from a culture of control I have
learned to trust God with whom he brings to the group and who arrives early,
taking advantage of knowing them and their needs, and where they are in their
journey of faith. Various are from
Catholic backgrounds. I’ve prayed a lot
about where to start with them, and what’s the most important difference and
point that I want to make/truth I want them to realize. It comes up a lot. I often start by asking them what’s the
biggest difference between Catholic and evangelical. Many times the answer, “the worship of saints
and Mary.” I reply, that’s a sin, but
that exists in evangelical church where their idols are food, sports, power,
position, beauty, etc. From reading and
studying the biggest difference I see…what makes the teachings of the Catholics
a different “gospel” is that they teach we are saved by Jesus’ death on the
cross AND our works. This is the central deal breaker and what
makes what they teach wrong. So when I
talk to them I highlight this difference, and then encourage them to seek God
through prayer, scripture, and meeting with a local church.
Please
pray for our group of women. That they
continue to grow in their relationship with God and that He places his calling
on each of their lives.
Home
Before I lived with Lisa from July 2014 until December 2014
when she returned to Germany. Inessa, a
dental assistant from German, returned from her 6 month sabbatical in January
2015 and we’re currently living together.
In the photo above she’s on the left.
She’s enjoying “Sewing club” with her friends. Kati is in the middle, a surgical nurse. Dominick, the husband of Kati is on the right
and works in IT at Diospi.
Ultimate Frisbee!
Wednesday nights we still play ultimate Frisbee! It’s a joy and blessing. It started out mostly Germans and Americans,
but now it’s mostly Peruvians. It’s a
great game because they can all learn how to play in one night, and we’re able
to play with kids as young as 6 years together with full grown adults. We’re still playing in the Diospi Suyana
school gym, which we rent each week for $10 (which comes from my project fund)
for two hours. We usually play 5-6 per
team because the gym is not that big.
Some nights we form up to 3-4 teams and rotate a new team in after each
point. 
Parents!
My parents came to visit for the month of May. It’s nice because I have an excuse to travel
and get to know Peru and the different areas that my patients come from. The patients that come to Diospi come from
all over southern Peru, the jungle, and as north as Lima. Peru is interesting because it has such a
variety of climates. There’s coast,
dessert, sand dunes, jungle, mountains, etc.
Me with my parents in Nasca.
The Nasca lines on the left (thousands of years old). Lines from a different culture on the
mountains below.
San Juaquin Oasis near Ica.
A natural oasis in the middle of sand dunes. We all went sand boarding (including my
parents) in the sand dunes. It’s like
snow boarding, but if you don’t know what you’re doing you just go down on your
belly. Jemerson (below), the pastor came with
us, because the support from the church isn’t enough that he ever gets
vacations.
My dad and I at the sunset over the dessert.
Colque canyon near Arequipa where you can see Condors (the
largest birds in the word). Miqui (below) came
with us on this trip.
Sunday nights
I’m still studying the bible with Rosemery and Dennis. Both have accepted Christ but both are still
hesitant to be baptized. The teaching
about baptism here is super complicated and corrupt. Many evangelical churches teach that a
baptism is for one denomination and often times, one church. So if you go to a certain denomination and
then move and try to go to a the same denomination in a different area they’ll
want you to be baptized again. There’s
also a false teaching that you have to study and study and study before you can
be baptized. They separate accepting
Christ and baptism. So Luz, whom I
baptized last year, was a believer for more than 10 years. Various times she’d told the pastor of which
ever church she was attending that she wanted to be baptized and they always
responded, “lets study.” And then they
never got around to baptizing her. It
was so heavy on her heart, we were reading about the Lord’s super in church one
Sunday, she leaned over and said to me, “I’m not baptized.” I said, why not today. She said she experienced such joy that she’d
finaly be baptized, but when the pastor (Jemerson) found out he said, “let’s
study.” She couldn’t say no to Jemerson,
but told me she still wanted to be baptized, and so I baptized her that very
day.
During the hospital
retreat a pastor came from Chili and as a result of his teaching several
workers at the hospital wanted to be baptized.
So we all went down to the swimming pool in the next town over where all
the baptisms are done. But the local
pastors of the churches where the soon-to-be believers were attending couldn’t
let the guest pastor baptize them. They
feel like they’re responsible for whether or not the baptism was done right or
whether or not the right words were said.
So three pastors all went in together for the baptisms.
For all of these
reasons and also the reason that the family obligation to be Catholic is almost
as strong as that of the Muslims (you are no longer part of the family, you’re
rejecting the family. Only they don’t
kill you for it like the Muslims) Dennis and Rosemery have not yet been
baptized. Please pray for them
both. For their families and peace
within their families. Pray for them to
continue to grow closer and closer to Jesus.
Kid’s Club
I still help with
kids club Thursday afternoons. Please
pray for wisdom on how to teach such a wide age range 3 years old til 18 years
old. Between 60-100 kids, and between 4
and 8 helpers.
Mario and Domingo
Asurin
This couple are the owners of the apartment we rent. They are very sweet. Before David (one of the teachers at Diospi)
and I were studying with them on Thursday evenings. Since my parents visited and the American Cup
we’ve fallen out of the habit. They have
a lot of interest. Mario has a lot of
questions. They’ve visited the church a
couple times. They’re both Catholic background,
but one of their granddaughters and grandsons attend the IEP. David can really connect with them a lot
better than I because he’s from a farm village background like the Asurin’s. Pray that God continues to put a thirst in
the soul of Mario and Domingo and that we can make time again to study with
them.
American Group
Friday nights has always been American bible study, but now
there are only 2 other American families here.
So now it’s English Bible study because various Germans, Australians, British,
Canadians, and sometimes Peruvians attend.
Usually the Caire family hosts.
Prayers for the Caires, for the group, that we continue to grow closer
to God. This group is such a blessing
because its one of the few group biblical messages I receive each week in
English (which is so much more powerful than Spanish to me).
The Hospital
And of course, the biggest chunk of my time…the
Hospital. These 2 weeks Will and I are
the only two general medicine doctors.
Martina will return and then we will be 3 until mid September, when Will
returns to the States for a 5 month sabbatical, then we will be 2. Jen’s (the OB-GYN) and his resident help with
call, but that’s still only 4 or 5 in the call pool. So I work Monday through Friday (though I
started taking a day off if I was on call on a Saturday or on both Friday and
Sunday call so that I have a chance to rest).
And then call 4-7 times a month (depending how many others are in the
call pool). It’s easy to get over worked
but it’s a good balance of complicated sick patients, and healthy patients that
have a million symptoms because of their anxiety and just need to hear the
gospel.
The
longer you’re here the more you care for local people and build up a reputation
for God and the hospital here. Two weeks
ago I rode my bike up with David to study with Dennis and Rossmery. Dennis was waiting for us and wanted us to go
with her to visit a sick neighbor. So we
went. It was one of Will’s patients (we
talk about the cases of the night and also complicated cases during the doctor
meeting every morning so I knew about the patient, Policarp). He was actively dieing of stomach
cancer. Dennis asked me to pray over him
and then I sorted through his bag of meds and found the long acting morphine
that the other doctors had talked about giving him and told him it was the most
important pill to take for the pain (he wasn’t taking any of his meds because
of the pain). I answered a couple
questions and the family obviously was relieved because Policarp was too sick to
go to the hospital. He passed away later
that week.
Another
patient Pilar came in two weeks ago when I was on call in with pulmonary edema
because of severe anemia of hemoglobin of 4.
We stabilized him and diagnosed him with an advanced stomach cancer with
liver metastisis. We transfused 4 units
of blood before the diagnosis was made, which stabilized him. But after knowing the diagnosis, we decided
to not transfuse again because we’re so limited on blood and he still had his
actively bleeding tumor in his stomach.
Three days after discharge he came in again (Jen’s picked him up from
his house because they were friends of the family) and died 4 days later. I went to the showing of the coffin/body
which happens the day before the burial walking home from dinner because the
Curahuasi is so small. It meant a lot to
Pilar’s wife and children (he was 79 yo, and has 6 children older than me),
since I’d been talking with them so much the last couple of weeks helping them
do the best thing for their dad (in this culture to children play the largest
role in making medical decisions for their parents). In the States when you work in larger cities
caring for all your neighbors and the people that you pass on the street each
day is rare. But it’s something special. And it’s another way for God to get the
attention of his lost children.
The Future
Thank you so much for your thoughts, prayers and financial
support. These two years are quickly
coming to an end. I’ve been praying for
direction, and currently the plan is to return to the US for a month in
January, and then return to work two more years in Peru. The plan is still very preliminary. I lack coordination with a longer term
mission agency and a new contract with Diospi.
I will need monthly support for these next two years. Please pray for God’s guidance and that he
continues to coordinate all of the changes and transitions that will have to
take place.
Bless you all. Be
praying about January. I’m thinking
about flying into Tulsa and then driving south to Texas, and then west to
California and then north to my family in Seattle, Washington. If you live along my potential trajectory,
would like me to visit, and would be interested in supporting me monthly for
the next two years let me know. As I get
closer to the end of the year and get more of the big details like sending
agency in order, I’ll send a more detailed report on monthly financial
need/budget.
Thanks. Love you all
so much!
Ari Cale
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