This morning I fly out to Peru with our next World Race team.

Tomorrow we'll drive to Chincha, a town where the suffering from the earthquake that leveled it four months ago is worst.

Peru has played a formative role in my life. In 1976, as a high school senior, I spent two months in Chachapoyas, high in the Andes mountains.

God spoke to me there about his love for the world's poor.

At Wheaton, I met Dave Wroughton, an MK from Peru. We became best friends and business partners together (he's since gone on to build and run top hotels in Costa Rica, Peru, and Panama).

In 1997, I flew with my friend Barry Conner to Iquitos, Peru, deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle. We got off the plane and walked directly into an amphitheater filled with 9,000 people waiting for us to address them. Since then, we've sent AIM teams to the Amazon jungle every summer and have a great partnership with Jorge Montero.

In 2002, I took four of my children and 17 others to the slums of Lima, where we spent a month planting five churches. This was the best discipling I ever did with my kids (read Talia's blog about the fruit she saw from the trip years later). The Peruvians we worked with were wonderful, and we loved our debrief in Cuzco and Machu Picchu.

And today we leave for Chincha, several hours south of Lima. If you're the praying type, please pray that we launch the World Race team well and that God uses their example to inspire a generation. I'll be updating you daily - stay tuned!