Divine Redeemer Scholarship Fund

As many of you know, I have safely arrived back to the States, just a few days late. We all recieved emergency passports and shortened our debriefing in Charlotte, NC with the staff members from SAM.

Upon returning to the United States, I was overwhelmed by how much I pay for college compared to my new Peruvian friends and their peers, and just the degree to which they struggle to find the means to pay for education. My culture shock prompted me to form the Divine Redeemer Scholarship Fund (DRSF) to address the need for financial aid among Divine Redeemer Church’s college aged students. The goal of the fund is to provide opportunities for Peruvians to attend universities and trade schools while minimizing the stress of tuition costs. The organization is based at the Divine Redeemer Church which I attended this summer on the trip. Finances also extend to individuals at their several sister churches and others in the community.

It has been an amazing few months developing this organization. Here in the US, I am in charge of raising money. I have spoken with several churches about donating, many of which have expressed interest in providing support. My home church, Christ United Methodist Church, has been overwhelmingly willing to help in any way they can. The money heads to a bank account in Miami which has branches in Pucallpa and then a committee of 5 Divino Redentor members are in charge of making decisions concerning how much and to whom the scholarship are given. The 5 members include John and Minori Lucas (the missionary couple who took care of us this summer), Pastor Abel, Noemi the youth leader, and the church's treasurer. With the help of a very large check cut this week, the organization now has $2000 to give out in scholarships. Though that does not seem to be very much in the context of our culture, tuition in Pucallpa averages only $300 per semester.

The people of Pucallpa really won me over while I was there and it only took about 2 weeks to decide that I wanted to go back over December break. I will be leaving December 13th, spending Christmas and New Years there, and returning January 13th. Due to recently reaching our financial target for the scholarship fund, the DRSF committee members and I will meet in Pucallpa within the first week of the trip and decide on how to divvy out the fund's first scholarships. On the rest of the trip, I will be spending time teaching English with Minori, going to Oansa (the equivolent of our "Awana") to spend time with the youth of the church, and a variety of other things.

The past few days have been an absolute fiasco and at the same time, amazing. I looked at the ticket confirmation for my tickets to Peru, which I thought I had purchased for Sat Dec 13th but apparently I had bought them for Wed Dec 03, which is off by just ONE DIGIT! So I immediately called the hotline for American Airlines, they determined it was my fault and said it would cost $700 to correct this error. The woman I spoke with had an accent and was hard to understand, so I thought that we were miscommunicating and that it wouldn't be that much. But, I called back a second time and spoke with a different woman who said there would be a hefty fee. Instead of dealing with it that way, I went to the Pittsburgh airport to settle this knowing that they are always nicer and more willing to help in person. When I got there, absolutely no one was in line and I walked up to a really nice young lady. I said "I bought my tickets for what I thought was the 13th but on my confirmation it says the 3rd" and she's like "ok no problem, let me see." So I showed her, she did a bunch of typing, and then said "is an overnight flight from miami to lima on the 13th ok?" And I'm like "yeah that's perfect." She printed out my tickets and said "ok, you are all set" and I paid NOTHING. I thought I would have to pay a ridiculous amount but it all worked out, amazingly.

This will be the first year that I will not be home for Christmas, which is a really strange feeling but it will be really neat to spend Christmas and New Years in another country. I'm really looking forward to the trip, I just have to finish all my projects and tests this week. I will be posting here like I did this summer, feel free to follow along :)