Kings Church visit to Cusco

We have just come to the end of a great three week visit from a group from our home church (Kings Church, Eastbourne). It has been a fantastic way to end our second ‘term of service’ here in Cusco so I thought I should write a blog entry.
The aim of the trip was primarily for the group to get an insight into our work here, but also to help out where they could and have a bit of time off to see some of the more touristy things like Machu Picchu. With 13 people of a variety of ages and with a variety of gifts and interests, the timetabling has been a little complex at times, but we have done our best to enable as many people as possible to see as much a as possible while using their gifts as well as possible, while trying to work within the limitations of altitude, jetlag and general lack of sleep!
Much of the group’s contribution has been up at C.O.R.A.S.O.N. where most people spent a large part of 9 days in total. Jean and Jean, along with Mary (the pastor’s wife) and a rota of 4 mums from the community, spent most mornings cooking for the group and other helpers. The language barrier was a little interesting to start with but they soon learned to communicate with a mixture of Spanish, English and signs and seemed to have a lot of fun. The first week the CORASON mums planned the food, the second week Jean and Jean showed them how to cook some English recipes. We only have a small oven so the Cottage Pie had to be taken down the hill in a taxi to be cooked in the community oven!

Roger and Geoff spent most of their time finishing the cupboard doors for the kitchen and making a portable partition to enable us to have a separate area for the small kids in the club, and a safe area for them to play while their mums are at the mums’ group. It was great that a couple of dads were involved in the project for the first time helping them. Encarni, Emma and Becky did a great job covering the partition with a beautiful 3-D fabric collage. An unexpected bonus in this area of the club room is a fantastic wall mural painted (with a little help from various team members and children) by Jenny James. Lynn, with help from Encarni and Jean, helped the older girls in the club to make some very sweet stuffed toy animals which they are very proud of.

Jackie was very popular with the younger kids in the club and they loved her games! She also ended up teaching several English classes to the mums (where they seemed to spend most of the time laughing!) Dionne, Jenny O and Becky have done a variety of things which included hospital visiting, helping in The Meeting Place Cafe, visiting the Casa Josefina Children’s Home and helping with the children’s club. Several people also visited one of the pre-schools we support in the Quechua community above CORASON and visited the office, and some of the clients, of the micro-finance project with Roland. A group also went to one of the areas flooded earlier in the year to see one of the families we have helped to restart their guinea pig breeding. The Club CORASON children and families put on an emotional final thank you ‘show’ - the group’s blog has a good report of this: www.kingsinperu.blogspot.com/

The first and last Sunday of the trip have been more focussed on church activities – helping with the anniversary celebrations at the theatre and then Chris preaching at both meetings of the church on the final weekend. Chris, as group leader, has been here, there and everywhere, coordinating things, helping with tasks ranging from cooking to carpentry to making paper necklaces (!) and getting an overview of everything that has been going on.

The group also managed to fit in a trip to Machu Picchu, Pisac market, the Moray circles, the Maras salt pans, one or two Cusco museums and markets and the CORASON prayer mountain, with three going all the way over the top with Roland. ‘Extra’ duties included playing with the boys (they had such a great time!) and rescuing the cat who decided to try and live on the roof for a week! (Thanks Jenny O!)


For us these three weeks have been a unique opportunity to give people from our main supporting, sending church an insight into our work and life here - the difficulties, the encouragements, the chaos and the beauty. Cusco is such a diverse place and our lives here are so different from life in the UK that we have trouble conveying how things really are. This visit, and also other visits from family and friends during the year, means that we now have a number of people back home who have a much clearer understanding of life here, who have met the people we live and work with, and who have taken a little bit of Cusco home in their hearts. It is difficult to explain how much this means to us and what an encouragement you have all been! Thank you!

More photos at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=300460&id=702530766&l=e9c6356ae9

The challenge of Poverty

A day in the life of Jose

Thanks to Aime for making the video! And thanks to Jose and his family for taking part. You may be interested to know that Jose was the boy who suffered bad burns earlier in the year, but now, as you can see, he is doing well.

Jose’s House

Possibly a reaction to seeing a little mud-brick house like that with all four kids and the grandma sleeping in one room, the almost non-existent kitchen and the outside sink as the only water supply, is to think of how they could be helped to improve their living conditions – maybe they should build another bedroom, get a table to eat at, buy an oven, a fridge even ....? When we see poverty we often want to pile in with money or ‘stuff’ to help the people we think are ‘in need’. We genuinely want to help, but our immediate ideas of how to help may not be the best ones. I have recently read a book called ‘When Helping Hurts’ (Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, Moody Publishers 2009) which I would recommend to everyone with an interest in helping those considered ‘less fortunate’ – it deals with questions such as ‘What is Poverty?’ and the difference between, and timing and appropriateness of, relief, rehabilitation and development. (See separate blog entry for more on this.)

On a slightly different note, although there are undoubtedly things that José and his family would like to improve in their house, maybe one important question is actually how we can move our lifestyles more in their direction.

I recently read a book by a church leader from India who was given the chance to study in the USA (Revolution in World Missions by KP Yohannan). His reflections are very interesting. For example, he writes: ‘What impresses visitors from the Third World are the simple things Americans take for granted: fresh water available 24 hours a day, unlimited electrical power, telephones that work and a most remarkable network of paved roads.’ And also: ‘I discovered most Americans have cupboards of clothing that they wear only occasionally – and I remembered the years I travelled and worked with only the clothes on my back’.

(The comment about the water reminds me of something I heard recently: ‘ Do you know that in Europe they wash the streets with drinking water?!’ )

Comparing his comments with Cusco, in our house we have mains water supply morning and evening (and a tank on the roof so we rarely run out), the electrical power is OK (although with slightly worrying sparks at times!), the phones are fine in the city although outlying areas don’t have fixed lines or cell phone networks, and paved roads do exists although they are often full of potholes, and many routes only have tracks or paths and it takes hours to get to the nearest town. Of course many people here don’t have a mains water supply or electricity in their house. At the recent youth camping night it was interesting to see that many of the kids came in their school tracksuits as they have very little choice of what to wear.

The author also quotes from another book where someone has suggested how to turn a middle-class Western house into a typical developing world house. Here is some of what he quotes: ‘ We begin by invading the house to strip it of its furniture. Everything goes: beds, chairs, tables, lamps. We will leave the family with a few old blankets, a small table, a wooden chair. Along with the cupboards go the clothes. Each family member may keep his oldest suit or dress, a shirt or blouse. We will permit a pair of shoes for the head of the family but none for the wife or children.

We move to the kitchen. All the appliances have been taken out, so we turn to the cupboards ... the box of matches may stay, a bag of flour, some sugar and salt, and a few potatoes. We will leave a handful of onions and a dish of dried beans. All the rest we take away: the meat, the fresh vegetables, the canned goods. The bathroom is dismantled, the running water shut off and the electric wires taken out. Next the family can move to the tool shed. There are no more newspapers, magazines or books. There are no postmen, no firemen. There is a school 3 miles away with two classrooms. The nearest clinic is 10 miles away and is tended by a midwife. It can be reached by bicycle, provided the family has a bicycle, which is unlikely ...’

The author is not actually expecting you to do this to your house, you may be pleased to know, but it makes a point doesn’t it? Even small changes to our lifestyles can free up money that could be used in a variety of ways and can be beneficial to the environment and our relationships too. Last year, although we weren’t in the UK, we read a bit about the SIMPLICITY campaign, and through that looked at some web sites connected to it and also some articles written by a friend of ours, Ruth, who works for ‘Living Lightly’ and who wrote a book a few years ago called ‘L is for Lifestyle’. I’m sure she won’t mind me quoting from her blog:

I was being interviewed about the way I live and the guy, Ian, said, 'well that's all very well for you: you're a bit of a hippy aren't you, but what about normal people?'. Oh my goodness, it's that H word again.
But why is this not normal?
Why is it not normal to be concerned about our world and its inhabitants? Why is not normal to want to live well in relation to those around us? Why is it not normal to give away more of our money than we spend on food for ourselves? Why is it not normal to try to stand against the messages of greed and consumerism that surround us? Why is it not normal to want to have some sort of a connection with the earth on which we live?’

If you’re interested in looking further into practical ideas to simplify your lifestyle, here are a few websites:

www.eauk.org/simplify/

www.lisforlifestyle.com

www.arochalivinglightly.org.uk

When Helping Hurts

We have been reading some helpful books recently relating to poverty and development in a Christian context. One was particularly clear regarding when relief is appropriate (i.e. emergency aid, such as during the floods here earlier in the year) and when just 'giving stuff' can actually do more harm than good, such as in areas with long term poverty-related problems (i.e. most of the Cusco region). And then there is rehabilitation, an example of which is the help being given to people in flood-hit areas to restart their small businesses. This can then progress to development, where they are able to reach a better living standard than before the floods (more about that, including Roland's involvement in businesses raising small animals, in the newsletter!)

What is Poverty?

The question of ' What is poverty?' is also addressed in a comprehensive way in the same book, looking at the way we all experience 'poverty' in some way - we all have a less-than-perfect relationship with God and with other people, and a less-than-perfect view of ourselves. In relationship to our environment, we may have too much or too little, work too much or too little, and cause environmental damage, for example. While recognizing that material poverty is a particular focus of Jesus, when working with the materially poor it is important to remember that we all have areas of need and we are not the ones with all the answers. Also, we need to keep in mind that meeting people's physical needs does not solve all their problems, and that as Christians it is crucial to be working with people in a holistic way, something on which Roland and the team have been focusing in the micro-finance project recently, starting to use some new business training materials that encompass a Christian worldview. If you are interested in getting hold of the book, it is called ‘When Helping Hurts’ by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert (Moody Publishers 2009).

How does it work out in practice?

These are some of the thoughts on which we have been reflecting and which are affecting our work here. Sometimes deciding how to best work is complex: The mountain project, for example, is an interesting mixture and while some of that work could be classified as 'relief', more and more we are trying to help people become more self-reliant and able to cope with crises. For example, at times we help with money for medicines, such as for Luz Marina, pregnant with her 6th child and suffering from domestic abuse. But if we can help her, and mums like her, to register with state insurance system (very basic, but worth doing), she will be more able to cope with health problems herself, needing to rely less on other people which further damages her very low self-esteem. The educational help, the young teens work and the Bible teaching are all designed to help members of the community into work in the future, into better family relationships and into a personal relationship with their Father God who ultimately can help them in all areas of material and relational poverty far better than we can.

Flood damage near Cusco

Today we visited the Community of Huacarpay about 40 mins out if Cusco. The community of 500+ people has been completely devastated following the heavy rains in the last few days. Flood waters have destroyed most of the houses. Most people are staying in temporary shelters and trying to salvage whatever possessions they can. Short term aid is arriving, but the long term solution could be a difficult process. For more pictures from our visit please click here.