To Chivay and Back

Perhaps the most apt way to describe this past weekend would be to call it a time of “highs and lows”. We temporarily departed our lodging in Arequipa for a three-night trip to Chivay.

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Friday

We took our time heading up to Chivay, which sits in the Andes mountains at about 12,000 ft. above sea level. Arequipa has only been 7-8,000 ft. so this was a significant increase for our team. Not only that but to reach our destination our bus actually had to drive through the mountains up to an altitude of 16,000 ft. To say that altitude sickness was a concern was to state the obvious. The first two hours of our journey was relatively smooth, with few windy roads and not much of an elevation change. At about the halfway point our team took a lunch break at a small oasis. This locale also served Inca Tea, which is considered to be a great preventative measure against altitude sickness, so we bought a round for the team. Upon returning to the bus we all downed a dramamine in anticipation of the uphill climb we were about to endure. We did stop briefly at 16,000 ft. for photo ops but then continued on our way. A couple of team members did struggle with some sickness this first night, but nothing too severe.

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Saturday

Unfortunately the altitude sickness did claim a few more victims overnight. This was our ministry day so it was difficult to lose members of our team to illness and members of our leadership to care for them, but I suppose this is what the Colca region does to us gringos. After spending the morning in quiet times most of our team traveled to nearby Yanque for some simple ministry, the sort we can easily bring back home with us. Our missionary friend Armond and his team drove up from Arequipa to spend the day working with us, and he taught us something he likes to call Secret Christian. It’s very simple. You take a handful of gospel tracts with you and you go about your day. You walk around praying for people you see and the community that you are in, and asking God where exactly you are meant to leave these tracts. Perhaps He directs you to engage in an outright evangelistic conversation with someone but maybe not. Just be faithful in prayer and following His leading. We did this for about an hour. We walked in and out of many tiendas (or local corner shops) and left tracts all over this community, stuck to coke bottles and inside fruits bins, hidden in birthday gift bags and inside a package of diapers!

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Our afternoon looked very different. We split the team three ways: a group of 6 stayed in Chivay for local outreach, a group of 8 traveled up to the village of Canacota about a half hour north of our hotel to host a VBS, and Molly and I stayed back with our sick friends. I’ll tell you, as the trip leader it is not a good feeling sitting out of ministry when I’m perfectly healthy and ready to go… but it is a good reminder that God doesn’t need me. From everything I’ve been told, the team did an incredible job and there were some really great opportunities for these groups. The Chivay team went out and drummed up interest from the local youth to join them in the park for sports and a drama (very similar to what we did last week in Ciudad de Dios). They had about 25 kids and teenagers come hang out (which may not seem like a lot but our friend Armond’s jaw dropped at this number). Not only that, but this Royal Servants crew did an amazing job stepping up. They performed our Clocks drama but the thing is that due to key drama figures being sick only two of the five students had ever performed these roles before! According to Kara, who led this group, Lily and Airlie did an awesome job adapting and Nathan took on the Jesus role having never performed it before. This group was out for nearly 3.5 hours talking to students and sharing the Gospel.

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Our group in Canacota had a smaller turnout, with about seven kids and some parents showing up. But even this was a win. There had recently been some conflict in this village, with the local Catholic priest urging the mayor to prevent our team from coming. But during the VBS the mayor actually came around, welcoming our team and shaking their hands! We facilitated a small VBS which may have felt like a one-off event for our team but actually was a huge blessing to Amond’s group which has been making monthly visits from Arequipa in an effort to establish long term relationships there. Evelyn did an awesome job leading all of the VBS games (and doing significant translation for us!), Liam shared our Join the Story gospel tract from memory, and Soren told his personal testimony of how God helped calm the storms in his life.

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Sunday

This was our Culture & Heritage day; a day set aside for memorable cultural experiences and fun and rest. Most of our team’s sickness had subsided, but unfortunately Navarro and Noah were still bedridden and not doing too well. We allowed them and Molly (one of our leaders) to stay back all morning and recover. The rest of our team, however, awoke at 5.30am and left an hour later to head to Colca Canyon. This is a place of incredible and breathtaking views. Colca Canyon is the third deepest canyon in the world (nearly twice as deep as the Grand Canyon) and is home to many Andean Condors which is one of the largest flying birds in the world. Izzie in particular expressed a deep awe at the beauty of God's creation here.

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We returned to Chivay around 11.30 for lunch and took the entire team just down the road from our hotel to a lunch buffet. Their eyes grew bigger than their stomachs as they got to choose from countless Peruvian dishes including ceviche, rocoto relleno, chaufa, and cooked alpaca. Desserts included arroz con leche and small chocolate cakes (I think Caitlyn ate about 12 slices!) This is always a really fun meal for the team (and is one of my son's favorite things we do all summer).

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We concluded our Culture and Heritage day with a trip to the natural hot springs. Our sick folks were feeling much better at this point and I think the warm water also helped. Navarro went all in on the experience and even bought himself a flamingo floatie (which he dubbed Rango the Flamango!) It was fun to have the whole team together and to get to swim for the first time all summer! We spent about an hour and half at the springs before heading back to the hotel for the night. On Monday our team left Chivay and headed “home” to Arequipa for our final week of ministry.

Jack Becker

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