Steph in Peru: Llaulipata

Darren, Larry and Kyle have been working for the past few days on the 3rd story of the main ATEK building. I don't have a lot of updates and photos, but I know they were all happy to see the windows come on Wednesday morning giving them opportunity to start on the floors and perhaps finish some painting.

Kyle waving from the 3rd story

The guys have done some priming, painting, and the drop-ceiling

The windows were put in on Wednesday allowing the guys to get started on the floor

The plan was for Pastors Bill, Fredi and Eusabio, Milagros and I to leave ATEK at 9am on Wednesday. By the time we were heading out of Cusco it was 10:30. It seemed like a really slow start, with other various delays along the way, including a really long lunch and the discovery of a dead truck battery afterwards. We were told it would be a 6 hour trip.

Even though we were eager to get there, Pastor Fredi took the time to stop at a couple of interesting points of attraction for us to see up close. A mix of culture, tradition, and skills handed down generation to generation, the Queswachana Bridge is famous as a hand-made crossing that is still used today. The two communities on both sides of the river meet on a certain date each year in June to re-construct a new bridge from the long grasses that grow in the area. They still use the crossing each year, and can even take their livestock across it. This year, it was mal-constructed, with the bridge leaning sharply to one-side. I ventured a couple of steps onto it, but none of us were interesting in walking the whole length.

An ancient incan border crossing point

Famous bridge

Handmade bridge that has animal skins, sticks, and constructed from a certain kind of native grass

When we had left Cusco, the sun was burning hot. As we climbed the windy roads along mountain sides, the landscape changed to vast hillsides, hardly a tree to be seen. We saw alpacas and sheep. The homes are thatch-roofed adobes, most without electricity. The clouds started to circle in, growing darker, and it started raining and hailing. Pastor Fredi kept saying it was about an hour away. Around 6pm with only a little daylight left, we stopped in a town to leave some materials and Bibles from ATEK with the local Pastor there. More than an hour later we arrived to Livitaca. Well, we thought we had arrived to the final destination, but although we were actually to be working in the department of Livitaca, the final destination was still another hour away- the town of Llaulipata.

Windy roads head down to the valley and then up again to an altitude of over 4000 meters

While we had stopped for lunch, Pastor Fredi and Eusabio told us about some of the cultural traditions in the region of Livitaca. Here, the communities don't celebrate Christmas, however they have an annual holiday which is around the 25th of December. Two rivalling communities (and sometimes just members within one community) meet once a year- a day in which they can 'pay back' the wrongs done to them by other community members. They meet in a large field, and stand facing each other in a line. And then they throw stones and rocks at each other. This is done as an act of punishment to the wrongs committed, and done so in bravery. If a person dies, it is considered an honor, and a sign of good luck for the family for the following year. (Kind of brings The Hunger Games to life). This is a tradition that probably stemmed from the 1400's back in the reign of Tupac Amaru, which would have been like an exercise for the army, but evolved over the decades into involving all the community including women and children, and involves drinking and festivities today.

You can imagine, that Pastor Bill and I were a little uncertain as to what we were facing and the welcome we might receive, especially when we arrived to Llaulipata at 9pm in pouring rain, 10 hours after having left Cusco, and finally found our way to the church already half full of people settled down to sleep. We disrupted them somewhat, dragging in our wet belongings, and four of us settled into one end of the dirt-floor adobe church, while some of the people moved to sleep in the kitchen building.

The teaching session on Ephesians started the next morning at 8am, and the people were ready to start. There are only 6 pastors in the region of Livitaca, so many communities do not have Pastors yet. People from different communities came to hear Pastor Bill speak and teach in Ephesians, most travelling hours by foot, and one Pastor rode 4 hours on horse to get there. ATEK had arranged study booklets, which cost around 5 Soles for each registered person. There were 41 men and women who bought a booklet, and other family members who came to listen in on the teaching.

By our first break at 10:30, we were no longer worried about how the people would receive us as foreigners.
I sat with a group of women and they were eager to speak (in Spanish), to have their photos taken and to give me a hat and typical skirt to try on for a photo with them. The men, too, wanted Pastor Bill to try on a scarf and hat, helping us to feel accepted and welcome.

Registering for the conference

Eager to start, eager to learn

The lady on the right said she and her husband would like to see Canada

Resting in the sun during the first break

This lady was one of the most welcoming and warm to me, and had the light of Jesus shining in her eyes

Fitting in with the people

Milagros and I shared in translating. Most of the people in this region speak Spanish, but everything was still translated into Quechua, and the workbooks and Bibles we brought were in Quechua. The people who didn't have a Bible were eager to have one and very thankful and excited that they were offered as a gift on behalf of BCEF. That evening they had a service at 7pm, the worship which was a real blessing to me.

I wish I had captured this man's face when he realised the Bible he'd asked for was a free gift. He said "For real, Pastor!?"

Two men looking over the content of the study together

During a break outside of the little Llaulipata Evangelical Church of Peru

A joy-filled evening worship service

Here's a short clip I took during one of their worship songs. (The church was lit by two small lanterns, so the video is not good.) Worship in Llaulipata

Llaulipata is a community of 80 families (Huanca Huanca is represented by 60). ATEK's increasing involvement in this region will include training up the people to become pastors, training pastor's wives, starting youth and children's ministries, and continuing to build churches. Although they are located much further from Cusco, this community seems to have more money, being more adept at trading and selling their goods. They had more modern clothing, and mostly wear shoes as opposed to the rubber-tire sandals worn by the Quechua. However, I was still surprised that they don't have electricity yet (although the poles and wires have been put in recently). There are no real roads made to their community yet, and they don't use toilets. (Thanks to Walter for supplying the dry toilet for us!) Only a couple of years ago the teams from ATEK (including Ben) actually walked far distances to get to this community. They still walk in to other communities where they are beginning to have involvement where there are no access roads.

The people live off of a simple diet, mostly producing potatoes and chuño (the blackened freeze-dried potatoes that can be stored for months). For this conference, and other similar gatherings, each community contributes food for the time, and some of the local ladies are appointed to prepare all of the meals. We ate soups and stews that they prepared, as well as small breads that they make locally in an adobe oven. In this community the men helped serve; the women are served first, then the men, and then the children who waited so patiently.

Men serving the dinner

Children in Llaulipata

A child waits patiently for his meal

We had hoped to leave around mid-day on Friday after finishing the teaching, but it ended up being around 3pm when the truck was all packed and ready to go. We thought we had said our good-byes and were ready to depart, when the truck wouldn't start. The battery. And not a single vehicle, other than motorcycles, in the area.
Pastor Fredi had parked facing down an incline, so he hoped he could jump start it that way. It didn't work. He called for the men still at the church to come help, so with some pushing and pulling, they got the truck to the top of the next hill. Again, it didn't work. We pushed and pulled the truck uphill to the next high spot. And, it worked!

Finally, we were off. As we left the village and passed through many more, almost everyone we saw were drunk, celebrating some festivity, stumbling along the road-sides, even falling off motorcycles.

We took a different route home, and were back to ATEK in 6 hours, rather than 10. I was happy to get back to my hubby, a warm shower, and a good night's sleep in bed! But, I will never forget the faces of Livitaca, their hospitality or their eagerness to grow in God's way.