For one whole week a group of six of us went to Urubamba. The town is about an hour out side of Cuzco. The small city is nestled in the Andes mountains at almost 10,000 feet. Glaciers sat on top of some of the tallest mountains. The weather was warm when the sun was out, and wet when the clouds were out.
Our team was scheduled to stay at a hostel in town. The place was hardly habitable, even for a group of young bible college students. The fact is there wasn't any room. The owner booked our rooms but the housecleaner, her daughter, informed us that there wasn't any room. Either way, Coco, our leader, took us to his house(not his house but the house he was staying at). The house was grand and it had two rock climbing walls. It had great windows and much of the house was either wood or stone. Coco had been working there for awhile before we got there. He had only be going around to towns close to Urubamba and sharing with the people there about Jesus. Some times he would play with the kids, some times he would go around to the houses to his the friends that he had made. This is what we did all week. We came along side Coco and helped him with his work. We mainly played with kids. Each day we went to a school or an orphanage or just a town center to sing songs and tell stories.
One of the most beautiful happenings of the whole trip occurred on the first night we were there. We went to a local church meeting. We were going to meet in a park, but there heavy rain that night. There was a believer with a house right next to the park, so we went to her house. There were about 15 wet people in the small yellow room. We sat for a while chatting and sharing songs. The we started the service. The songs we sand were some of the sweetest that I have ever heard. They were simple and true. The Pastor spoke a message after we sang. In his voice you could hear the passion and sorrow that this man had for his town. He longed for his friends to know the truth. He hated the corruption that had come into the town because of the tourism. It was a church like I had never known.
While in Urubamba we were able to meet the mayor and governor of the region. The whole thing was a bit unbelievable. We had been praying for someone to speak to and before we finish praying the mayor comes and invites us all to his office. He wanted to talk to us. He invited us back later to talk to the governor of the Cuzco region. For almost an hour Coco talked to the two men about the problems of the area and the general goodness of man and how the two coincided. The two men were Christians but they didn't seem to think that God had anything to do with politics. Coco suggested that man would continue to be corrupt until his heart was changed, and that the only way his heart could be changed was through God, through faith in Jesus. The sin nature of man is ultimately consumed with only one thing, and that is itself. Not that non-Christians can't do good things, but that generally, every action is motivated by selfish desires, even those that appear good. Salvation through Jesus Christ is the only way to be free from that sin nature that is so selfish. Salvation is not only for eternity but for today. Needless to say, the two men disagreed with that. But it was a good talk and both sides walked away with more insight.
Our last planned day in Urubamba we went to a town way up in the mountains called Sodmac. We hiked in because it was a nice day and there were some ruins along the way that we could see. One of Cocos friends wanted to take us to see a waterfall high in the mountains, so she came along. We gradually made our way up the mountain. The ruins were ruined. A truck passed us and we asked them if they could take us up the steepest part of the mountain. We rode in the back on top of the metal cage. We made it up to the small mountain town and we stopped for lunch. It was there that Cocos friend heard the truth of the gospel and made a decision to live for God. The ironic thing is that we never made it to the waterfall. We played with a few kids there and told them stories. It was a great.
We first attempted to leave on Sunday. We got to the airport on time and everything went smoothly in the airport, all we had to do was wait. Our boarding time came and nothing happened. There wasn't even a plane at our gate. They told us two more hours. So we waited more. At this point all of us were in good spirits, we were just eager to get home and reunite with the rest of the bible college students. After two hours we got in line. Then the airline began asking for volunteers to stay over night (apparently the weather was too risky to fly with a full plane). So we sent one person home and the rest of us stayed. It took another 2 hours to get our hotel vouchers and leave the airport. The hotel was nothing to complain about. The food was great and the beds were warm. We returned to the airport at 6 the next morning only to find that our flight was cancelled. The airline was working out a deal with another carrier to get us on another flight. So we got our tickets and while we were checking in our bags, my dear friend candy realized that she had left her passport at the hotel. We missed that flight. The hotel delivered the passport a few minutes later and we had a flight scheduled to leave for three in the afternoon. So we waited for 8 hours in the airport while three of the five of us were sick and miserable. Our plane was an hour late, but we finally made it home.
Despite our delay getting home, the trip was great.
this is an update.
