I like to catch up with friends at the end of the Christmas holidays. I often ask them, “What did you do over the holidays? ” With that question, my friends most often respond with the same answer.
“Nothing much. Just spent time with family, you know.” They then follow up with the same question I asked them. I respond by telling them: “You know, I did the same thing. Oh, but I did do something a little different this year. I went to Peru on a mission trip.”
I had been to Peru before– last June on vacation with a fellow Lipscomb student and great friend Joel Collao, who is also from Peru. I was privileged to be able to return on January 2nd with a group from Lipscomb on a mission trip to Lima, the capital of Peru that I had visited before.
While the heart of Lima, the Plaza de Armas, retains its colonial architecture and is quite beautiful, outside of the colonial center is also outside “tourist country.” However, outside is where the real heart and culture of Lima lie. That is from where the real Peruvians come, but the real Peruvians are also often the people that need the most help both spiritually and physically.
We went to Lima to create a VBS for the children and families that attend or live near the Iglesia de Cristo de Lucyana (Lucyana Church of Christ). Several members of the church welcomed our arrival with a large homemade sign and songs. The same members helped us throughout the week in breaking through the language and culture barriers.
While the VBS only lasted three days, we crammed many Bible lessons into that time period. The team went over lessons such as creation, Noah and his ark, the birth of Christ and his resurrection.
The VBS was much like any VBS in the United States with short plays each day and crafts that involved masks and popsicle sticks. On the first day of the VBS when we taught the Beginning, we first had a short lesson after which the children made booklets made from paper plates with one page for each of the seven days of creation.
On the second day, we had a couple of short lessons, one about Noah’s ark and another about Jesus’ birth. Children made masks of different animals from Noah’s ark on this day.
On the final day, we had a short lesson about the love of Jesus and his resurrection. Children then made a craft using popsicle sticks to make crosses and tying tie dye yarn in patterns around the crosses to decorate them.
If you have travelled to anywhere in Latin America before, you know that while each country has its own unique culture every country also shares a warm feeling that is not found in the United States. Peru is no different.
Lima has its rough areas as every city does, but the overarching theme of the city is warmth (and not just because it is the middle of summer in January when we went). We were blessed by that warmth and happiness from the church members there and it is not possible to put the feelings we felt into words.
It is something you have to experience for yourself. As we were blessed by the peoples’ hospitality there, the members of the church of Lucyana said they were equally blessed by our work.
I have already talked with several other members of the church since we left. Several new neighborhood children have shown up at church last Sunday since we did the VBS.
Milagros Huamani, a member of the Lucyana Church of Christ who helped translate for the group during the trip, said the trip was a great blessing.
“Everyone at the church is very pleased to have been able to work with the group,” Huamani said. ” It was one of the best groups we have had there.”