Fischers in Peru

Now that the winter chill is retreating, trips out in the sierra are possible once again.  Not even the ETE (Educación Teológica por Extensión) diehards Roberto and René want to do trips during the winter, and the students are certainly happy to stay closer to home.  The streams freeze over, and while there isn't much snow (that falls mainly during the warmer wet season, December to February), it's just bone cold.

A couple of weeks ago Ben and I went to Chivay (about 3 hours from Arequipa along sealed highways) for one of the ETE meetings.  Not many students attended this time; it can be a bit hit-and-miss, as often the students get saddled with last minute family obligations, farming responsibilities, or even have to attend to community work organised by their local alcalde (village leader).  And when the alcalde pronounces that it will be a weekend of working on the local roads, for example, then everyone has to drop whatever else they're doing, and they all head out -- husbands, wives, children, the lot! -- to work on the roads.  Shovels, rakes, baskets for shifting gravel and earth, and babies bundled on the backs of the mothers.  That's how public works get done in many of the villages of the campo (country areas) in Peru.

Anyway, by Saturday afternoon only about 12 or so students had managed to turn up, but that was all that René needed to get the progam happening.  After organising the dates and locations for some of next year's classes, René got a good class exercise going: asking the students to form groups of 3 or so, they had to study Matthew 16:13-23 -- the episode where Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ (Messiah), then Jesus declares that Peter will be the rock on which the church is built, but finally Jesus has to rebuke Peter for his refusal to accept that Jesus must suffer and die in Jerusalem.  Their task was to decide what the text was saying in its context, and then prepare a brief outline of how they would teach from the passage, and finally each group reported back to the whole class to explain and justify their conclusions.

Above: a number of the church people presenting a short play on how we could better prioritise our time.  Various social media platforms were presented as thieves of time that could be spent more profitably for the cause of the gospel.  Some problems are the same no matter where you live in the world!

Of course, for many Protestant Christians here in Peru, this text in Matthew is often seen as 'Catholic' text for establishing Peter as the first pope -- and as such, it's a text they tend to skip over or avoid altogether.  Yet, whatever our Christian denomination or persuasion, the text of the Bible is simply the text of the Bible, and we need to read it as such without fear nor favour.  René, you cunning strategist!

Ben and I each joined different groups, and our role was to help the students ask questions (because good questions are like keys which unlock meaning) and consider a text they weren't that used to thinking about.  We had to be careful not to push our own views of the text, but rather let the students do the work.  And work they did!  With a bit of prompting and encouragement they started to take in the wider context, to think about Jesus' purposes as the Christ, and what Peter and the disciples were thinking (or not thinking, as the case may be).  After about 30 minutes' discussion and pondering, the students reported back and, as usually happens when people study a the text on its own terms, each group came up with quite similar ways of summarising the text and its parts, and how they would teach from it.  Good job!

Above: René and Ben having a chat.  Notice how the church has plenty of warm cushions and woven coverings on the benches, and blankets available for people to use during the service.

On Sunday morning René and I left Ben in Chivay (he'd taken his own 4WD), and we headed north to Cota Cota via Tisco to pick up Benigno, his wife and a co-worker.  They had just spent a month in Cota Cota running classes and exams on behalf of IBSA, one of the Bible colleges in Arequipa.  Then it was back to Callalli (pronounced 'cul-yali') where we dropped off René who wanted to catch up with some believers there.

Above: 180 degree streetscape in Tisco.  The altitude, the silence... it's hard to beat.

One excellent thing about this trip was that, as we travelled, René and I got to spend a few hours chewing over the challenges of pastoral training and support in these areas.  I told him that I thought his class exercise was top-shelf: in the one exercise the students had got to think about and practice (i) reading the text in its context in Matthew, (ii) the process of interpreting the text, (iii) how the text applied to their own situation, and (iv) how they might structure a sermon or talk based on the text.  This really is the bread and butter of church pastoral work.  As René and I talked, we came up with a number of future possibilities for encouraging and supporting church pastors, teachers and elders in the sierra.  To quote Big Kev, I'm excited!

Above: For some reason Ben is looking happy in a rather protracted planning session (dates and localities of future ETE workshops).  It would be easy to complain that these sessions take far too long, but the Quechua way is to discuss and run absolutely everything past absolutely everyone, so that everyone feels like they own the decision.  And that means the students are far more likely to turn up when the time for the workshop arrives, of course ;-)

It was on the way home after dropping René off in Callalli that we came across an utterly destroyed vehicle smashed into an embankment.  Ben (who had headed back from Chivay earlier in the day) later told me that when he went past there had been a huge crowd gathered and a few very badly injured (if not dead) people had been pulled out.  Accidents like these are so common in the Andes; some people drive without any sense of fear or responsibility, overtaking at full speed around blind curves and putting everyone in danger.   Trucks reguarly engage in this deadly game of roulette, too.   We came around one bend on the way to Chivay and were greeted with two trucks and one car, all 3-abreast coming around the bend; there was nothing for me to do but hit the brakes, hit the horn, flash the lights, and squeeze over as far to the right as we could.  You really do have to be on your toes.  It's such a shame, because most of the Andean highways are superbly engineered and would be considered safe roads anywhere else, but the impatient and reckless driving habits of some of the locals are the real danger.

Anway, it was good to get back to Arequipa after nearly 12 hours of driving.  This coming weekend is another ETE workshop somewhere north of Cota Cota.  Looking forward to it!