Like a Harry Potter scene

"The day never works out as you plan", commented Olwen as we walked the third mile home in the dark.

It was our last free day of the holidays and we had set out in the morning for a country park on the Central Highway outside Lima. But there were no buses about, in fact any buses that dared to venture out risked having their windows smashed. You could not even travel down the Central Highway because of stoning. There was a bus strike.

So we walked to the Pacific Coast which was covered in mist like a Harry Potter scene. On a cliff top restaurant we ate salads and then decided to continue along the Costa Verde to visit a family. The father had been a Peruvian pastor for years and now was almost completely paralysed with Parkinson's disease.

The one audible word he spoke that afternoon was "Amen" after we prayed. Sometimes you get an idea why days don't work out as you planned.

Photo: View along Lima's Costa Verde with the cross dominant

How to handcuff a bus

I wasn't going to write an email this week as we're on our holidays, but this morning I saw a bus being arrested. We arrived in Lima last Friday and are staying with Clive and Ruth in a pleasant residential suburb where pavements are flat, zebra crossings numerous and the local gym is called "Gold".

Being a golden oldie I was making my way to this institution, when I saw about 20 policemen looking lost outside a bank. Then someone shouted, "Here's one" and with a blowing of referee's whistles the 20 pot-bellied men in dark green jogged slowly to a dirty white bus stuck in the traffic.

The bus had done something seriously wrong and needed to be arrested. But how do you handcuff a bus? Easy, with a breakdown lorry, and one arrived.

Peru's population is 12% evangelical and this means churches and Christians are everywhere. But so are social sins, corruption and crime.

Does missionary work have a sell-by date?

Photo: Errant bus being led away

What would Calvin think?

The semester´s been finished 10 days and my time´s gone on reading, writing and typing. Reading up on John Calvin for a conference in July, writing for a couple of internet sites and typing to familiarize myself with new webpage software.

One´s colleagues are the secretary who checks my spanish, the man who organizes the conference and 2,350 subscribers in cyberspace. Today I received an emailed request for help. It was an ex-student struggling with what´s called, "double predestination": God chooses some and rejects others, so how can we be held responsible? Ugghhh... the world of Spanish theological education is like an octapus grabbing you painfully where you least expect it.

To add to this mix, some in the hermeneutics class produced a YouTube video on Literary Figures in the Bible http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyPDyFhZZe0 and Olwen uploaded a Blog with a show of Zero Stress products http://www.olwenford.blogspot.com/ .

From Calvin´s church in Geneva missionaries were sent to South America, and it was awful for them. Thank you Lord things are so easy today. On Friday we leave for Lima for 2 weeks break.

Photo: Third year hermeneutics' students on YouTube

Parrot's stick broke

Yesterday afternoon was the big one for the sewing room leaders. They were going out to test the market. It's all very well repairing things for friends and exporting tea cozies to Lewis, but Zero Stress needs a viable Colombian market. One that will provide stable income for the sewers. Olwen, Elena and Elizabeth headed off to the five main tourist shops with samples of their products.

Unfortunately it was a bad start when the parrot's stick broke. This refers to a wall hanging of a parrot supported on a piece of stick. For the sake of realism it is appropriate that this happened: it being a most substantial parrot.

The first shop they visited, in the Botanic Gardens, was shut for renovation. Probably a blessing if you're hoping to sell an artificial parrot on a bust perch. At the second one, in the city's Art Museum, the buyer wasn´t in until Friday. Shops three, four and five, were a great success. Quality and novelty is what people are looking for: the parrot's hour had come.

Now the implications of the commercial interest begin. They'll be trickier than getting that creature an unbreakable stick.

Photo: Parrot in happier times

Early morning phone call

We have two starting times in our house. At 5 am my day kicks off with stretches followed by jogging (slow) or weights (junior). At 6 am Olwen staggers into the sitting room wanting to know what time it is and looking for a cup of tea and her Bible. I´m unable to appreciate why she won´t join me earlier on. I guess she´s sussed that over-straining yourself doesn't equal godliness.

Today was slightly different. Having just finished her first cup of tea, the phone went. It was Gonzalo the maintenance man, wanting to know where she was. The work had begun: walls were being knocked down and electrics were to be measured. Zero Stress sewing room was expanding to twice its floor space.

The surprising thing is that the growth comes not because of more impoverished students' wives but from the commitment of the impoverished world outside. It means workshops, mini enterprises and clothing repairs; even helping people save the money they´ve earned. It´s like a Trustee Savings Bank built on cotton and thread with a lot of love.

Classes finish on Friday. Brilliant, I´m exhausted. And I keep telling her it´s not the exercising.

Photo: Keeping an eye on the work, and me

The James Bond solution

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the danger of walking around a city where over 2 million people are mixed up with cars and motorbikes.

To complement this, on Sunday morning we had a real-life scaletrix experience as we journeyed to church. For those in the UK taxis are a pleasant luxury, a poor man´s chauffeur service. Here they're the cheap and risky option of being hurtled across town. Public transport works on the principle that roads are a race track to collect passengers, get rid of them and then get more. They offer an Alton Towers experience.

So our taxi speeded along a busy dual carriageway. Unfortunately, it aimed directly towards the back of a line of stopped vehicles, and at a speed that needed a James Bond solution. But thanks to your prayers: Olwen shrieked, the driver said "Oh", and milliseconds before impact we swerved into a lane of moving traffic without hitting anyone.

The driver blamed the policewoman who had stopped the cars to let people cross the road. Olwen congratulated the driver. And I realized my blood pressure tablets were ineffective for the James Bond solution.

Photo: Seen from earth and the heavens: taxis are yellow with registration numbers of the roof