Saturday, May 23, 2015

We're Here at Last! Friday, May 23

Life is like playing chess with God. Your moves are called choice, His moves are called challenges. We had our challenges on this trip so far. We missed our connection in Dallas Wednesday evening. We flew out of Dallas on Thursday evening without any problems. The redeye flight was uneventful. Everyone got some sleep on the flight which helped us for the challenges we were given in Lima when we landed.

We landed around 5:40am, excited about finally making it to Peru and ready to move onto our next flight to Piura, Peru. The only things that were standing in our way was Immigration and Customs.

We made it through immigration without a problem, picked up our baggage and had it x-rayed. The two bags containing the Berkey water purifiers were pulled from the x-ray and examined. Customs personnel were questioning  us about what they were, how they were going to be used and how many we had. We told them that we had 25 systems.  We told them why we were there... to work with the mayor of Paita and to install small water purifiers in homes. We were told that we needed to move to another area for questioning.

We were now in the taxation area. They wanted to tax us on all of the donations. They asked us if we had a letter giving us permission to bring in all of the donations. We told them that we didn't. After much talk, the boss over customs and taxation came out to talk with us. He told us that he will have to tax us on the items. We talked with him about the medical mission trip last year. We told him we were given advice from our medical team last year that there were very sickly children that needed clean  water. We were trying to help the people of  Paita and we were not selling the donations. They were being given to the people. We were able to convince him! He gave us permission to pass. We were told to bring a letter, the next time we visit, showing that these items were going to be given to the people and not sold.  Lesson learned...we will have a letter for all future donations.

Next hurtle, exit the building, go to LAN and check-in all of our suitcases. At the LAN counter, we were told that we needed to switch to another flight and that it wouldn't leave until 4:20pm. (It was 7:05am.) The professor asked LAN to PLEASE try to get us on that flight because we've spent two whole days at airports. She asked her supervisor and was given permission to proceed. She processed our passports, printed boarding passes and we were on our way. The last hurdle... get through gate security and make it to the gate before the airplane hatch closed. We ran as fast as we could and finally made it to our gate. The flashing "Last call to board" was blinking on the LAN digital sign. WE MADE IT!
Airport at Paita, Peru

The Group Traveling and Sister Matilde

InsideVan

Sister Matilde

1 comment:

  1. I was freaking out as I was reading about the customs interrogation!! We are barely managing now without having to pay a TAX! on items for the poor of Peru. Deb good work! You have been brave! Also kudos to Doug, for getting you on that needed earlier flight.

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