La Sierra - Cajamarca

Right now I’m in Cajamarca, a city in the mountains - 2750m - about 6 hours away from Trujillo by bus. I’ve been here a week now staying with a missionary family and joining in with their daily activities. Already I’ve had so many new experiences and tried more new food here than in the whole of my time in Peru so far I think.

The view over Cajamarca

One of my favourite things that I did this past week was going with two guys from the Church to a small village an hour away called San Juan. We crammed onto a full micro (combi) at 2.30pm and set off for the windy journey through the mountains. The landscape was so beautiful but sadly I didn’t take hardly any photos because there were so many people in the van. 

One of my only photos 

We arrived just after half three and spent our afternoon visiting some ladies in the village and working with the kids. I can’t describe how much love these two guys have for Jesus, it was such a privilege to watch them share this love with the people around them. There’s no Church in the village so when Hugo and Paul go every Friday afternoon it could be one of the only times the people hear about Jesus. They visit people who are interested in the Bible and just generally stop by to see how they’re doing. 

Walking down into the village

As we walked through the village the children came running. We played games with them and did a Bible story. We then headed back up to one of the ladys’ houses to have ‘Cena del Senor’ (communion), a time of worship and one of the guys gave small talk. Three ladies came and there was the three of us so in total we were six.

In the main square

Teaching the children

By the time we left the house it was almost eight and all official ways of transport back to Cajamarca had stopped for the night so we had to try and hitch a ride home. I found it really funny watching Hugo and Paul try and do this because not one car stopped. They then told me that if it gets passed half nine we would have to go and knock on someone’s door and ask to stay the night- and they weren’t joking because they’ve had to do this before. We ended up walking to a restaurant down the road where bus and truck drivers stop for dinner and the boys managed to sweet talk one of the drivers into letting us have a ride back in his huge chicken truck. Again they didn’t let the journey pass without sharing their love for Jesus and how we can have a relationship with him.

Hugo and Paul trying to hitch a ride

They have encouraged me and challenged me to have more faith and I am so thankful that God has given me these experiences.

“And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8