The Andes Mountains – Peru
The past month we spent the majority of our time in the Andes Mountains. We met up with missionaries from South Africa and we traveled into the mountains with them and three other local evangelists. The aim of the trip was to travel to smaller, unreached villages and to spread the good news of Jesus to the locals through preaching, the acting of dramas and distributing approximately 3000 New Testament bibles. We did allot of
walking/hiking, because most of these villages are very hard to reach due to the rain season and the lack of driveable roads in general. Every morning, we as group would split into 3 smaller groups, each equipped with bibles, translators, hiking shoes and allot of water. We would then start to hike through the mountains to different villages in that area and would only meet up again at night to share the amazing stories of the lives that were changes that day, of how God provided for each group and how He kept us all safe. It was an amazing experience to hike in these mountains and to see all the different villages and the different people. It was also amazing to fellowship with the local Qetchua Christians and to hear about how they gave up everything to follow Jesus even if it meant that they would undergo persecution.
My personal experience
My personal experiences of Andes- Peru consist of everything that learned from the local Christians and the people that we worked with. I have never met people that are so committed to spreading the word of God as the people that I met in the past month. One of the things that I realized is that we are extremely privileged in South Africa to be able to worship God without the fear of persecution. If you are a Christian here in the mountains, everyone knows. Most of the locals worship the “mountain gods” and if you are a Christian, they believe that you have made the gods angry and then they would most likely burn down your crops or your house. The local Christians serve God with the risk of losing everything and it is extremely inspiring to see how committed they are through all the persecution and how they rejoice in their sufferings and fully rely on God.
The second thing that really touched me was the fact that there are places on earth that have never seen a bible in their lives and have never heard about Jesus. I have always heard about these places, but to experience it by myself definitely changed something in my heart concerning evangelism and spreading the Word of God. It was a tremendous privilege to spread the Word to these hidden places and to tell them about Jesus and I realized what a privilege it is to have a bible and to be able to read it and study it whenever you want.
The third thing that amazed me is the fact that the local Christians do not have access to a CUM or to Andy Stanley DVD’s or to sermons on the internet. They rely completely on the Holy Spirit to teach them and to give them revelation concerning God, the church and everyday Christianity.