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“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”
- St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430); theologian, philosopher, bishop
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It was sometime in 2004 that one of my brothers, J, contacted me. A friend had invited him on a humanitarian trip to Peru. Did I want to go along?
I had never been to South America, let alone Peru. Nor had I taken any trips of length in the recent past.
The travel bug — the same one that led me to live 2 years in a landlocked Middle East country in the late 1960s — hovered briefly, then bit. It was not at all painful.
It was kind of J to think of me.
I had taken French in high school and German in college, but never Spanish. I decided to try to learn a bit on my own. Accordingly, I procured a Spanish language book from the local library. I encouraged my brother to do the same.
J was to leave a few days before me, and would, as part of a group called MVI, help build a church on the outskirts of Lima.
The larger, separate group I was to be with would paint churches in and around Lima.
Upon completion of our work duties, the two groups would merge and together tour various selected sites of the country.
Because we were to spend a night at the headwaters of the Amazon River in Iquitos, which was hot and humid, as well as visit Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, at 12,500 feet elevation the…
