Incuyo Nov Dec 2007

It took us almost two days and a half to actually make it to our destination. We arrived to “El Piloto restaurant and met Mabel, she is Ilda’s daughter, the owner of the restaurant. Right after that day’s breakfast we talked and work on our Incuyo Plan. We had to grasp some help from the hospital , since the Municipality didn’t have any info , in order to get a map of the Incuyo annexes. Right after lunch we went to the school looking for Ronald and Rony and ended up riding a small squished van headed to these teenagers place, Coyahuacho is an annex 15 minutes ride or 45 – 50 minutes walk away from Incuyo. The house they live in is mud-brick made, very extreme and poor, they don’t even own these houses, and they just rent them. We sat down and had some cake and pop, right after this we had a time of prayer. Walked back to Incuyo and this time it took us more than an hour to make it. We met Karina an adolescent that had been saved the past summer and told us sad news that she had stopped going to the Bible studies because her religion teacher told her she’d get better grades if she would go to the catholic church more than to those Bible studies.
We set out to Yuracchuasi the next day, we walked for about an hour and then a truck picked us up and dropped us off in Colloni, it took us another hour to get to our place. One the way we stopped just a few times to share the gospel, there at the end of Colloni we found an old lady named Rosalia. She spoke quechua only, she behaved in so such a kind and open way, it was a little bit frustrating not to be able to convey with her in Quechua. While we were in Yuracchuasi our main day’s goal was to establish contact with Hermana Constanza, a woman Pastor Jose from Nasca told us about. We had to wait for her since she was not to be found at home. We decided to talk to people so we walked to the very end of the town and walked all the way back towards Constanza’s place. People were a bit more receptive and finally got back to Constanza’s and found her. She has got three kids, all of them boys, her husband seems to have some knowledge of the word. She is obviously just a baby in Christ; she didn’t even know how to pray. There is a catholic church in this town and also there is a Pentecostal one “Dios es Amor” which has around ten people.
We went to Quisuarani the next day. We met three people on the way. We led them in prayer. They told us that they spend almost all day grazing the sheep. We left this people and met a lady on the way to Quisuarani, she turned out to be a Jehovah’s witness and offered us some milk right straight from a cow. Then we peaced out, and saw a creek as we were told, we passed it and looking towards the right, there is a house straw-roofed. Quisuarani is a very small town. They told us there were 25 families. The others left because lack of work. There is one Catholic Church which if we are not wrong we doubt the priest ever comes despite the people’s affirmation of his visits.
We walked back to Incuyo and finally met Ronald and we all had lunch together. He has 7 siblings with one father and one with another one. He currently lives with four of them. He works on the fields for his mother and his little siblings. We had our New life in Christ discipleship. The night service had about 20 kids. Ronald did the Flood story with some questions at the end of it. We played some games and had tea and bread. We told to the older ones about Nasca training
On Friday 9th, we visited to Colloni, we walked almost one and a half hours, and there is a store at the end of this town. The owner of this store is Mrs Jessica, she has two kids. Ivan led three people to the Lord. There is a Pentecostal and Catholic church. There are 75 families approximately We headed back to Incuyo ate and then went to Collahuacho with three teenagers, Rudy, Grecia and Sindy. Sindy’s mom is a Jehovah’s Witness. We had a sort of meeting at this town’s square, which is actually a dirt field. There were no street lights so we had our service in the darkness. We sang couple of songs and told a story. Then we returned to Incuyo.
We went to Salla Salla on Sunday 11th, very early in the morning. Had breakfast at Bus Lopez Agency and headed to Calera alta. We passed through Calera Baja which is 20 minutes walk from Salla Salla.. We got there at about 11:45 am. We met three men and they invited us to sit. We talked and we noticed that they had been chewing coca leaves. A red truck arrived bringing more people. The three men told us we should get going and that probably they would catch us up on our way and give us a ride. We tried to talk to this people and found out that everyone was drunk including the truck driver and the motorbikes riders as well. We left and as they said the riders caught us up and took us to Calera Baja.
We talked to a woman and a crippled man, and we led them to prayer. There is a catholic church and no evangelical presence in this twon. There are about 180 people .We left to Salla Salla, had lunch there. In the afternoon we did a visit to Mrs Justa, Cindy;s mother.
On Monday 12th we visited Colloni again, it took just a few minutes to get there by bus. We got off and went straight to Mrs. Jessica’s store. The door was closed so we went to the fields and saw Rosalia looking after her sheep. We talked to her and we read the Quechua Bible to her. She told us of someone she knew was Christian, Modesta Mamani so went on looking for her. We finally found a house and nobody was there we tried to look on the distance and we saw somebody very far away. We headed there and talked to her, she turned out to be Modesta’s daughter in law, presented the gospel and prayed for her. In the afternoon, we had a discipleship class with Ronald, and then went over Nieve’s house.
A Peruvian culture fact is that in any place the time is almost never respected. Ronald has to walk about an hour to come and go back home so I think it’s not good at all to start late. On Tuesday 13th we went to Untuco . There we met the kindergarten teacher Mrs. Eva ,she told us the town’s poor reality. We set up some appointments to come back and visit the primary school as well. We also met the pastor of the Pentecostal church and he was not open to us, he asked our ID Cards. We just encouraged him and said good bye.
On Wednesday 14th our selected place was Huacachipa. We walked the road that takes to a sort of fork, they call it “ Repartición”. The way to the left goes all the way to Pauza and the way straight goes to Salla Salla and then Arequipa. So we took our left and a truck caught us up, they gave us ride and dropped us off at another sort of fork. We followed the trail and went in the town. If it had not been by the truck it’d have taken more than two hours hike to get there. We met a man and he told us there is a school and a catholic church. We were headed to the school when an old lady came out of her house and invited us to come in, we all sat down, her husband arrived and joined us in the sharing of the word. They gave us two boiled potatoes each. And then went to the school, this small school has from 5 to 10 students. The teacher is Mrs. Rosa Melchor. We had a Bible class and a couple of songs. There were only 6 kids on this day, Octavio, Benjamin, Fredy, Jesus, Angelica and Flor. They all live in Cheqcha a small annex located on the road to Pauza. At the end we did the salvation prayer. After that we headed to Cayarac. The Sara Sara is right behind this town. It took us an hour hike to make it from Huacachipa. We talked to some people and the teacher of the school. This teacher lives in Incuyo but comes to Cayarac every day to teach. We told him the reason of our visit and agreed to have a meeting using the school classrooms. We then went to invite people. A lady told us to go to a small house “right there on the corner”. This house is actually 10-15 minutes walk. We found three kids. Gloria (10), Rosa (8) and Moses (6), they were all by themselves. We told them of our meeting and Gloria the oldest one went in to bring their jackets. And so we all went to the school and waited for some time. We introduced ourselves and shared God story since the creation till Jesus crucifixion. There were three women, two men and 7 kids. We prayed the salvation prayer and we heard some people saying it kinda like whispering it. A man named Dinas took us over his house to spend the night there. Next morning we heard somebody knocking our door. It was Gloria a tiny flashlight in her hand, the night before I had lent it to her so she could walk with her siblings back home.
The next day we had our Disciple classes with Ronald, at night we had our Bible study, we started pretty late and Mrs Ilda spoke up of the kid’s lateness and behavior. We also talked about the offerings.
On the morning of Friday 16th, Rudy with three of her friends came to the El Piloto Restaurant. They had given a religion assignment; the general theme was “Sects” and the Baptists was on the list. So we tried to answer very basic questions, like The divinity of the trinity and the word the Bible inspired by the Holy Spirit.
We got on a bus to Salla Salla, it would normally take four hours hike, so we decided to take a bus and its about 25 – 30 minutes, the thing is that there is no transportation to come back to Incuyo, there are some random trucks that would lift people but its no a certain way . Being there we went to the hospital to do so some research. There is a catholic church and there are about 80 people in this town. We visited the kindergarten and school and got to talk with the teachers, we set up a day to come back and watch a video. This same day we went to Collahuacho by the afternoon. This time the adolescents that came on our last visit could not come with us but on the road we met two teenagers Yenny and Alicia and walked with them till Collahuacho. Ronald was waiting on us. There one small block to the right from the main road is a light pole with a bulb on it. The environment is kinda like a yellowish night vision. So we decided to have our meeting there on the open air with some light. About 10 kids showed up, two young girls and Ronald’s mother showed up a bit later. We sang kids songs, played some games. We told them David and Goliath story. We did a call, and then prayed to finish. I talked with Ronald’s mother and she agreed with the idea of Ronald going to the Nasca training.
On Saturday 17th, we set out to Ccolpabamba. We passed Collahuacho and then arrived to Lacaya, rested a bit and departed. After more or less 4 hours walk we met two kids and they told us that we were not so far away from our destination. And so it was, we finally made it and saw the houses spread on the hills but there is a small school and few houses around. We met a lady; she has three kids and lives with her brother which is a bit retarded. She told Ivan she is a believer. After some rest we went on looking for those kids we had met and couldn’t find their house. We had to go back and on the distance we saw little mountains and little tiny wee towns, they told us it would take us ten hours walk to go there. They do not belong to Incuyo but To Paca Pauza. We decided to visit some houses on our way back; we got to this house after hiking a bit and met a man 95 years old living with two young couples. They gave us some corn juice and we shared the word with them, after we prayed for them, we set out. We tried to visit more houses but none answered to our calls. We made our decision and followed the trail taking us to the longer path, it was pretty scary and arrived to a sort of ghost town, and they told us it was Picchica afterwards. So then we walked by faith and not by sight since the road was dark, pretty dark we couldn’t see what was ahead of us. Thanks God we made it to Lacaya and looked for a place to stay the night, no body wanted to receive us so we went to the town square and started to make our sleeping bags right there on the open air next to the catholic church. When we were sleeping , a man showed up and said out loud, what, but what the heck are you doing here?, we thought he was gonna kick us out, but he invited us over his house and gave us blankets and we stayed the night there.
Next day we met an old lady around 90 years old, she invited us to her house and we met her husband and some of their kids. They showed very strong roots on Catholicism. Then we went on looking for Fausto, he is a believer that usually works in Incuyo. So we found them and went over his house. He has three kids with his actual wife. We shared with in the lunch time and then went to the soccer field, we sat there for a while , there were lots of people there when some drunk men started to bother us so we left. On our way to Incuyo we met Mrs Nora, a very neat person, she is catholic and we made arrangements for a movie night for next Saturday. Back in Incuyo we visited Mrs. Justa, she is always polite and kinds to us, we prayed for her and her mother.
On Monday 19th we visited Cayarac, we did Noah’ story and played some games with the kids. Went back to Incuyo and set the stuff for tonight’s Bible study. That night we just realized how important it is to spend more time in Incuyo and time with them.
On Tuesday 20th we went to Salla-Salla, got to the primary school and found the teacher, he showed lots of politeness and interest. He tried to help us to find an extension cord since the school didn’t have installed electricity. We couldn’t make it happen and so we went back to Incuyo.
By the afternoon we got a chance to meet Cayarac’s teacher’s wife. She invited us into her store; we were a bit hesitant but ended up sharing with her and praying for her family. A curious thing happened when people wanted to buy liquor or alcohol; she denied to have any. basically kicked them out. She invited us to come to the “night school” , we said ok.
We showed up at 7pm and were told to come back in 30 minutes. We did come back and had an overwhelming and sad experience; they told us these kids work during the day and study at night. That night some of the kids were missing because they had gone to somewhere with the town’s priest. We did a Bible story with the rest of the kids and some songs too.
On Wednesday 21st we visited Untuco’ school. The kids were very happy and exited and learned the songs and movements pretty fast. The teachers helped us to find a TV and we watched God’s story. We prayed for them and saw the man teacher very deeply moved. We walked to Yuracchasi and met Constanza, we had a Bible time together and had lunch. She does show humbleness and lots of interest towards the Word, we also got to share with some kids. We tried to go to Oscuyo on foot and we couldn’t make it since we had to turn and come back to be on time to Collahuacho’s meeting. Several kids showed up and we played, sang and told a story. Rudy and Sindy came with us.
The next day we went to visit Rudy’s family on the fields, they have got cows and we even got to milk some, showing our lack of skills with cows we passed to sit down and share with the other ladies milking along with Rudy’s.
Today was chosen to have movie time in Lacaya , so we showed up there and made announcements on the speakers, met Fausto and told him of the movie, then went to Nora’s to take the equipment to The catholic room where we were gonna have our video night. We gave a call and no hands rose up. We prayed for them and headed back home. On Sunday 25th we had our arrangements to watch a movie at EL Piloto. We had around 20 people and we prayed for them. We left to Nasca and no one could come with us.
There in Nasca Brad Broggen and Christine Seay did a very neat theme, True loves wait. We thought on our teens and how it would have been neat if they would have been part of it.
We made it back to Incuyo on Saturday 1St. The next day we went to the school and spent time with high school students; we helped them to paint the classrooms. We met Liliana, one of their teachers. On the next days we tried to visit our people, we went to Nieve’s and Mrs Delia. One day as we walked towards the restaurant, we saw two guys sitting playing guitar, we sat next to them and introduced ourselves. After a while they told us they had to go to the school and so we went with them, we helped to continue fixing their classrooms. And so we spent lots of time with the students at school where we could share whoever was interested in.
A thing that I saw is the Peruvian education is not a good one. By that I mean, teachers are quite lazy as well as the students. By the way, we helped to build something like a garden. We are trying to be with them. It’s probably going to be impossible to exactly be one of them but there we are trying.
We went to Coyahuacho last night. I rode a bike it was pretty fun. I wish we had two bikes. We sang, played and imparted Joseph’ story. Ivan gave the movie “Punto y Aparte” to Yenny. She’s got this store and a TV + DVD player so when we arrived to Coyahuacho they were watching it.
On Thursday 6th we watched a video the same one referred above. People liked it a lot. It had a good message to share. We spent some time with Rony, he is way different than Ronald. While the first one is kinda like more liberal and open. Ronald tends to be more quite and conservative. Our two weeks left are passing by in a blink. Cindy and Rudy are the most important girls that we think should be discipled. It’s a thing of time, Ronald, Rony, Cindy and Rudy need to be based in God’s word. What we like is to sow the seeds in those kids. We had forgotten to add that we played for two consecutives nights with the kids on the streets.
We also visited the night school, the first night only three kids were present, the second one only two.
We have different ways to think but everything is a matter of sitting down, talking and more talking. We are doing a radio program on Wednesdays and Saturdays. We like the idea of sharing God’s word through the music and our Bible reading.
Wednesday 12th Dec 07
Last night we had our first night of Bible studies discipleship with Rudy and Cindy plus Jorge. They were pretty interested and focused. We had it at Rudy’ store. It was just neat to have the time of reading the word. In despite of Rudy’s business. She had to attend everyone that would come into the store to get stuff.
Rudy showed interest and we are spending more time on our prayers for these teenagers. We also went to the school; we need more methods and strategies to teach those Bible stories. We went to the night school right after we had our time at Rudy’s. We sang and read David’ story. It touched our hearts to see this little kid about 7 years old named Emanuel who has to study at night and work at day. Time flies when you are having fun. We have been helping at the restaurant too.
Here next to us is Rony reading True love waits. Last night we had a neat night in Collahuacho. We sang with the kids and Jesus crucifixion was expounded. We had it at Yenny’s mother’ store, Isabel. The crazy thing was that we rode bikes back and forth to Collahuacho. I just fell once on the way back. It was pretty crazy to ride for Jesus and we loved it. Today we are riding to Untuco. So, we rode bikes to Untuco it was actually pretty hard. We are not used to this sort of altitude. We made it only to Yurachuasi. We spent a good time with Constanza we ate crakers, tuna fish and mayonnaise and to wash it down we had FrutyCid which is by no means better than Kiwifresh. We read the Bible and prayed. Rony came us , we rode in the rain, it was neat, and crazy and scary and everything. We were soaking wet, I broke Rony’s bike, my bike, it seems that bikes don’t like me. We finally made it back to El Piloto and warmed up. Changed clothes and then we ate.
Next day, Sunday. The bikes were taken to the man who knows how to fix them. He actually did a good job. We spent almost 45 soles to get them repaired. It was all worth it. Then we peaced out to Oscuyo. Our last annex. It took us more than 2 hours ride. We made it and shared God’s word with some catholics and gave Ivan’s Bible away. We saw the border with Pullo. It’s just super big. We came back, we were tired, we ate and chilled till late afternoon, we saw a Christian video with some people.
Let’s write about the Mrs Ildas beliefs . It’s pretty awesome to see her growing in Christ. She was discussing with her daughters at breakfast time telling them that she doesn’t believe in idols. That’s just neat. But still the fact of old ways, by that I mean how she was taught and how she learnt it. She still makes the catholic reverence “percirnarce” It just made think that in this way she may probably had been brought up. To understand her ways and the people in this area, since they have different believes, like nature, they believe if you travel alone by night on the roads in the high mountains you could be eaten by these mountains. They believe in times of cloudy seasons. A cloud is able to take you in the way of showing you the path even making you see things that are not there, that are pleasant to your eyes like flowers and good paths, but the end it’s the taken of your body by this cloud.
They also believe that if you sweep the floor at night you will loose customers or it will bring bad luck. Cultural variety is a very important fact to be taken into account and also to be studied and respected. In that way you may be able be closer to them and actually become one of them for God’s kingdom.
We went to the night school by the last time. This time Pio and Elizabeth plus were present. The two teachers Ofelia and Delia accepted Christ. Ivan did the call and praise be God almighty. Tomorrow Pastor Jose from Nasca is coming.
We met this young lady named Rocio, she likes to dance a lot. We asked her who taught her and she said. She always knew it. Another cultural fact. I actually don’t think that this dances have any relation with satanic things but with local believes, local customs and ways of living and expressing art.
People believe in idols, they think that these idols would be helpers in times of trouble. Each town has its own type of Idol. They celebrate its birthday or anniversary on a specific day, dancing drinking, eating and having different activities.
Thursday 20th Dec 07
Yesterday morning two girls came in. Ruth and Keylee. They are from Nasca Baptist Church.. They are cool, they love kids and so we went with them to the school and did sort of a show. It turned out to be very neat. We did their songs and ours. Ruth knew a couple of games. Ruth also did the story about a chicken and a duck. Kids like to play. It’s very hard to keep them focused on the story. There should be some ideas and methods. The one that I come up with now is the group questioning. Maybe some gestures along with the story, and the personal questioning. The kids we interacted with were from 7 – 8 years old. 2nd grade school. Music is also involved; we can’t deny that the music along with the people dancing and leading them is a very important factor to get them.
We had lunch together and after that we went to the radio. We all led the program and it was very neat. Nieves came in while we were right there and it was a surprise for her to see all of us sitting there. We all said “hi Nieves” and the new people were introduced. Right after that we went back to the restaurant and took some stuff to the video night in Collahuacho. There we were the two Nasca Girls plus Rony and I walking pretty slow to Collahuacho. Ivan rode a bike and was pretty impatient since we stopped lots of times to rest .We finally made it to our place and started looking around for Ronald or Ivan. Later we found out they had been playing soccer.
So there were already some kids waiting for the movie. There were three rows of kids sitting on beers boxes and pop boxes. It seems that they liked the movie a lot, even though there were times when they yawned, got very restless and got unfocused. We bought crackers and Yenny served us in a nice way. We prayed after the movie and thanks God they all saw and heard God’s word. We walked all the way back to Incuyo.
Next day we all woke up early, Thursday morning. Pastor Jose plus two guys were coming and we were very exited. We were having breakfast at the table when suddenly they showed up; by this time we were having bread peanut butter and jam. They also had some old cheese along with it. And so we talked and shared and got close to each other very quickly.
We all rehearsed according to our agreement of doing clowns at our last classroom by classroom presentation at the primary school. After that we went to make it happen, people looked at us while some crazy, freaks, ridiculous people dressed up as clowns left the restaurant and headed to the school. While we were there we had to wait 5 minutes because the teacher was having something else going on.
Then we got into the class and had a blast dancing, singing and telling them Bible stories. We also invited them to the show in the afternoon at the Medical Center. We ate and made our afternoon’s program. We all dressed up even Rony. He’s got a gift, he was so fun. Even though we had our show on the open air, inside the hospital and then our Bible story in the hall where everyone waits to be attended, it all went ok. We didn’t have our movie night because of the rain and the lack of people. So we had supper and then waited for a service night we started pretty late, Teobaldo “balduka” was with us plus Norma a child. Mrs Ilda and her daughter were present as well as in almost every service since we got to Incuyo. Pastor Jose gave us a small meditation based on the word.Today is Friday 21st , We set out to Yuracchuasi and talked to our sister Constanza. We ate tuna fish and bread. We had a prayer time with Constanza. The bus showed up, Nasca Team left and we headed back to Colloni, we gave two Bibles away in this town. Jessica the owner of the store, the one who is at the end of the town right where Rosalia shepherds the flock, got one. And so did Jessica’s aunt Rosa which looked or seemed very interested in learning more, we prayed for both of them. When we got to Incuyo Ronald and Rony were not there and for the night video only five people showed up. We didn’t have hot chocolate as we planned, we just gave three little fruit cakes to each attendant and so we were done.
Saturday 22nd, We woke up at 3:30 am, dressed and headed to Collahuacho. We got there at about 5 am and headed to fish. We had a short by neat devotional time plus some fruit cake for breakfast and started to fish. I guess the pictures would give a better prescription of their fishing style. We got about 40 big trout plus about 100 small ones; we also got to go to a small hot water pond. Ronald, Ivan, Rony and Michael took a bath; I didn’t since water was so hot. They fished and we just helped them carrying the fish in bags. And so we were done, sat down and opened a fire to cook some trout with a bit of salt Michael very wisely had brough. It was actually very delicious. We got to Collahuacho and got into Ronald’s house, talked a bit, greeted his mom and left to Incuyo. We had fried trout for that night’s dinner. We blessed Ronald as God had blessed us and it was a great joy to give him all we could. Next day we visited some people in the morning, gave some tracks away and said good bye to some people and then left On Sunday 23th Dec.