Peru 2009: Radios & Porridge

Hi, since the last post a few things have happened.

Firstly my second course got off the ground on Saturday morning. Only 3 of the 7 students turned up, the rest presumably attending the radio conference. This means this week’s class will be a bit of a refresher and then into the ‘meat’ of the course. The first topic I’m dealing with is death and grief. Part of the second lecture (if we get this far...which I doubt) is discussing the meaty subject of mortuary cannibalism. If you want to know more, sign up for the course!
This week’s 1 Peter lecture was postponed as it was the Radio station’s 2nd anniversary service. So it resumes next Monday night. God willing next week we will be dealing with 1 Peter 1:1-2 and discussing the assignments.

The other main event was the radio conference which took place between Thursday and Saturday. The speakers were Allen Graham and Fernando Arroyo from HCJB in Quito Ecuador. Allen does a lot of training for people involved in radio and was actually on his way back from a conference in Argentina.

There was an excellent attendance with visitors from Pucallpa in north Peru, Arequipa, Arica in Chile across the border and local people. The speakers had asked for 40-50 only so that the groups would be manageable for workshops and that is pretty much how many turned up.

More to the point was the way the attendees gelled together and took part eagerly in the different workshops and practical exercises. There were many radio stations represented from other cities but also people interested in getting involved in radio and students from local universities who are studying related subjects.

The schedule was packed and on the last day there was an end of conference meal and a walk round some of the sights in the centre of Tacna for those who had come from out of town. It was good for our own radio staff to get some practical training and advice from these speakers in their own environment.

On Sunday I attended ‘Palabra de Vida’ and went early to see the Sunday school. It was encouraging to see so many attending and their participation. At 8:30am they start by providing the children with a porridge and bread roll breakfast. The church is in a very impoverished area and the breakfast is truly beneficial to these children. Then from 9-10:00am they do their lessons (including an adult class who misses out on the breakfast and start at 9am). Then from 10:30 to around midday they have the morning service.

We were also able to make the most of the fact that an engineer from Pucallpa was attending the conference to allow him to check out some of the equipment. Don’t ask me exactly what it is he was able to do... but it sounded very technical, was apparently gravely important and involved me driving them (the engineer and Reuben our Radio director) up to the hill overlooking Tacna, where our radio mast is, at 6am on Monday morning before he got his flight.

Monday night was then the anniversary service which was great and very encouraging for the staff of the radio, who were exhausted after a very busy week.