In Yurimaguas

Graham and I have finally arrived in Yurimaguas! The bad news is that we now have to wait on a boat to Nueva Vida. At least we have internet here. The bus ride from Lima to Tarapoto took 33 hours, which got us there at 3:00 in the morning. We waited until 6:00 for an overloaded pickup truck to take us to Yurimaguas and arrived at 10:00 (it would have been sooner, but we had some issues with the suspension, which they repaired with some rubber tubbing and a stick). We are staying with some friends of Jesús here in Yurimaguas, and hopefully will leave tomorrow morning, God willing!

Chayahuita Trip

Graham and I will head out today at 6:00pm for Yurimaguas, which is in the province of Loreto in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, and from there up-river two days on the Paranapura to Jesús´ home town of Nueva Vida. They said that the bus ride will take 30 hours, but that usually means in the best conditions assuming nothing goes wrong. Needless to say, we´re expecting a longer trip than that. In Yurimaguas we will meet a pastor friend of Jesús who will show us which boat to get on.

Our records show the Chayahuita to be 10-12% evangelized, which matches Jesús description of life there. Our team usually only focuses on groups that are less than 2%, but our purpose is a bit different for this trip. Our job is to support Jesús train other Chayahuita young men to take the gospel to areas of their own culture and surrounding cousin cultures and how to plant churches. While there, we will also investigate the area for groups that we might engage in the future.

Between the three of us, Graham, Jesús, and I, our experience is limited to our training and trips to Jorge Chavez. The task, therefore, seems a bit overwhelming, but nonetheless seems like a great first assignment. The community there will probably be very supportive of us and teach Graham and I much more in depth how to live in the "selva."

There have been missionaries among the Chayahuita for several decades, which means the people will have many expectations that may make our work more difficult such as that we will be there to preach to their churches, build them churches or other buildings, or give them material things. Since that is not our purpose, the first impression will be very important. Please be praying for this. Also, our understanding of Biblical church could clash with theirs. Please pray for this also.


Jesús working on top to the casa de hombres

Xtreme Training Summary

February 19, we woke up at the crack of dawn, shouldered our packs and headed down the road for our 26km march to the camp that would be our new home. I had stayed up late the night before packing my gear, no surprise to those who know me. We carried all of the gear we would need along with a week´s worth of food, probably the most I´ve had to carry on a march such as this.

We arrived mid-afternoon to what was little more than an overgrown banana field with a mud-hole in the middle, exhausted and craving lunch. The grass was at least three feet tall, so before we could eat we first had to clear out places for our tents and fires with our machettes. Then we could look for firewood and begin the process of starting a fire to cook on.

We finally ate supper sometime after dark, and went to bed immediately afterwards. That is, immediately after we set up our tents and situated our gear. The next morning we once again woke up at dawn for exercise! This consisted of a two mile run, push-ups, and sit-ups.

That more or less set the pace for the next month and a half of training. We exercised every Mon., Wed., Fri. at 6:00am and spent the rest of the mornings doing manual labor such as clearing land by machette or building our houses out of materials we took from the forest. For this we had the instruction of Manuel, a Harakumbet man who had worked with the team before in his home village, Bocanambari. In the afternoons, we had class with Jeremy. In our classes we learned about worldview, medicine, and storying.

On the weekends starting the second week, we went to various communities in the area in pairs to tell the stories we were learning and to learn about culture from them. After about a month and a half, we went for a full week to our communities. My partner was originally Alex, a fifteen year-old son of a missionary who was also in training with us, but he left the week before our long trip to the community and never came back. From that point on, I worked with Jesús. Jesús is Chayahuita from the northern province of Loreto, which consists almost entirely of Amazon rainforest.

For the last month, we focused heavily on memorizing stories, the early church, and how to plant Biblical churches. We also had Alfonso, an older man who suffers from various disabilities, teach us how to make hammocks during the last week of training so that those who do not have the financial support of churches can support their own ministries. It also gave Alfonso, who had felt useless for years, a purpose within the kingdom of God. Many of the guys learned the trade very quickly.

During this last month, all of the Yine realized that they needed to be baptized. So, we went down to the Río Tambopata and in front of the whole team in Puerto as well as some local men who were waiting for a boat, and baptized them all. Jeremy and Corey baptized Edgar who then baptized his brothers and sister in Christ, each one helping those who followed.

We also learned some hard lessons about how the church should function when the same Yine disobeyed the rules and slipped off to town in the middle of the night. Later, some money came up missing, and one of the Yine confessed to stealing it. Through the very painful process of dealing with these issues, the lessons of the Bible came alive to us in a very real way. Please pray for this group as they deal with these temptations that are ingrained in their culture.

Monday, May 14, we walked back to camp by a shorter route, 12km without packs, took our written, oral, and physical tests, and celebrated our graduation the next day. Praise the Lord, we can finally move on!

Finally Finished!

Our training in the wilderness now finished, we we have returned from our camp 12km outside of town and are now enjoying such conveniences as electricity, running water (most of the time), walls, toilets, restaurants, and a kitchen. I included kitchen in that list even though we technically had one:


All these luxuries, however, do come at a cost. We watched our friends, many of whom we had been with since arriving, take off Wednesday for their various communities. Life here just isn´t the same without my hermanos, especially the Yine; however, as Edgar, one of the best friends I have from this training, said, this is not a time to be sad. We each have our work ahead of us:

-The Yine plan to work through the schools in their communities to teach the stories of the Bible and what a Biblical church looks like;
-Caleb has a vision to plant churches among his people, Quechua, first in Sicuani and then in the surrounding countryside;
-Vicente plans to plant churches in his hometown of Arequipa;
-María is staying to work with the women´s team;
-Corey will leave next week for Rio Tigre to investigate the Tigre Quichua people that he and Levi will work with for probably their entire terms with the team;
-Levi is returning to his home in Quito, Ecuador to raise funds for the term he will spend with the team.

As for me and Jesús, we will train young men among his people, the Chayahuitas, how to be missionaries among their own people and groups with similar cultures! He left Wed., and Graham, a journeyman fresh from the states, and I will leave next week. Look for more details of that trip and a more complete summary of training in later blogs. May God bless the work that He has given us!