Peru Round 2 Photo Summary

Month 2 Recap

This update is long overdue. Month 2 was filled with travel to remote villages in the mountains which included hours in the car driving on the edge of the mountains, sleeping in tents or piled together on the floor. Then we had long travel to Argentina where we had a few days of debrief and have since started ministry at YWAM Mendoza. Wifi is limited, which makes updates a little more difficult.

But here is a summary of month 2:

Housing:

• We stayed in a cute little house in Huaraz with our hosts Nancy and Rolondo
• I shared a room with one other girl
• We slept on real(ish) mattresses
• We had running hot water, with very little water pressure but still!
• Nancy prepared our food some of the time and we prepared our food some of the time.
• We traveled a good bit to different villages, so we also slept in our tents and piled in on the floor of people’s houses.

Places visited:

• Huaraz, where our ministry was located
• Several villages including Atipayan, Shapat, Pumabamba, Carhuaz, and Poyor
• Lima (kind of), we again only spent one night here, but did see a little bit more of the city the following morning
• Laguna 69, a lake at 16,000 ft elevation in the Andes mountains. It was a 3-hour hike and was extremely difficult but was very beautiful.
• Multiple gorgeous farms up in the mountains.
• Trujillo, a few of us hopped back to Trujillo for 2 days to see our friends from month 1.

 Travel:

• Plane from Cusco to Lima. Plane from Lima to Chile to Argentina
• A 19-hour layover in Chile
• 8-hour bus from Lima to Huaraz and the same bus back to Lima
• 20 hours on bus round trip to Trujillo – thankfully we took the overnight bus and just slept

 What we did:

• We worked with the ministry AWI. They have worked for years to translate the Bible into Quechua, the local indigenous language.
• Just a few months prior to our arrival they completed the translation of the Bible in all three local dialects.
• We learned songs in Quechua and sang them in markets and churches while wearing traditional Quechua clothes.
• We went into schools to encourage kids to value their Quechua heritage.
• We preached in churches, gave testimonies in markets and plazas, and prayed for people in the streets.
• We led kids Bible studies, most often about the fruits of the Spirit.

• We told churches and pastors that they finally have the Bible in their own language and watched joy flow through congregations that they will be able to study the Bible in their native tongue.

New Experiences:

• Learned some Quechua and actually understood some by the end of the month!

• Learned songs in Quechua and sang in front of numerous churches
• Wore Quechua clothes
• Lived live at a high altitude, and hiked to 16,000 ft elevation
• Preached in a church, completely in Spanish

• Rode a horse – I have only done this once as a child and did not enjoy it at all.
• Painted a mural on someone’s storefront

 Month 2 was a big adjustment for me, and honestly was hard for me in the beginning, but I came to love Huaraz and I grew a lot.  

What I enjoyed most:

• Meeting Walter. There is a whole blog about it here.
• Friends around town. We were much more free to walk around town by ourselves and I made several friends on my regular route.
• Nancy and Rolondo, our sweet hosts. They were so fun and full of joy. We all miss them a lot.
• All the travel in the mountains. It was so beautiful and being from the beach I don’t usually see such huge mountain ranges and definitely not snowcapped mountains.
• Visiting our friends in Trujillo. We hopped a bus with zero plans and it was so fun to see our friends rally around us and provide us breakfast and a place to sleep and then we had so much time to hang out with them. 
• Homemade doughnuts. Our squad leader Landry was with us for the last part of the month and we couldn’t have been more excited about it. She made us homemade doughnuts while playing Christmas music and it was the best.

 I am now officially in month 3! We are serving alongside YWAM Mendoza in Argentina. YWAM does a ton of different things, so ministry has already looked drastically different day to day, but has included evangelism, soup kitchens, youth group, and service projects around campus. I am excited to see what the month holds. The staff here are wonderful and it is all squad month so all 26 of us are living on site. It will be so fun come Christmas time to have so many people around to celebrate with.

I am also still fundraising! If you could join me in prayer, or financially as I continue the fundraising process, I would greatly appreciate it! My deadline to be fully funded is the end of January (which is quickly approaching).

With so much love,

Kayla