Extrememobile delivers sights and sounds of Extreme Peru

Friday, June 12, 2009

Most shipping trucks deliver goods and cargo, such as retail products, food, clothing, or pharmaceuticals.

One tractor trailer is hauling an experience.

Dubbed the Extrememobile, this truck is touring the United States, carrying the sights, sounds, and stories of three cities in Peru within its metal interior.

Extreme Nazarene Ministries' is using the donated truck as a public relations tool to recruit more than 1,000 short- and long-term volunteers, as well as sponsors among local churches, businesses, families, and individuals for its Extreme Peru ministry project.

Extreme Peru is an ambitious plan dreamed up by the Church of the Nazarene in southern Peru, in partnership with Extreme Nazarene Ministries, to plant 120 churches by 2012. Extreme Nazarene Ministries is an independent, nonprofit organization working in partnership with the Church of the Nazarene's international and regional mission leadership to deploy people in church growth and compassionate ministry.

The Extrememobile's tour of the United States started in August 2008 and will continue through the end of 2009, including a stop in Orlando at the 2009 General Assembly and Conventions, June 24 through July 3.

The trailer is outfitted with rooms depicting scenes from Peruvian cities targeted for ministry. People touring the Extrememobile climb into the truck via a ramp, and progress through scenes from the cities of Puno, Arequipa, and Puerto Maldonado.

Short video segments and visual elements, such as plants and weeds, a water fountain, a thatched hut, and a dented motor bike, deliver a multi-sensory experience designed to momentarily transport visitors to Peru.

Certified drivers and a rotating team of volunteers are following a route criss-crossing each of the Nazarene university educational zones in the United States. Churches, schools, districts, and other groups along the route can request a visit from the Extrememobile.

"It is a whole lot of work to travel and to find drivers and to find people who are willing to work it on a regular basis," said Rachel Kuhn, Extreme Nazarene Ministries' zone coordinator for the Mount Vernon Nazarene University (MVNU) zone.

"We were at SNU (Southern Nazarene University) and there were 20 kids that signed up (to be Extreme Peru volunteers) and said, 'We're interested in 40/40, we're interested in going long term.' If that's the only response we get, then the whole truck was worth it."

Extreme Peru's church planting strategy is called 40/40, in which 40 Peruvian volunteers are paired with 40 non-Peruvian volunteers, most of whom are young, single North Americans. The 40/40s will spend 27 months planting three churches each, for the total 120 planned new churches.

The Extrememobile is also recruiting prayer partners, and raising $900,000 (U.S.) to fund church planting support projects, including construction of dwellings for the long-term volunteers, compassionate ministries and medical clinics, community outreach projects, and construction of the Larry and Addie Garman Missionary Training Center in Arequipa, Peru.

The goal is for the Extrememobile to complete all the promotion and fundraising by the end of 2009, said Brian Tibbs, director of Extreme Nazarene Ministries.

In contrast, Extreme Nazarene Ministries' project in Argentina, called Extreme '08, lasted three years, and fundraising continued throughout the project.

"As we collect donations from one stop to the next, it keeps the truck moving and it doesn't cost us anything," Tibbs said. "When the truck arrives, people get excited. They sign up; they donate cash; they take applications to become long-termers."

For more information about Extreme Peru or to request a visit from the Extrememobile, visit www.extremenazarene.org. To learn more, check out the Extreme Peru stories and audiocast interviews with Brian Tibbs on www.engagemagazine.com.
-- Gina Grate Pottenger, Engage magazine (Slideshow available)
 

 

< back to South America

next article >