A Kiss from Scripture

If you want to see an example of Christ and scripture that is alive and well, please don’t look at me, take a look at the story of our encounter with The People of Canchamana.

Thursday morning we arrived at the resting place of the Canchamana farmers. We greeted them and explained our intentions. We wanted to live with them, experience their lives, hear their stories and help where we can. My expectation was that they would be hesitant or would question our motives. My expectations were shattered within seconds as faces lit up and there were shouts and jumps of joy and excitement! It was their pleasure and honor to have us stay with them. They immediately showed us where we could set up our tents. Right away my heart was humbled, the reason I had that expectation was because that would have been my response if someone had shown up on my front doorstep. To be honest, my first thought would be to turn them away thinking they must be crazy to think I would open my house on the spot for a stranger.
They walked us through the cow field and showed us our spot.
As we were setting up tents, many people had gathered and 10 minutes later they constructed a shelter for us so that we would not fry in the sun. Again, humbled and overwhelmed. I have never felt so loved by someone who knows nothing about me. They gave what little material they had to protect us from the elements and they did it with joy. Again, being honest I am seeing how selfish I am, my thoughts would be how can I get around giving them my last materials, they should provide for themselves, right? wow, am I often so wrong.

Interestingly enough, we didn’t plan our food situation very well, and when it was brought up we said that we would only accept dinner from them (as to not be a burden) and we would take care of breakfast and lunch. The Lord knew we did not have the means for getting food, ( I don’t know what we were thinking!) so to our surprise He had the families bring us all meals regardless of what we had agreed. It was a beautiful moment when we all sat under the canopy starving, and food arrived. In this moment I understood the meaning of completely depending on God for the bare minimum and watch Him joyfully and abundantly provide. We were served many things including fruit, goat cheese and bread with tea, fried goat cheese on bread with hot, sweet milk, potatoes with cheese sauce, chicken, noodles, soup, etc. We blessed any parasites and ate till our hearts were content!

We had the opportunity to share in some farming tasks. Mainly milking the goats and cows because we didn’t really have what it takes to do the other chores such as waking at 4 am to walk 2 hours with the donkeys to collect grass for a couple hours and then a 2 hour walk back. Milking the animals was stretching enough. Matt found muscles that have never been worked before and I had to work on my aim, I often missed the bucket soaking my foot with hot milk. We found that it truly is a form of art, and we had far to go. The women of Canchamana had intense forearms from a lifetime of pulling and squeezing! We also had moments of playing with the children. Gretchen and I started a game of Duck, Duck, Goose which turned out to be “super” duck, duck, goose due to a slight communication error. Instead of the goose chasing the person around the circle, they would often chase them around the field until they were caught, no explanation could stop the chase, it was precious.

Day two, I had the best “good morning” ever! I rolled over to see that 2 little boys had crawled under my tent door and were sitting under my vestibule waiting for me to wake up. All I could do was laugh. What innocent hearts they have.

We got dressed and took them to the beach, where they immediately stripped naked and went swimming. Like I said, pure innocent, simple living. While we relaxed on the beach, we took time to listen to the Lord and ask Him what He would have us do for this group of people? What answer could we bring to them for their unstable situation? We all heard the same voice that said to simply be among them. I think we struggled a bit with what that really meant and looked like. I mean aren’t we missionaries? With resources and intelligent answers to complicated questions? Ha… haha. Who ever defined a missionary anyway? God simply wanted us to befriend them and have fun with them. So we did.

I spent some time in the afternoon talking with the locals, and exploring the area. I met a family who grows a type of cane plant and weave baskets with it.

We spent quite a bit of time just watching the people hard at work.

I have learned the skill of making goat cheese. It takes 2 days and then can be sold at a local market.