Extra Post #2: An Unforgettable Mission Trip

December 12th, 2019, was the first day that Covid hit. It started out as a gentle virus in China that had spread to a couple of people and it was not considered to be life threatening. Around March 2020, the Covid cases started to increase, but only a couple of states in the United States had accumulated cases. March 11, 2020, was the day that me, two of my teachers, and two of my classmates decided to go on with our mission trip to Peru. At the time, people were not wearing masks, there was no 6 feet apart rule, and Covid was not really a concern. We landed in Cuzco Peru on March 12th 2020.

 A couple of days went by and as we had just came back to the hotel from eating at our first restaurant in Peru when the President of Peru announced that they are closing the boarders of Peru, which meant no one in and no one out. In frantic mode, we all started to freak out and we were trying to get a flight out that night, but they flights were all booked up. We all went to sleep that night, only to wake up realizing that our 10 day trip was going to last much longer than expected. We had to move from our hotel to the missionary family's house because we were not sure if we would be able to get food at the hotel. Days went by, streets got empty, stores remained closed, a  curfew went into effect, masks became mandatory and our hope of getting home started to fade. On top of it all, it was my first time out of the country. After days of waiting and listening for a way to get out of Peru, we heard President Trump, Mark Walker, and Pompeo talk about American citizens being stranded with no way of getting home and that they were trying to figure out ways of getting them home.  

After days of waiting, we finally got the news that we were coming home on March 29th and what was originally supposed to be a 10 day mission trip, turned into almost a month long quarantine. To get home, we had received special permission from the Peruvian Government and the U.S. Government and after three flights, we eventually landed in Charlotte on March 31st, 2020.