First Impressions

      First Impressions can sometimes have a great impact, and it has been no different here.  There have been so many new sights and sounds since landing here in Peru.  This is my attempt to share some of those.  Just as they are somewhat unprocessed in my mind right now, this is how I will share it...a string of thoughts and observations so that you can get an idea of what we are encountering. 

       I find that I try to categorize new things that I’ve experienced into something I’ve seen or experience before.  This place has been an exception.  It’s truly like nothing I’ve seen before both culturally and topographically.  Urubamba is set in the middle of this valley which large green mountains springing up on all sides.  Today the sun is shining a little bit and to see the light shining on the mountains is brilliant and beautiful.  Praise the Lord for his amazing creation!

      The people here are very indigenous-looking.  This means their skin, hair and eyes are dark.  They tend to be shorter, and you can tell that they’ve lived a life of labor and physical work.  I’ve seen pictures of indigenous women from Peru, but it’s so amazing to see it with my own eyes.  Our camera went dead at Christmas so we are relying on other people to take pictures, so I will post some as soon as I receive them.  But, walking around town this morning, so many women had top hats or cowboy-looking hats, all ragged and worn.  We’ve been told they usually tell either what their position in society is or what they are selling.  They wear thick sweaters with knee-length non-matching skirts with little fringe underneath.  They seem very no-nonsense so I’m not sure where the detailing on the petticoat comes in, but it does bring femininity and beauty.  They wear sweater leg warmers with stirrups on them, socks that again don’t match with thick brown or black shoes.   They are normally carrying large loads on their backs with colorful hand-made cloth.   Sometimes it is their goods to sell, sometimes it’s their children.  So, you see them walking around town hunched over, carrying their heavy loads on their way to wherever their daily life happens. 

     The majority of the construction is adobe.  I’ve never seen adobe up close.  It is literally whole buildings made of bricks that are made out of dirt.  It’s amazing that it actually stands, but it does.  The room in which Josh and I are sleeping is actually even on the second floor of an adobe building.  They put stucco on the outside so it doesn’t look like dirt but almost every wall is 1.5 feet wide and you know it is adobe construction.  It seems like a hodgepodge of  paint color, colored tin roofs, hundred-year old doors of buildings that are all different colors, worn and used. 

     Peru is known for it’s hand-made alpaca wool items.  Each night we are sleeping in 40-degree weather without heat, and the 2 alpaca blankets on our bed keep us incredibly toasty.  It’s amazing how soft and warm it is.  Alpaca is a South American animal that looks kinda like a llama.  I am excited to see the market where they are selling these hand-made goods. 

     Yesterday, we attended the church for which the group will be designing a new building.  There is both a Quechua service and a Spanish service.  Almost 100 people squeeze into a little building where there is only one hymnal for each pew to share.  You’re so much closer to your neighbor that you fully know whether he has taken a shower that day or not.  To hear all the Lord is doing in that church was so exciting and I bring glory to Him for his work there.  The young man leading the music just two years ago was a drunk and came to know the Lord through the ministry of this church.  The people seemed to be pursuing the Lord and, in all of Peru, the national church seems to be taking the reigns of evangelism and spreading the Gospel.  This means that Peruvians are spreading the Gospel in place of outside missionaries coming in and the ministry being dependent on them.