Meeting the Quechua People of Peru

Holding baby Elmer from one of the
families we met along the trail.

In July, I had the privilege of traveling to Peru as part of a fourteen-member team from my church. Our mission was to journey into the Andes Mountains to deliver the recently translated New Testament to the Quechua people, the native people of Peru. This mission required hiking between villages to places not easily traversed by vehicles. We spent most of our trip hiking in-between two major mountain ranges, the snowcapped Cordillera Blanca and the brown Cordillera Negra.

Who are the Quechua people? For the most part, they are an agrarian people who farm on the sides of the Andes Mountains. They have devised methods suitable for cultivating this tough terrain, and they work the land with their hands and basic equipment. Irrigation canals cut across the mountains as the people have learned how to harness the melting snow mass to water their fields. Their methods seemed antiquated to me, an American used to flat farm fields full of modern machinery. But, how could I argue with time tested methods of farming in this unforgiving landscape?

Encountering sheep along the mountain trail

Indeed, as my team walked across the mountains, we saw many people hard at work in their fields. In one place, we encountered a man using a horse to flatten wheat and remove the grain from it. Farther along the trail, we talked to men who expressed dismay at the lack of water reaching their fields. Everywhere we went, we saw the people dressed in colorful clothes that seemed to be the uniform of the Andes Mountains. We later learned that the colorful clothes are worn so people can easily be seen as they work on the mountainsides. In particular, the shoes of people amazed us. They wore shoes that resembled “dress shoes” with thin soles. These shoes were worn by men and women alike as they walked all over the mountain trails and worked in the fields. By contrast, our team wore hiking shoes with lots of good tread.

Our visits included nightly stops in villages where we distributed the translated New Testament Bibles to families. We also made daily visits to schools. All of the materials we distributed were translated into the Quechua language, the native language of the people. The school visits gave us the chance to distribute Bible storybooks and coloring books to the students. The coloring books included pages where the students could practice their native Quechua and also begin to learn some English words. We practiced the English words aloud with the students, and this was a highlight for the students and our group. We enjoyed sharing our native language with young kids who’d never heard those words.

Me with kids at a school visit...we gave them suckers, and
they loved it!

Our group was warmly received at the schools because it included “Gringos,” a word often used to describe the Americans. We had Peruvian missionaries traveling with us, but they knew from experience that the doors would not have been opened if it had just been them coming to visit. With the addition of the Americans, the schools welcomed our group. The schools viewed this as a great cultural experience for the kids in addition to the benefit of receiving all the materials and gifts we brought with us. It was the first time many of the Quechua children had seen Americans, Gringos, and they studied us with great interest and curiosity. The kids loved getting the gifts and books that we distributed. They also loved to have their pictures taken. They wanted to see their faces on the screens of the digital cameras, and they squealed with delight. It was a cute show of emotion from a people who are normally very stoic.

The school visits were fun and easy because they took place during the day, and we had a captive audience. The nightly village visits were more challenging because people had to come to us to hear our message and receive a Bible. Plus, we didn’t have electricity. How could a message be shared in the dark without the benefit of electricity? Only by the grace of God and with the help of a generator.

Next week: Passing out Bibles in the Andes by the light of a generator