First few weeks of the new kids' group at home

I thought I should write something about the start of our kids’ cell group as it has been quite interesting for various reasons. Our church has a network of cells for adults and for children in homes all over the city. These are partly for members of the church and partly for outreach. There are around 300 kids cells, with perhaps 20% of the kids coming regularly to the church children’s groups on a Sunday, the rest being friends and neighbours of church members, or part of specific outreach groups that children’s leaders have started in more outlying areas.

Being a British-Quechua multicultural family, and living in a mixed area with regards to race, material wealth/poverty, etc. I have been enthusiastic to start a group in our house that reflects the area and to try and break down some class and racial barriers. It’s not an easy task. Kids here, as anywhere, see just as quickly as adults the differences between themselves and others and they can be pretty mean, but I have seen barriers broken down to some extent at CORASON and so I know it’s possible. 

A lady from the church, Franz, an experienced children’s leader,  is coming each week to lead the Bible teaching (using materials from Brazil, from where our church was planted), while I am responsible for inviting the kids, playing some games with them, doing art/craft and providing refreshments. I’m also teaching some fun songs from an English-teaching  CD set as learning English is always an attraction. I’ve told them they can bring English homework along if they need help, but so far just one girl has brought something.

A couple of days before the first meeting, I gave out invitations to kids I know locally, plus a few others I met on the street nearby.  This resulted in 13 visiting kids coming along so that was an encouraging start. A couple of days before the second meeting, I gave out invitations to these kids again (or at least those who had managed to give me an address I could find) plus a few more I met on the street. This resulted in 23 visiting kids (27 in total with our 4)! The third week I decided not to give out any more invitations and see who turned up.

Our third Friday was a complicated afternoon for two reasons: ( 1) We had realised, due to a doubling of our water bill for May, that there was a water leak in the pipe that brings water into the house. Since all the pipes are cemented in under the floor the best solution was for the plumber to dig channels in the wall round one side of the lounge, through the downstairs toilet and along the long wall in the kitchen. New pipes could then be fitted from the tap outside to the sink.  At 4 o’clock the plumber had finished all the digging out but you can imagine how the lounge looked! (2)The girls needed to visit the social worker for the final appointment of the two year process, and she decided that 4pm on Friday was when they should go to her office. The office is about 45 minutes away so Roland had the choice of helping to run the cell group while I took them, or taking them himself. So he took them but that meant that I would be on my own with all the kids for up to an hour until Franz from church arrived to lead the Bible section, plus the plumber and the mess to sort out. Oh, and the plumber had cut off the water supply to the kitchen, including the tap with the water filter for drinking water. Fortunately I had already made a jug of juice and the downstairs toilet was still working!

At 4:10pm I was reading a book with Ben sitting in the passage just outside the house (best place for sun at that time of day, it’s cold indoors) when the first kids arrived – a family of 4 that includes a 3 year old and a 1 year old, looked after by their 6 and 8 year old brother and sister. I told them they could listen to the story too. About 5 minutes later another couple of boys arrived who also joined in listening to Ben’s story. By 4:20pm I decided to give up with the story and get a ball and our home made skittles out (the big yogurt bottles here make good skittles or cones for games). The plumber was staggering in and out of the house with rubble and by 4:30pm the lounge was ready to be put back to normal, with the dug-out wall mostly hidden behind furniture. I then quickly spread out a simple craft on the dining table (a basic cut and stick rainbow activity – it was Cusco’s anniversary week and we have a rainbow coloured flag). This was a bit calmer than the skittles activity and occupied all 8 or 10 kids that had by now arrived, Sammy and I helping the 3 and 1 year olds who didn’t get very far on their own.

By 4:45pm Franz had arrived, thankfully a bit earlier than normal (she comes straight from work in town) and so by 5pm we were ready to start with the English songs and then she did the Bible story. A few older girls (11 and 12) arrived at the last minute and I’m still trying to figure out where they come from. They walk home from school near our house but I think they then catch a bus to an area a couple of miles away. We really need to divide the group in two since we have more kids than we expected and a rather crazy age range! We said 4 to 9s on the invitation, but no one takes much notice of age groups here so I’m not surprised we’ve ended up with 1 to 12 year olds.

For the fourth meeting I decided to go round with invitations again (in the form of memory verse sheets this time), having ascertained where a large proportion of the kids live. Sammy came with me – the last time he did this he was about 1 and in a pushchair, accompanying me and Tom on our Eastbourne Kidz Klub round! (Tom and I visited kids in Eastbourne weekly for 6 years, finishing when Tom went to Uni and we came to Peru.) The Kidz Klub that Kings Church used to run continues to send ripples round the world – the weekly visiting and memory verse/ information sheets are key strategies – very simple, perhaps obvious, but very effective.

This time the first kids arrived at 4:05pm – it’s getting earlier each week. They were three girls that have come every week so we let them in and gave them a pile of books to look at while I finished getting the room ready (certain things have to be moved to make space for 20+ kids). Sammy helped with registration and preparing sandwiches with Roland. Ben sat outside hoping that his friend from school would come for the first time – thankfully he did, together with a friend of Hilda’s who came on week 2. Once about 10 kids had arrived I put the playdough and tools out on the table, which they absolutely loved. About this time Franz rang to say she had a bad throat and could hardly speak so could I lead the Bible section?  Fortunately I had purchased the book of resources the church uses for kids’ cells during the week and more or less knew what it was about! The session went well with ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ as the English song and a lively song from church. (Katy likes to help lead these!) Ben and Hilda’s friends seemed to get on OK, although we have some work to do to help the kids get to know each other as they are from a variety of different schools. Although they live fairly close to each other, they don’t know each other on the whole. Total kids this week: 23, including 3 new ones.

Next task is to find the homes of a few kids that I haven’t been able to locate yet and start to get to know their families. Plus, with a couple of children now coming from Ben and Hilda’s class, I think it will make it easier to invite more from their school. I also want to read up a bit on children’s cell groups and think about the distinctives of a cell group as opposed to a Sunday kids’ group at church.

3 Month Update

We are now 3 months in and numbers have stayed high, the record being 32. We have 8 regular kids between 10 and 15 years old and they have become leaders for small groups of 3 or 4 children, the idea being to give the older ones some responsibility and to mix the kids up for certain games and activities so that they get to know each other better. We have had a very small puppy attend a few times, but he did start to become rather disruptive so I think he will be staying at home from now on. The mouse that came one week was quite well behaved but I am a little afraid someone will bring a cat sometime, which could be difficult. The one year old fell asleep again last week and I ended up carrying him home as he is a bit heavy for his 8 year old sister. It’s a fun group to lead and there’s never a dull moment!

Some Cusco Children

Even after living here for over 2 years, there are occasions here when I am very moved – it might be meeting someone, visiting somewhere, or just an occurrence in the course of everyday life. This week I have had several of these moments so I thought I’d try and express them on the blog.

Sonia

Last week Lucy (Strider) and I went to visit Sonia's mum who was sick. Sonia is a 12 year old we know well from the mountain project and perhaps because she is a bright girl with leadership skills we had not realised how poor her family is. Her mum is a widow of Quechua background who does not speak much Spanish and the family, with three children, live in the tiniest, darkest little mud house I have ever seen. They have one room containing three 'beds' (more like benches with blankets), a table and some shelves. The house has no windows, a mud floor and a few guinea pigs running around. They have a little side room containing something that resembles a gas camping stove, and a small mud-walled courtyard. I cannot imagine how they manage to live there. I have questions such as: How does Sonia manage to have clean clothes? Where does she do her homework? What do they do when it rains and they can’t use the courtyard? What hope do they have of ever getting a better place to live? How can we help this family?

Sonia, left, with friends and Emma, a volunteer from China.

Flor

At the weekend Lucy, Robyn and I (together with Matthew and Carolina (Robyn’s children), and Sammy) went to visit baby Flor’s grave, as at her burial we did not have a little cross to mark the site. It was Sunday afternoon and the atmosphere at the hillside cemetery was a strange mixture. Some families, presumably those who relatives had died a long time ago, seemed to be on an afternoon out with kids running about flying kites. Others were in the midst of grief as they visited a very recent grave or were actually burying someone that day. A young couple had brought flowers and silently lit a candle over a very new baby grave near to Flor’s. There was actually just a patch of earth where Flor’s grave was as people had used the stones we had put there for other graves and the flowers had died since it is the dry season. Anyway, we pretty much had expected this and Lucy had brought new plants to put in. Matthew and Sammy carried the little wooden cross up the hill and one of the teenage grave diggers helped to fix the cross into the ground. As we were there, just below another family were burying a little white coffin. It didn’t take long and after a very brief prayer they left. But then, two of their grave diggers, boys who looked to be about 12 years old, took off their caps, stood beside the grave and very solemnly and clearly began to recite prayers and sing a hymn. It was very moving to see how seriously they committed the little girl to God.

Sammy and Matthew at the cemetery.

Nilda and Katherín

Part of Lucy’s work here is visiting a children’s home once a week and I have been going along too. I wasn’t sure at first if I had the time to go every week but I’ve quickly grown attached to the kids so I have been going regularly. (It has taken the place of the little baby and toddler group I used to do with Ben last year, which we don’t do now he is at pre-school.) It is a new home started by another mission agency and most of the kids are very young – it is so sad to see such little children without parents, despite the good care they do receive in the home. I have become particularly attached to two little sisters, Nilda (4) and Katherín (6 months). Nilda used to live with her mum (often on the streets), who is ill, and I think they were picked up by the police when Katherín was born. Their mum is not able to look after them so they are permanently in the children’s home I think. Not much is known about their dads and they have had to estimate Nilda’s birthday. Other children have similar terrible stories. Beltran, who is about 6, is smaller than our Ben and has multiple disabilities. His mother died, I think due to alcohol problems, and he was found in a field beside her. It is amazing how he has improved since being in the home. He has learned to sit up, talk and sing and is such a happy little boy. Alina is the oldest girl in the home and we thought she would always be in a wheelchair. However, this week a visiting group from the USA had brought her a walking frame and with Lucy’s help it was amazing to see her begin to try to take steps with it. Again, she is a child who is going to improve so much now that she is being given better care.

Baby Katherín

Vanessa

Church last weekend was one of our special invitation services for families and a group of our older girls from the mountain project performed a dance. They have been practicing with Lucy for a number of weeks and it was lovely to see them finally perform. Afterwards, Vanessa asked if they had done OK because she said ‘ it was the first time I’ve done something like that and it made me really nervous’. She is 12 and really quite talented in art and dance – how special it was for her to perform in front of a church full of people! Later in the service everyone got into groups to talk about the Bible story and do activities and it was great to see 6 groups (3 kids groups, plus men, ladies and young people) all sitting round discussing – such a change from the tiny services we used to be part of a year and a half ago! Equally encouraging is that the church people themselves organise most of these outreach events now.

August Family Service.

Family News - April 2008

Benjamin
The best news from Benjamin is that he is eating better! Although he seemed to be eating more at one point, since February he has not seemed to want much and has had some tummy troubles. A new friend of mine is a paediatrician from the USA and she suggested taking him off cows milk. This seems to have done the trick - he is eating far better and not complaining of tummy ache anymore. Otherwise, he is full of new words at the moment and chatters away about what he has been doing in one and two word 'sentences'. He has perfected the art of riding his truck down the slope in the park rather too fast, but normally manages to stay on and stop at the bottom! He is good at saying 'bye bye' or 'chau-chau' to people he doesn't know, like taxi drivers and shop assistants, but is still rather unsociable with people he thinks might try to cuddle him or pat him on the head, shouting 'no!' and putting his little hand up like a policeman stopping traffic! He has several little friends at our baby/toddler group - Joel, our friends' son from Latin Link, two little girls from the USA and a boy and two girls from Peru.

Sammy
Sammy was very proud to have come home on the school minibus on his own yesterday. We have taken a few weeks to sort out his school transport but have finally decided that the best thing is to take him ourselves and then he can get the bus back. I accompany him on the bus on two days as we have the baby group near his school on Tuesdays and I tend to stay in the area on a Thursday to get some work done away from home so that I'm not distracted by Benjamin. He's generally been happy at school again and is pleased to have the same teacher as last year for a lot of the morning.
The biggest event for Sammy in the last couple of months was his 4th birthday which he was very excited about. He had a 'Tigger' party and we even managed to find him a Tigger costume to wear. He bounced all afternoon! We felt the party was something of a landmark for us as a family as it marked the end of our first year in Cusco and it was great to feel we could have a party with really good friends, both Sammy's and ours.

Jenny
I have been so much happier since moving to our new house. The area is much more sociable and it has been great to have lots of visitors and many more planned in the coming months. The boys are happier here too which makes our lives easier! Although my weekly timetable has been a bit 'all over the place', it has settled down a little in the past couple of weeks.

I am enjoying visiting the hospital and Pilar’s children regularly. With Sarah, a student from our church in Eastbourne who is here for a month, and with the help of the list I obtained from the judge (see Feb entry) I have visited a number of children’s homes to find out a bit about the situation there. Sarah has been volunteering in one of them this week. The work I have been doing with church has been very encouraging. Our fortnightly group for 10-14s has got going well with 5 or 6 regular members and the two special Sundays we have had so far went well with lots of new faces. Also, we are starting to make plans for regular activities for the children at ‘The Mountain’, which I am very enthusiastic about. Something we will be doing in May is a lot of jumper distribution, both at ‘The Mountain’ and other places – more about that in a separate entry.

Roland

The visit of my parents was obviously a real highlight for us all. We did a few fun trips, such as four days in the jungle, mixed in with showing them Cusco and our daily life and work here. My work with the micro-finance project continues and we have just finished the three year plan which we have been working on for a while. We have been pleased to receive a good amount of new donations for loan capital which will enable us to expand this year. I preached at church for the first time in Spanish last week, which was a challenge and took a lot of time to prepare, but I think most people understood me OK. Something that is a real encouragement to us at the moment is that we have started to meet up with our friends Jed and Jaime, and sometimes some others, each Friday evening. One week we meet in one of our homes to talk and pray and encourage each other in our work here, and the next we meet in a café in town and try and invite other friends who, like us, are from outside Peru and want to get to know more people.

Sunset in the jungle

Anniversaries

It was the church's 13th anniversary last weekend. As with anniversaries for everything here, it was quite a big occasion. We had an extended service with various performances and presentations and then had a meal together afterwards. These are some pictures from the church anniversary including one of us with Pastor Americo and his wife Mary and their 3 boys.



This Saturday was the 8th anniversary of Sammy's school. There was an event in a local recreation ground, with games, music, dancing and food.

Sammy made cakes for the cake stall. One game involved guessing which box the guinea pig would run into when placed in the circle!



Barney was one of the big highlights of the afternoon. Sammy spent about 2 hours dancing!



To watch the video, it is best to pause it and wait for the loading bar to complete before viewing.

The afternoon ended with a firework display (not quite the same level of safety regulations here!)

'The Mountain'

In addition to the micro-enterprise project linked to the church, there is also a project (or rather a project in development) based at ‘The Mountain’. Americo, our pastor, had a vision before he came to Cusco 12 years ago, of having a ‘prayer mountain’ where people could go for retreats and prayer and where they could also do social action projects. About 6 years ago, after much prayer and searching, the church was able to purchase literally ‘a mountain’ – this is a large area of mountainside (50 hectares) just outside Cusco.

On Saturday, Pastor Americo and Mary took us up to the mountain where they have now built a large, adobe-brick house. They lived in this house for a while as a family (they have three sons – 13, 10 and 7) but have recently moved out so that the house can become what it is designed for. The house is comprised of a large, long room which could function as a dining room and lounge, two large dormitories, an office, a kitchen and bathroom. Here the plan is for churches in Cusco to use it as a retreat, conference and youth centre and also to attract tourists to use it. At the front of the house is a large covered patio area which is to be developed into a kitchen and dining room area for a children’s feeding programme and Bible club, reaching out to poor families in the area.

Pastor America and Mary have ideas to raise guinea pigs (not for pets!!) and other animals on the land above to help to sustain the project and, at some point in the future, to build a children’s home on land further along where there are some flatter areas for games and sport.

The purchasing of the land and the building of the house seem quite miraculous. Another amazing thing that has happened is that the house has a water supply. There is no mains supply in this area and this caused quite a problem at first. Water for everything had to be bought and carried up the long, rough track to the house – expensive and time-consuming. The Pastor prayed for a resolution to the problem and amazingly he found water springing up through the ground a little way above the house. He had built the house just below a fresh water spring and this now provides a constant, clean water supply!

We think it is amazing how the micro-enterprise project led us to the church and that the church also has this project which is so much in line with our ideas before we came out here. Having now seen the mountain we have all sorts of ideas that at some point we hope we can discuss with Americo and Mary and see how we can be involved.

In addition to the picture God gave us years ago about working alongside people in a place associated with birds of prey, more recently in my Bible readings he has seemed to highlight ‘mountains’. This fits in well with our desire to help the poor as here the poorer people live in the mountains. It seems an amazing ‘coincidence’ that this project is situated in a place known as ‘The Mountain’!

One thing that has been challenging us is how tourists might see real Christianity in Cusco amidst all the incredibly interesting and stunning historical Catholic and Inca sights and sites. Many visitors to Cusco are interested in the spiritual aspects of the place, but they only really get to hear about ancient Inca beliefs and the mixed Catholic-indigenous practices. It is interesting that our Pastor is asking the same question and seeking to use the mountain as part of the answer - a place where they can learn about biblical Christianity and see service to the poor in action. Our vision is that people return home transformed in their own lives and with the desire to make a difference to those less fortunate.

Church - Children's club in Lamay

Last week we visited a small town in the mountains about an hour from Cusco called Lamay. One of the leaders in our church has started a church plant there and on Saturdays he runs a children's club. Devin, our friend from America, took us out to visit.


The plaza at Lamay. Sammy quickly started to make friends in the street outside the room where the club meets.



The day we visited, the kids were going on an outing.
They played games and had a picnic.
One of the girls brought her baby sister along.

Our church

We decided on a church to join around the end of April after visiting 5 or 6 on Sundays. We found it through a long series of connections which, in a way, go back 17 years to the time Roland first came to Latin America!

Last autumn we went to our friend Celia’s retirement party in London. Celia worked in Peru for 20 years and it was through her we were first inspired to visit Peru in 1997. At the party we met Don Ford, who used to head up Latin Link, and through whom Roland was first inspired to come to Latin America in 1990. We told Don about our plans to come to Peru. A couple of months later, we received an email from Don because a friend of his in New Zealand is due to come to Cusco in July. He thought we would be interested as the conference is about Christian-run micro-enterprise projects. The organisation running the conference is based in the States but they have partners in many parts of the world and their Peruvian partner is working in Cusco. So we were excited that there might be something going on already in Cusco that we could join with or at least learn from. And we hoped there might be church connected with it we could join.

Roland managed to speak to the head of the organisation in the States before we came out here, and he was very positive about Roland’s possible involvement. He said there was a volunteer from America working in Cusco with the project who we should meet when we got here.

So, finally, after a few weeks of being here, we managed to get in touch with Devin, the volunteer working here, and find out more. It turns out that she goes to the church where the project originally started about 7 years ago. We have been going there for just over a month now and really like it. We get on well with the pastor, Americo, and his wife, Mary. They have lots of ideas and plans for the church which sound good. Sammy is pleased because the service is short! We were all finding the 2-3 hour services on other churches a bit much! Mary does a fun kids group for his age and there is space at the back for Benjamin to play. The morning meeting is quite small (it’s recently started with about 30 people) but the more established evening meeting has about 70.

Pictures of a family event arranged by the church in a poor area of town

The church is called Centro Familiar Cristiano and meets in a rented building on the outskirts of the centre of Cusco. We can walk to it in about 40 minutes. It’s quite near to an area we’re looking at living longer term, so that would be useful! The office of the micro-enterprise project is located there too. The church was planted by Americo and Mary from one in Lima 12 years ago.

They have another project associated with the church too – a project which owns a big house on a mountainside near here. The vision is for it to be a retreat centre with a feeding programme for children, plus perhaps a children’s home in the future. The church also does outreaches in several poor areas and have one church plant already started and another one planned.