Last weekend

My last weekend in Peru was a really special time, i took a trip to the beach a few miles from Lima with some of my new friends, and enjoyed the fantastic sunshine (it was a hot one) and great waves of the beach there. We had a great day playing around and then went back to the house and were joined by most of the youth group who came to wish me off, we had a special time where i shared with them some of my experiences in Peru and some of the things i had felt God had been teaching me. They all prayed for me and my future
it was a great feeling to be part of that environment and to in such a short time feel like i had been so accepted as part of that family, something i shared with the church the next morning.

It seems amazing to me that as a Christian it seems no matter where i go there is always a part of my family already there. It is a hard thing to describe to people who haven't experienced that before. But having a common love for God no matter how different your experience, culture and lifestyle are you have a real connection. The Christian faith, and love of God seems to cut through and cross over barriers of language, culture and ethnicity.

I had a great time in Peru with some of my most memorable experiences and was lucky enough to spend time with some great people who really looked after me so much, and despite the warnings i managed a month in South America without getting sick. I'm sure when i have opportunity to stop and reflect more i will realise even more things i have learnt but for now i'm on the move again and as Will Smith would say its time to "Party in the city where the heat is on, All night on the beach till the break of dawn, Welcome to miami, I'm going to Miami."

Cuzco and Macchu Picchu - day 3

My last full day was a tour of some of the less well known Inca sites in the Sacred Valley but despite not being so well known they were still amazing. I was lucky enough top meet up with some firends i had met on the first day. Eddy and Jen who were enjoying there honeymoon.
We wandered the different sites learning about the way the Inca's used their terraces for farming

and how organised they were and the ways they channelled the water and buried there did whilst still being totally amazed at the shear scale of everything. One of the most impressive things we saw was a huge sculpted face about the height of a 5 story building carved into the face of the mountain. Unfortunately you couldn't really make it out in the photos, what you can make out is one of the may incredible rainbows that we saw there in the valley.

We also went and saw some women who dyed and wove the fabrics to make the millions of different cloths that we had seen around.

In the evening i saw the other side of Cuzco

when one of the local girls i had met took me out around the town. We enjoyed a few of the local bars, sampled some of the local drinks and enjoyed a Salsa club, man they sure can dance here.
It was a great way to finish what had been an unforgettable last few years and whilst i'm not looking forward to being back in the ugly city of Lima i am missing the heat, i never did like wearing trousers.

Cuzco and Macchu Picchu - day 2

The next day was my big day heading up to Macchu Picchu an Incan town built for the rich and the royalty up in the mountains, actually much lower than Cuzco but to English people very high up. As it is so far out in the middle of nowhere the Spanish never discovered it and so other than a bit of occasional earthquake damage and very slight erosion its almost perfectly intact. My day began very early with a 5:30 pick up in the cold and rain. The air felt very thin as i met up with my bus party in the centre of Cuzco. The bus then followed the mountain roads away from the city and down into the Urubamba valley that the Inca's called the sacred valley (everything was sacred to them). We kept going for about an hour and a half until we reached a large town located by the enormous river - looked like a lot of fun for white water rafting.
We got off the bus and joined the next leg of our journey an hour and a half train ride to a town called Aguas Calientes (Named after the hot water streams located there). The last leg of the journey was then a coach up the mountain. The road up was pretty unbelievable we must have zigzagged across it about 10 times

before we finally reached the summit just in time for the sun to come out as we looked out on the incredible views that lay before us.

The city was absolutely incredible but unlike my photos show was absolutely crawling with tourists. I still find the tour bus way of life very strange, so many people didn't seem to care what was around them and just wanted a picture to proove they were there. We followed a guide around and it was like a conveyor belt where he described a part of the city and then 1 at a time people went and stood there and had a picture then the next. I had heard you could climb the mountain that you see in the background of the pictures of the city. So i asked the guide and he said they only let 400 people up a day and that it is quite a difficult and steep climb. The last entry for this was at 1 and so to go up i had to leave the tour. When i walked top the other side of the town there was a point to register for the track and i was number 391 so just made it. I began climbing up with a french girl i had met who was also going up on her own so we went up nice and slowly at her pace, it was funny seeing everyone coming back down covered in sweat as it was by now pretty hot and the air up there was very thin. The climb was nearly all steps but very steep indeed and the views out over the city and the valleys were even better up there
and it wasnt crawling with people and those up there were really up there to enjoy the place. I talked with a lot of people at various points up the path and enjoyed a bit of climbing (cant help it, surely thats what rocks are for).

Then right on the top i got comfy and just enjoyed the sun and without suncream coz when i had left it had been so cold and miserable i ended up with a bit of a red face which was pretty good going for there wet season. Stayed up there with a girl from Texas until we were the last 2 there and a person came up and told us we had to go back down, guess he must be fit doing that trip every day.

Then came the long walk down and i enjoyed the chance to wander the city which was by now much less busy and i tagged along with various tours i heard in English whilst searching out caves and animals. It had been an incredible day and as i took the first bus back down on my journey back to Cuzco the heavens opened again for another impressive storm.

Cuzco and Macchu Picchu

I arrived in Cuzco just over an hours flight from Lima. The city is located about 3500m above sea level and sometimes people get pretty bad reactions of altitude sickness.

When i landed it was cold and i could feel the air was really thin, it kind of made you feel like you were out of breath due to exercise even though you were just sat around, it was odd. I was met at the airport by Julio who was going to be my guide for the next few days, he was studying Tourism at uni, its the biggest business in that area by miles and that combined with his english is very good for someone from Cuzco. He was very kind and helpful and lots of fun.

I got to my hostel, put on some more clothes and had some Coca tea (not a drug but the same plant as cocaine comes from i think). Its supposed to help with the altitude sickness but i was jsut glad to have a warm drink to warm me up (think i'm going soft).

After lunch i was picked up again and taken around the city and some archaelogical sites close by

Coricancha (Temple of the Sun)

Sacsayhuaman - pronounced (by me anyway) Sexywoman.

The Cathedral

All the sites were Incan Historical sites used for various differnt reasons, from worhip to decoration, to living in. For the Incans everything was a God, the land, the rocks, the river, the mountains but at the top of the God's was the Sun God. This all changed when the Spanish arrived and forced people to become Catholic, so now there are in Cuzco a reeal mix of Incan things and Catholic things. At the Temple of the sun most things had been destroyed by the Spanish who then used the rocks to build there church as a sign of destroying what they saw as pagan beliefs. This has lead to some interesting mixtures in things including in the cathedral a Peruvian last supper painting, with references on it of the sun and the moon and mountains as well as Jesus and his disciples all eating Peruvian food including their most famous dish, roasted guinea pig.

The other sites up in the mountains were just incredible as some of the rocks could weigh hundreds of tons and had been transported by pure human muscle and brain power, the pics really cant show how amazing this looked.

Finally we visited a shop where they showed us the famous alpacca furs and clothes and we got to enjoy yet more Coca tea.

The French woman

For those of you who are fans of the series Lost. You will remember the crazy french woman that the characters met in the jungle. Well i met my own. Ok she wasn't actually crazy, but she had had an amazing story. At present she is living in Pucallpa and is part of the church that Mark and i visited.

When we arrived i did notice her because she had much lighter skin and hair than the others but she spoke Spanish and i hadn't realise that she wasn't a local.

Later i introduced myself to her and she told me she could speak English which was helpful. On one of the walks between Jungle villages we went to, we had a long talk, more memorable than the many short talks i had in my limited Spanish with the rest of the group. During this time she told me her story. It's amazing the people you meet around the world.

She had grown up just outside Paris and had told me how she hadalways had this part of her that believed in God, a higher power or something she couldn't explain and even though she wasn't from a religious family she really felt there was something out there. So when she got older she decided to travel the world to in her words "find God". SHe lived with Buddhists Monks in Nepal, spent time with Muslims in India and other tribla religions all of which i can't recall in the hope that she would "find God". She had heard about a hallucinagenic drug that is famous in this particular area of the jungle in Peru so she had come to Peru to try this. The reputation of the drug is that people can hgave dreams and visions and speak to God. So she arrived and met with the Shaaman - like a kind of witch doctor and she began taking the drug. she explained to me that whilst others had good dreams she would have these visions and see these evil spirits and demons around her, this kept getting worse and worse so that even when she wasn't on the drug the demons would still be on her. She had heard that Churches have exorcists and tried to find out about going to see a Catholic Priest, she then met someone who new about the Church Mark and I had been speaking at and she had gone to the church and the Prayer team and Patsors who we visited the jungle with payed for asll night that she would be released from these demons and dreams and that night she described herself as feeling closer to God than ever before and all those Demons she flet on her, all the images in her head disappeared and have not been back since. That night she became a Christian and all this had happened about 3 months befpre i met her, she was one of the most passionate, prayerful people i have ever met and she says every day she just wants to spend time with God learning more about him and coming closer to him. So that is my French Woman, its crazy the people and stories you'll find in the Jungle. What next i wonder?

Pucuallpa

Mark and I headed to a jungle town called Pucallpa an hours flight north of Lima. We got of the plane and met up with a friend of Mark's called Hoseas and we walked round the corner to the Church we were staying at.

Pucallpa is a large town that is pretty poor compared to Lima, the airport and area we were staying in was on the edge of town. As we walk through the streets they aren't paved and the big holes in the roads are full of puddles from the last rain shower they had. The houses are poorly made, mainly of wood and corrugated iron but as we walk around the corner and see the church we are shocked that the church is both massive and brand new and would look not look out of place anywhere in the UK.

We get there and put our bags in the small flat the church has built for guests and visiting speakers and we head out for a tour of the city. The main roads are paved and are covered with Motortaxis which are small motorbikes with a cabin that fits 3 in the back behind the driver.

We visited a wildlife centre where i saw some very intersting local animals some of which i have no idea what they were. We then go into town and visit the main square, have some roast chicken and Guanabana juice (we have been explaining to some of the Peruvians the names in English for the fruits and that things like Guanabana are also Guanabana in English as well, as most of you will like me have never seen or heard of them).

We go back to the church and chill out in the room before the church service they are having in the evening and about 20 mins before we go down Hoseas comes up to makte sure that Mark is ok to speak at the service. 20 mins notice - very Peruvian.

We enter the church not knowing what to expect at all and are greeted with some of the strangest and to be honest worst music i have heard in a church before. The philosophy seemed to be, we have a new sound system and we are gonna play it as load as we possibly can, it meant the music was very distorted and with no words there was no hope of following the songs. The little spanish i had learned had no chance to pick out any of the words. We were introduced to the church and Mark spoke and asked at the end of his talk if anyone would like to come forward for us to pray for them and we were shocked when the entire church came to the front and began to pray - it was not what we were used to.

That night we spoke to on of the Pastors to try and understand some of the different things about the church, like they met every night and twice on a sunday, the men sat on one side and the women on the other and we enquired about the praying. She explained that in that area the people had very little to do and so for them they were really glad to be together in the church and that because a lot of the men dont work, the evening meeting with the church is an opportunity for the women to sit and be with their girlfriends and the men to have some space from their wives sitting with the other men. As we stayed over the next few days we began to see the great things about this church after our first strange impressions. The church certainly knew how to pray, like no group i had ever seen before. As well as the church meeting each day, they had 3 prayer meetings each day, but to me even more impressive than the frequency of these meetings was the passion and belief which accompanied these people's beliefs. The church really understood its function as the centre of the community, it was always open and there were always people around. A small cafe built as part of the church gave a few jobs to local people and provided a meeting place for others, the house where the 2 pastors lived had 15 other residents, all children they looked after from about 2 to 21 years, it was quite an amazing place to be.

On the 2nd day we went out into the real jungle. The big church has planted 23 different churches in jungle communities which are made of various different sizes and which have buildings of different levels and styles of construction. Today we went with a group of about 20 (fun in a little combi) to visit 3 of the churches and to meet the pastors and pray with them.

The visits are aimed as a way of encouraging them, it was very interesting seeing the different areas, villages and people. The bus dropped us at the 1st church where we stayed and talked and prayed, we then had to walk about 4 miles back to the road to catch a motor taxi (we got 7 plus the driver on one) and arrived at the 2nd village where we stayed for lunch (chicken soup).

This took a long time to prepare as they first had to catch the chickens which we watched come in sqwauking n flapping - it was certainly fresh food, that and the sugar cane cut as we ate it.

We went to the church and they asked us to share something so Mark spoke to the church and we praye dsome more and then the sky opened - real jungle rain and we had to walk about a mile back to the road again, it was a wet one. When we got back to the town we expected to be doing the service again but were told that when it rains everyone stays in the house and the church doesn't meet - so a bit like the cricket in England rain stopped play.

On our last full day we went with Hoseas and from the port we crossed the river to meet another community who live in a very remote area, about an hour away from anywhere by boat. They live in houses in the water for about 4 months of the year. As we crossed the river we were lucky enough to see a group of river dolphins playing and jumping together. As we arrived on the other side of the river we began to cut through little river alleys which are the paths when the water dries up.

It really was an amazing time and place, as we arrived at the pastors house so did another boat, and another and another until the house was full of kids, teenagers, adults and old people who all wanted to hear some words from us, it was my turn to speak, talk about being put on the spot. I spoke about the way in which we are all part of the same Christian family and that no matter how different our situation in life our God is the same, they were so friendly and loved the fact we had made time to visit them. They then took us on a tour of the village by boat of course which was great fun, kids playing everywhere in the water, animals all around and despite this a very quiet, tranquil place.

The family took us to there house and gave us a gift of a few kilos of bananas, so we went to the only family who has a coconut tree and bought 20 coconuts to give out to all the people we had met. They didn't have a stick long enough to get the coconuts down so the pastor jumped up the tree and they then threw a rope up to him with a huge machete attached and he began hacking away with the huge yellow coconuts falling around the boat and splashing in the water.

Before we left we were also given 5 fish that had been caught and a huge bunch of bananas about up to my waist. We were shocked by the peoples generosity they were giving us so much as because of there situation all thye had to eat was fruit and the fish they caught but they were so glad to have us visit them, it was amazing to think they will talk of this visit from these white people from England for a long time, how great to be able to encourage people like that. We said our goodbyes and went back across the river.

In the evening Mark again spoke to the church and i met with the young people in the Pastors house, they kept coming including lots of new people who had heard i was going to be speaking to them, i told stories, made them laugh and had lots of fun sharing about my experiences and life and how amazing it is to me to know and love Jesus. We then went into the church building to be part of a prayer tunnel - something Mark had used before which is a way of everyone praying for everyone else. As we entered the church 2 lines of people greeted us and we slowly walked in single file through the middle as everyone placed their hands on us and prayed for us, it was an amazing experience to feel that much love and encouragement and so good to share in that way with others. Was a bit like cricket again when someone has done something amazing and walks off the field through all the players who hold there bats together above their heads, but this way insteading of lifting up and encouraging just 1 person, everyone is encouraged.

On the final morning before we headed back to Lima on the plane we went out to 1 last village and met a pastor who invited along a few of his church and Mark shared with them then we walked around the village and they showed us another church building. As we stood around i heard a megaphone sounding not far away and heard the word iglesia, in my broken spanish i knew this meant church and realised that whoever this was was talking about us, and as we stood there people began to arrive, a few kids, teenagers, couple of families. The church then really began to fill and people stood all around. In all i counted about 90 people and as Mark had just shared something it was down to me. The pastor introduced us and i began to speak to the crowd.

As most of the people were local to this village they spoke another language and so Mark translated my English into Spanish and his words were translated by another man into the local language. As there were so many kids and with the language issues i told and acted the story of David and Goliath, the people really paid attention and certainly laughed a lot, they are not used to seeing starnge white men jumping and clowning around and i'm sure that was probably there first double translation. It certainlyy was an experience i will never forget. About a minute after i finished the rain began too lash down on the roof , so load bouncing of the corrugated iron that you couldn't hear anything and everyone ran for cover, it really had been a surreal and memorable hour. A fantastic end to a truly unique few days.

Campamento de Jovenes - Youth camp

After a busy week or so travelling around Lima, meeting lots of people, speaking to youth groups and introducing myself to a few different churches we arrived at my first chance to leave the city. I helped with Mark and Anna and the Peruvian couple Umberto and Esther (who are currently living in the house as well) on a youth weekend away.

The church they are all part of also meets on a thursday evening, so after travelling up to the centre we were staying at on the thursday afternoon to drop of stuff me and Mark headed to the church sevice to meet up with the young people. They were all really excited as this was the first time this group had done something like this together and after the service finished we went outside to wait for the bus we had hired (and were unlucky enough to witness the street entertainment of two gangs of lads throwing rocks at each other across the street until the police arrived and everyone legged it) anywy the bus arrived and we all piled in, no health and safety, no seatbelts just lots of smiling, laughing and shouting. As we left the church all waved us off as if we were leaving for a few months not 2 nights. We travelled up away from the city over the mountains which are the foothills of the Andes and away to a small town where the centre we were staying in was. Altogether we had about 20 young people as well as the 5 leaders and the two leaders kids.

We arrived and all piled out into our dorms, 2 massive rooms with bunk beds and after a few hours of explaining rules, messing about and exploring it was time for bed.
The weekend consisted of 4 talks to encourage the young people they were special and loved by God, that they could speak to him and him to them, that each of them has a purpose and are part of the bigger family of the church. On the first morning when i spoke 3 of the young people became Christians which was really exciting and we then spent time Singing and worshipping together.

The afternoons were spent chilling out in the sunshine, playing games, lots of football (England 10- Peru 9) and volleyball, and splashing, racing and fighting in the pool.
It was a great atmosphere and a great time for everyone.

Just to give you an idea the young people were charged the equivalent of £6 for the weekend, which is a decent days wage and which nearly everyone had been saving up for and paying slowly over the last weeks and months, and this group was in no way what would be described as a poor group.

Some of the highlights were opportunities to pray for the group, in one session we asked the group to come forward if they wanted us to pray for them to know God's love in their lives as there Father which was an emotional time for many of them. We spent times in discussion together allowing them to process the info and the emotions they had seen and felt in order to help them think about changes they wished to happen or make in their lives.

Before we knew it it was Saturday night and time to go. With everyone a little mor tired, a little browner and very encouraged for their future and their journeys with God. For many they had had new experiences, seen new things, but for all they had experienced being part of a group that looks out for one another and cares for each other - isn't that what a church should do.

Having said that we then all jumped on the bus with the female leaders having left with the 2 little ones and spent the bus journey home, jumping on each other, fighting and smahing a beach ball around the bus. All of this with me lying on everyones bags in the centre aisle. I guess thats Peru for you - the driver grinned as much as the rest of us and never batted an eyelid.

We arrived back at the church everyone thoroughly worn out, some carrying new aches and bruises and were greated with balloons and people carrying a banner welcoming us back. What a welcome, everyone went upstairs to the church and gradually went home, nobody really wanting to leave.

ADDED AFTER SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE
On the weekend we asked the group to share their stories of the weekend, any highlights and things they had learnt. Many of them talked about the fun we had had, about how special the group was and about how during the prayer times they had felt very close to God whilst praying for people and having others pray for them but i would like to share with you what one of the girls said.

She is 15 and about 7 months pregnant not that you can tell coz she is so full of energy was jumping around playing volleyball and splashing in the pool and has such a small bump on her. She shared how before the weekend she had felt that she couldn't be loved by God and how she felt bad about things she had done in the past and thought that stopped her from being close to God and she shared how when i had been speaking she had really understood and felt it was a message for her and she shared with the church the 3 things i had spoken about (she rembered it all which almost never happens) that she was created by God, known by God and loved by God no matter what. As she shared she began to cry at how happy it had made her feel to realise that God did love her no matter what and wanted to bless her future and that it had been amazing as we prayed for her that for one of the first times in her life she felt really special. What a privelege to be able to share an experience like that with someone and to be used by God to help someone realise something so important. Tissues anyone.