Ted, Ted, Ted

Every few years a missionary family is expected to come “home” to the US, for an extended visit called a furlough. The immediate point is to promote the mission project to the congregations whose donations support the missionary. The family also sees family, gets medical checkups with doctors who are more trusted than those available [...]

Getting around Lima, for those without Land Rovers, was all about jumping on and asking questions later. The shortage of transportation was severe enough, and the job market thin enough, to drive many men to throw their own cars or vans into service as informal cabs and buses. They would stick a hand-lettered sign on [...]

My closest peer among the Peruvian church members was Eduardo Ramos. He was about my age, with a younger sister named Raquel and an older brother and sister whose names I forget. The Ramoses were not new arrivals from the countryside, like most of their neighbors. Eduardo’s mother, Consuelo, was related to Chinese immigrants, which [...]

The neighborhood of San Gabriel had been renamed José Carlos Mariátegui, under the rule of the populist generals, in honor of Peru’s chief representative in the world communist conspiracy. Mariátegui, a Basque immigrant in the early 20th century, had been a friend of Lenin’s and a founder of the Third International, and was the patron [...]