During our second week in Peru, my team had the unique opportunity to go into the jungle, about a thirteen-hour bus ride away from Lima, and work with an indigenous, mostly unreached people group in a community called Chiquibambilla. The village and the surrounding area were absolutely gorgeous, and the people there were beyond welcoming to our group.
Our hosts this month, Pablo and his wife Belen, are preparing to move there full time later in April, so our job was mainly to help prepare the way for them. This took the form of a lot of construction projects, painting, moving sand to mix concrete, and laying new sidewalks. Work was from early morning to dinnertime, which was absolutely exhausting, but so worth it.
While we were there, we lived on the missionary base that they had started three years ago to reach the community. This base included living quarters for visiting teams like ours (complete with several sets of bunkbeds in each one), a dining room/kitchen area, bathroom stalls and showers, with an attached area for doing laundry by hand, and an outdoor gazebo that they used for church services. The final piece to the base, which we worked a lot on, was Pablo and Belen’s new house. Up until now, there had been no permanent missionaries there.
Every evening, after the day’s work was finished, we all gathered in the church with anyone from the community that wanted to attend. It was mostly children, who were a ton of fun to play with and get to know, but several adults came each evening as well. Our team was responsible for the message every evening, which consisted of a skit from the Bible and a corresponding teaching. Among others, we did the Good Samaritan, which was a hit for everyone watching. I got the honor of playing the guy that got beat up.
One of my favorite moments of the week came when we got to visit the school one morning. We spent all morning visiting all of the classrooms in the elementary school and the high school, handing out donated school supplies to all of the students. Most of the children in the community come from families that are unable to afford the supplies we brought to them.
We were in this village working alongside another team from a missionary school in Lima, who just added to the experience as we got to know them and work with them. And of course, our incredible hosts, Pablo and Belen, were an absolute blessing to our team as well. I am so encouraged by them and their hearts for this community, and I’m so excited to share more about them with you later this week. One afternoon, I had the privilege of doing a photoshoot with them, as well as recording their testimony and vision on video. These are both coming up in my next post.
I could talk for a long time about this experience, but I feel like photos sum it up better than I could in words. As always, thank you for your prayers and support that allow me to have opportunities like this. I am forever grateful for each one of you.
