"Peru"
Thick, humid air rushed toward me as I stepped outside for the first time. With the tremendously long flight now behind me, I felt relieved to begin exploring my surroundings. Yellow lights lined the streets and ramshackle buildings in all directions, revealing a maze of shadows where the light dared not enter.
"Whoa look at those mountains!" exclaimed my companion.
"It seems so peaceful here," said another.
"I agree. Living here doesn't seem too terrible!" I added in a joking manner.
This was Peru and I was there on a mission.
That was my first missions trip to ever participate in. I had no idea what to expect from it so I went with an open mind. A large part of this trip was performing in a wordless drama around the cities of Lima and Pichinaki. This entailed performing anywhere from rocky sidewalks and porches to town squares and school courtyards. We had rehearsed the drama time and time again before embarking on our trip to Peru and yet we could find no comfort in that fact. Nervous and anxious emotions were our only notice. How any crowd would react to us remained a mystery until our first performance at a well-known public school.
Our destination was a great distance from our hotel, so we had to hail taxis to take us there. It was not hard at all to find them. We were the talk of the town; a bunch of "gringos" had come all the way from the United States and everyone wanted to see for themselves. Taxis in Peru are not the normal cars in the U.S. They were literally just a dirt bike with a little cart attached to the back tire. Three "gringos" piling into the back of one dirt bike was quite the sight to the natives apparently. They seemed to thoroughly enjoy our discomfort.
Upon our arrival at the school, we paid the taxi driver one sol (about thirty cents) and he went on his way. When all the people in our group had arrived as well, we were led inside to a wide open courtyard with a concrete floor and surrounding hallways held up by evenly spaced pillars. The hallways went up several floors and were capped with a thinly layered tin roof. The school had a very poor and gloomy appearance at first notice, but when the children came out of their classes all dressed in their uniforms and sat organized around us, a sudden air of comfort spread throughout the establishment. A few moments later, we had our music and sound equipment set up. We were ready.
The music started and we acted out Creation and Jesus' life, death and resurrection to the greatest extent of our ability, coordinating our motions with the surrounding music. As we performed, our missionary, Brent, spoke in Spanish what we were depicting so the children could make sense of it. Watching some of their faces, I could easily tell that most of those kids had never heard of Jesus or His story before. We concluded our drama and accepted the cheers and applause that followed. Brent gave a short lesson to them and then asked them some questions that they could dwell on for awhile.
After the children had eaten lunch, we were allowed to talk with them and try out what little Spanish we knew with them as they tried out their English. This gave way to some very interesting conversations as neither could understand the other. We eventually had to call Brent's daughter over to us to help translate. Next we played a few games in the courtyard (mostly soccer and basketball) and handed out out emails before saying goodbye.
Even after performing at the first school, we had no idea what laid in store for us at the next school. We arrived on time at the school, only to find the gates locked and no one to let us in. We waited for half an hour outside the gate until, finally, someone came out to us. He was a rather tall man with a sharp outfit consisting of suit and tie. Brent informed us that this was the headmaster and began talking with him. They chatted for what seemed like an hour, but nothing was resolved. The man told us that it was a big misunderstanding and that we were not supposed to be there.
Since we were already in the area, we decided to go ahead and perform outside the school on the sidewalk, which was no ordinary sidewalk. It consisted of jagged, oddly shaped rocks piled up on the side of the road so that the kids did not have to walk through the mud in order to get to school. This made for a very interesting setting. We tried laying down cardboard boxes on top of the rocks, but that did little to no good. We started by handing out balloon animals to the children running around so as to attract attention. As the crowd began to come, we began. Somehow, we miraculously performed the drama without any injuries to ourselves. We still got our point across to the observing crowd with the help of Brent's translated narration.
Never before in my life have I seen a people so lost. Most, if not all, of them had never heard of God and the Salvation He has to offer them. My eyes were opened completely to this fact and I have never experienced anything quite like that moment since. One day I will be in Brent's shoes and be able to help change people's lives in a way that matters the most and let others experience what I did on my first missions trip to Peru.
Dylan West
Peru 2011
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