Flood Relief and Massive Cemetery

1 May 2017

Flood Relief

The Government of Peru continues to rely heavily on emergency assistance provided by the church to help with the incredible flooding this year. Up to this point, the church has donated 245 metric tons of emergency supplies, including food, water, clothing, bedding, mosquito nets, sanitary kits, tents, etc. This coming week, we are donating an additional 250 to 300 metric tons of supplies, mainly in the north of Peru, to help the flood victims and to combat the dengue fever epidemic caused by all the mosquitos.

Our boss, Moroni Torres, represented the church at a national ceremony this week. Peruvian President Pedro Kuczynski called the ceremony to give thanks for the amount of aid provided by the church through these floods. The floods this year have been some of the worst ever seen in this country, and hopes are high that the worst is behind us now.

Peruvian President Kuczynski at National Ceremony to recognize the church's Flood Relief Efforts

Ceremony recognizing disaster relief provided by the church this year now approaching 500 metric tons of supplies.
(Right to left) Moroni Torres, (Church Area Welfare Manager), Peruvian President Pedro Kuczynski, First Lady of Peru Nancy Lange (an American), and Peruvian Prime Minister Fernando Zavala.

Other Humanitarian Activities

Our humanitarian efforts continue with plans for our upcoming wheelchair trip to Tumbes later this month. Tumbes is on the coast near Ecuador, a place that is super hot year round. We will be donating wheelchairs and conducting evaluator / maintenance classes similar to what we did last month out in the jungle at Iquitos and at Cusco high in the Andes.

Also, planning and arranging a host of other projects continue to fill our days. These on-going humanitarian projects include wells in areas without clean water, vision projects, and donations of critical medical equipment in remote villages to save the lives of mothers and newborns. To say we are busy is an understatement, but we are glad we are here serving in this important work.

Train Trip to Presbitero Maestro

May Day is a national holiday in Peru, so our offices were closed and we had a day off. We decided to go with other senior missionaries by train across town to the oldest cemetery in Peru.

Lima has a single inner city train that opened about a year ago. This is the first of several planned metro lines in this city of 10 million.

Riding the train is a very crowded, claustrophobic experience. The train has been wildly popular, not only because it costs just $0.50 to ride, but also because it is so fast. A 10-minute journey on the train could easily take an hour by taxi during rush hour, so people take the train whenever they can, hence the crowds.

Our happy group of volunteer senior missionaries at the train station. (Left to right: Mayberrys, Halleys, Asays, Princes, Henries, Hales.) This is a great gang to do things with.

Massive Cemetery - Presbitero Maestro

Presbitero Maestro Cemetery is enormous - 1.5 miles to walk around the perimeter. The cemetery was opened in 1807 and contains the remains of innumerable hosts of Peruvians. We journeyed cross town on this day off and each paid our $2.30 admission fee (plus $3 to bring in our camera) to enter this walled city of the dead. There is an admission charge because the entire cemetery is considered a national monument (37 Peruvian presidents are buried here).

View of Presbitero Maestro Cemetery from the nearby train station. Row after row of white buildings in the foreground are enormous, above-ground mausoleums.

Scores of mausoleums are stacked high with the remains of the dead. Graves in this national cemetery date back to the early 1800s. The domed building is a massive crypt at the center of the cemetery commemorating the Heroes of the War of the Pacific (fought with Chile in 1879 - 1883).

Much of the cemetery is filled with individual family crypts and statues honoring the dead. The statues convey a mournful feeling with wealthy families having erected these massive and costly memorials to the deceased.

The most impressive part of this cemetery are the individual crypts and statues, erected to store the remains of the dead. Many of these crypts have stairs leading below ground to storage areas holding up to a dozen tombs for entire families.

Statues, tombs, and crypts, with large mausoleums in the background. Most of the statuary and large crypts date back to wealthy Lima families of the 1800s.

Statue of a disconsolate mother weeping at the tomb of her son. He died in the War of the Pacific around 1880.

The quality of the sculptures is awe-inspiring. Many of Peru's (and Europe's) most famous sculptors created works that are now part of the cemetery crypts and statuary.

Statue of a weeping woman, Presbitero Maestro Cemetery.

Sculpture of woman in prayer, Presbitero Maestro Cemetery.

Presbitero Maestro was the first cemetery of its kind in South America. Until this cemetery, the dead were usually buried inside or outside churches. In fact, there was a lot of opposition to this cemetery in the early 1800s as some people felt a burial at any place but a church was a sacrilege.

The cost of commissioning custom statuary and crypts meant that only the rich got this kind of treatment. But these relics and memorials are now enjoyed by people from around the world who come to marvel at the artwork preserved in this cemetery.

Taking a break from the journey while sitting on the steps of the Heroes of the War of the Pacific crypt.

Marble interior of the Heroes of the War of the Pacific crypt. Chile won this war back in 1883 while Bolivia lost their access to the Pacific Ocean and Peru lost considerable territory in the south. This war continues to be a touchy subject to this day, so we don't talk about it with the locals.

Train Ride Home

We were hot and sweaty after our journey to the cemetery, but we still had a ride across town to get home. The train station looked deserted when we entered, and we hoped our ride home would be on an empty train. But when it pulled into the station, the train was just as filled as when we took it to get to the cemetery earlier in the day.

The empty train station, located right next to Presbitero Maestro Cemetery. Unfortunately, the train was already completely filled with people when it came into our station. Lima is still trying to play catch-up in terms of mass transit. The train was immediately popular because it is so cheap and fast. Only 5 more years until the next line is completed (maybe)!

The train line is elevated for its entire distance, affording a great view of the city. We live in a fairly nice part of Lima. Many parts of this massive city are not quite as nice.

Parts of Lima give a real taste of hard times. We have come to Peru to help with areas especially hard hit by poverty.

Back Home (in La Molina)

We always breathe a sigh of relief when our day of adventure is over and we return to our apartment in the La Molina area of Lima.

Yards in Lima - super tiny but often with intense vegetation and flowers crammed into a small space.

Neighbor's tree with incredible flowers that emerge and hang upside down. Here Sandy is holding up one of the flowers with a sweet and delightful aroma.

Some plots are so small it is amazing anything can grow. But locals realize they either use the space they have or they grow nothing.

Tiny little community cactus garden a block from our apartment. Dozens of cacti and succulents are crammed into this 4-ft x 4-ft space that would otherwise be a just a dirt hole.

And so another week of humanitarian service begins for us here in Peru. The time is simply flying by. We are grateful we get to be part of this adventure and pray our efforts will bless those most in need.