14 years later...

I’ve been intending to visit Cusco for a while - partly as generally finding my way around the area and learning about culture and history, partly to meet a local community development NGO, and partly to get to know a couple from the UK who are based there with Latin Link.

I stayed in the same hotel as 14 years ago, with views over the city... I hadn’t planned on it but when I was looking for somewhere on the internet I saw a photo that jogged my memory

I spent a day waiting to hear from the NGO (they had just moved to a new office and so hadn’t got my email saying “I’ll come on Thursday”) - so in between ringing them up, I did some sightseeing.  It was very strange, but very lovely, to be in Cusco again after having visited 14 years ago.

My bus tour included a trip to an alpaca wool shop.  These are some of the different materials used to dye wool, including quinoa and cochineal.

The meeting eventually did happen on the Friday.  I was so glad I had come, because it was a very helpful and encouraging meeting.  They have been working in Peru for about 20 years, starting off in Cusco but expanding to other regions and applying lessons learnt between the areas.  They have a representative in the government office in Abancay, and a pilot project in Apurímac that I am hoping to go and visit.  They’ve also given me some teaching materials they used in the past, training people in development and management.

Then I spent a day with the family from the UK.  They hosted a kids’ cell group (basically a Sunday school) which was fun to help with, finished an improvised go-kart and took it down the road outside the house with increasing speed and volume (which was fun to watch, and be involved in discussions for its improvement!). 

We also went on a “nature walk”, which they do most Saturdays with another expat family and any others from the local area who want to come.  We walked up to a lake, where the kids fished for tadpoles and made friends with a donkey, while the adults sat and drank coffee out of flasks in the rain.  It felt very English! 

We did also overturn various stones on the way back looking for scorpions - not so English - but only found some interesting spiders and a very speedy lizard (too quick for a photo).

Belated birthday treat

The week after the SLC, I stayed in Lima, aiming to sort out various things like a bank account and progress with the registration of my degree.  I spent a considerable time on both, and both were in some measure unsuccessful - although I did learn a lot about how to get them both sorted out eventually!

I also had my long-awaited birthday treat - I’d been sent money with specific instructions to spend it on something fun!

Spiritual Life Conference

(I took none of these photos, all are from various members of the team - thanks guys!)

Every year the SIM Peru team comes together to the coast near Lima for a Spiritual Life Conference.  For me, this year, it was a chance to meet the rest of the team, enjoy time living with lots of people around, and have some distance from Abancay after my first month to review my time there so far.  It was also lovely to see people from the Lima team again after spending a couple of months with them when I arrived. It was also quite nice to have a week in English.

 

 Here I am with Mary (she does the prison ministry, and has been a great blessing to me from the beginning).  I have just got off the 17-hour Abancay-Lima bus and onto the bus to the conference in Kawai - I think I look remarkably awake!    &   Sunset over Kawai (which is quechua for “look”).

Despite the long journey I did feel full of beans when I arrived - maybe because my body is now used to the Abancay altitude so being at sea level made it really easy for my body to do its job.  We had a ‘Race to the Rocks’ on one morning - a 7km run across the bay and back, between 2 headlands.  I planned to run about half and walk the rest, but when it came to it I found I could keep going.  It’s the furthest I’ve ever run and certainly not the most I’ve ever ached… another great result of coming down from altitude!

Race to the Rocks - the starting lineup & our director and running enthusiast giving out ice cream vouchers for the finishers.

I have been feeling like a minority as the only English person among lots of USA missionaries in Lima and Abancay - it was great at the conference to meet Canadians, Australians, South Africans, Germans, Swiss and South Koreans.  I’m still the only English person but there’s so much more variety in the team than I had realised.  One of sessions was on how, with all our differences, we can resolve conflicts well.  Here we all are…

Most of each day we spent in teaching sessions, going through the whole Bible “from about 10,000 feet” - so looking at the big picture.  It was great to look again at this overarching story, and to think on the fact that, although the beginning and end and most of the middle are written, we are the ones who live the penultimate chapter… so how are we going to do this?

And there was all sorts of fun on the beach - water balloon games, “dizzy astronaut” (you hold a paddle up in the air, look at the top and spin round 10 times - running back to your team afterwards is a hilarious experience for all spectators), and sandcastles.

Food, fun and fireworks

It wasn't quite my first Christmas away from home, as I was in Ecuador 5 years ago.  But certainly a very different Christmas celebration.  The "season" is a lot shorter here, with banks and so on putting up decorations about a week before, and just the one public holiday (25th), which is generally all people take off work.  It's a very family-focused day with lots of people travelling back to where their parents live, for a Christmas dinner at midnight. And there's plentiful paneton and hot chocolate over the week.

So with all of the family-focus, it was great to be a skype guest at 2 of my sisters' houses over the days around Christmas as well and so see all of my family.  Also as Psalm 68 says "God sets the lonely in families" and I never really had a chance to be lonely because he has given me so many families to be part of here. 

Christmas Day: Erin and Brendan (the other SIM missionaries here) came with Oliver for Christmas dinner.  Oliver was entralled by my juggling skills.  I was far more impressed by my Christmas cake complete with homemade marzipan.

 

and New Year: the church I've been visiting had an indoor barbeque (yes the weather's warm but there was a thunderstorm) and then at midnight we all got down on our knees and prayed for Abancay.  What a wonderful way to start the year!

 

Lots of people let of fireworks in their gardens, in the streets... though sometimes this is slightly worrying it does make for a beautiful display from the 3rd floor.  I thought the fireworks made a good metaphor for us in our lives - we are small and boring and insignificant until the flame comes - then we are lit up and become so much bigger and noisier and brighter than we could ever imagine being on our own - and the light and the joy spreads through us to so many people!  It's great to know that God transforms us like this - and that this is what we are made for.