We Met Walter (with photos) on the Side of a Peruvian Mountain

We wound through the mountains for 6 hours, driving on the edge of questionable rounds through both snow-covered mountains, and beautiful green farm-covered mountains to reach a town called Pumabamba. We spent two nights there in that town where we met Marco, a man working for a Baptist ministry. He has a radio show and serves the people of that community the best he can, traveling himself the 6 hours every month to check in with all the members of the church body.

Through his radio show he found a guy named Walter. Walter is 25 and lives with his elderly mother and his nephew who has special needs. He helps around his farm and cares for his mother and nephew so well. Walter is also blind.

Meeting Walter is one of the greatest privileges of this adventure so far.

A couple of years ago, Walter heard Marco talking on the radio one day about the story of John the Baptist. He loved the story so much, he memorized Marco’s number for the radio show and called over and over until Marco was off the air and able to answer. Marco found out where he lived and asked town to town until he found Walter’s home.

They have since developed the sweetest relationship and Marco goes to visit and disciple Walter about once a month. Marco is crazy smart and his memory for Bible verses is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Marco has provided Walter with an audio version of the Bible in Spanish and an audio version of the New Testament in Quechua (the Old Testament is not available yet in Quechua, his first language) which he wears around his neck. Walter’s memory for Bible verses was beyond impressive.

Within 10 minutes of our arrival, Walter was asking challenging questions and asking for Scripture references for all answers – a real challenge for me. He loves asking hard questions and would smile and laugh every time he asked us a question he knew was challenging.

Most of his questions revolved around baptism. Does baptism equal salvation? Is baptism required to go to heaven? Why was John the Baptist baptizing people? And on and on and on. And he always wants your answer to include a Scripture reference. It was so. much. fun. Eventually, Marco and Walter got into a deep discussion, but in Quechua, which I only barely understand. It was evident Marco was sharing his heart through Scripture. Before we knew it, Walter got up and walked to Marco and squatted down because He wanted to actually hold the Bible in his hands, to feel the pages.

Walter also has a huge desire to grow in wisdom. He very promptly told us that things of this world do not last, quoting Scripture the whole time. Money and things will fade away; they will not be important in eternity. This is easy enough to understand, even while sitting in a bare farmhouse with few belongings. But Walter also isn’t worried about the fact he cannot see. He says he would like to have sight, but that wisdom is far more important to him and so he asks the Lord for wisdom every morning. When we prayed over him as we left, he had that single request as well, that we would pray that he would grow in wisdom.

There were tons of things about our visit with Walter that blew me away. He navigates his entire farm with zero difficulty despite being blind and we had trouble walking when we could see the ground. He cares for his mother so well. His knowledge of Scripture far exceeds mine. He has the Bible audio recorded in his second language, while only partially in his first language. He asks challenging questions in the very best way. He desires to know more about the Lord. Most of all he desires wisdom, even more than his own sight. But, the thing I could not get past while I was sitting across from him doing my best to answer his questions, was what are the chances that I would even get to meet Walter?

I was supposed to be in Bolivia this month, but there was political unrest. At the last minute the ministry hosts here agreed to host a team from our squad and my team was placed here. Walter was listening to the radio one day and heard this story he really liked. He liked it so much, he was compelled to call the phone number. This call led Marco to travel town to town up the mountain from Pumabamba until he found Walter in his small farmhouse on the side of a random mountain in the middle of Peru. 

We traveled to Pumabamba with the intention of doing something different that day, in fact half of our team went to another town to present the Bible the local Quechua dialect for the first time (also very cool). But Kristen, Anna and I went with Marco, not really knowing what we would find. Marco saw it fit to travel with us up the mountain to Walter’s house. The Lord is so good, and I am forever thankful that I wound up finding Walter on the side of this random mountain in Peru in a month where I was supposed to be in a completely different country.