So this past week for our Spring Break, 13 of us from UNCG’s Young Life College went to Lima, Peru to work alongside the Young Life team there. For those of you who wanted to know and/or supported my trip financially and prayerfully, I wanted to write a more detailed entry about what we did there, as well as to address a common aspect of life that a lot of us are used to in America, and that can hinder us from fully serving Christ; our comfort.
After our flight from Miami to Lima, our group was picked up in the airport by our soon to be dear friend, Renzo. Renzo is a Young Life Leader and college student in Lima. As we boarded a bus and began to drive towards our destination; all that we knew was that we were staying with a man named Alberto’s parents; Alberto is the head of all of Young Life in Peru and has a beautiful family (Super cute kids).
The first thing that ran through my mind as soon as we made the turn out of the airport was that this place needed Jesus. The overpopulation had made Lima an impoverished area, I’ll hit more on that later on, but first I need to mention the traffic. THE TRAFFIC WAS INSANE; I’m talking like no structure, and I had been to Europe before which I also thought was crazy traffic but it did not compare to Lima traffic. Lanes, traffic lights, speed limits, all of this structure seemed to be nonexistent, and if it was, nobody followed it. If you wanted to switch lanes you basically beeped your horn, forced yourself over, and hoped you didn’t get hit. But thankfully, our driver for the week was a fearless professional, and it probably helped being that we were in a tour bus and would have been the ones squashing other cars if they didn’t let us get over.
As we drove through the city we saw some familiar franchises like KFC and McDonalds (They were all like three stories tall) and we saw a Chili’s, but the best thing we saw was a hair salon with Zac Efron’s face on it, hilarious.
Anyway, we go through a couple of gates and end up on this tight knit street, where there are houses stacked on top of houses and balcony’s galore. We went upstairs and met our hosts; a beyond generous and sweet old couple named Agosto and Estelle, as I previously mentioned they were Alberto’s parents. Renzo, our translator, relayed their message of welcome as they told us how excited they were for us to be there and that they had been waiting for us. Estelle had tea and crackers ready for us when we got there here’s a picture of our first night there:
On Sunday we got to go to an English speaking Church in Lima and there were people from all nationalities there which was a really cool experience. The church was super welcoming and inviting and we all worshipped together. But the real fun came that evening when we met up with a Young Life group from Chorrillos (a nearby town) at a water park. We immediately started building relationships with these kids and started playing with them in the fountains. This experience in particular made me think of 1 Corinthians 4:10 when Paul says that we are “Fools for Christ”, that’s because once we started playing with the kids in the fountains, just about everyone else in the water park gathered around us and just stared at us, taking pictures and watching the whole time. I think it was partly because we were a group of Americans playing in the fountains but I think it was mostly because the love of Christ is contagious and that it drew them in, even if they didn’t know what it was. Here’s a picture from the water park.
Monday may have been my favorite day. We had the amazing opportunity to go to a school for kids with disabilities. The first area in the school once you walk through the gate is an outdoor courtyard. There were kids there with their parents, the school introduced the staff and played the Peruvian national anthem, and we were introduced to everyone. One of the first things that I noticed when I walked in was a clown on stilts, and guess who that guy turned out to be? A Young Life leader named Jesús, that was such a beautiful picture of how Young Life in Peru is the same as it is here at home; leaders are willing to go to where the kids are and go to any lengths to preach the Gospel, even if that means dressing up like a clown and wearing some stilts. Here are a few pictures from Monday:
Also I want to give a huge thanks to Andrew Neel for taking pictures and filming throughout our trip, he is super talented. (You can read his blog here: http://thissideofthedoor.weebly.com/1/category/things%20im%20learning728f1d1103/1.html)
We began to get down to work on Tuesday, our main job for the week other than building relationships was to renovate the Club room for Lima’s Young Life, the club room happened to be the roof of the house we were staying at for the week. We started by sanding down the walls and wore masks on our faces so we didn’t breathe in dust. Throughout the week we had to wear 80 SPF sunscreen because Peru is right on the equator, I don’t think we were ever under 70 degrees the whole time there. There was no air conditioning either, this is where I want to talk about comfort a little bit because it wasn’t comfortable. Comfort is one of those things that we all take for granted; showers that work, clean water to drink, air conditioning, even smooth traffic flow is such a standard for most of us living in the United States. But Christ does not call us to be comfortable, He never called us to be comfortable. Comfort is one of those things that the Church can get stuck up on a lot of the time. We would rather have a nice house and a nice car than have less so others can have more.
Paul does a great job of addressing this in Philippians 3:7-9.
“But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”
The world teaches such a skewed message on success to everyone who observes; be the best, and make the most money so that you can be secure and comfortable. Paul who once relished in his comfort realized that it was all nothing compared to what he gained from knowing and serving Christ. Jesus wasn’t comfortable when he was hanging on a cross or washing his disciples feet, and we should not be comfortable where ever we are in our walk with Christ.
Here are some pictures from Tuesday:
I hope this painted a good picture for you of how our first three days went, and how we are not called to a comfortable life. I will post the last three days later this week, but until then, here is a video that I put together with some footage via Andrew Neel (Follow his blog!!!!)
Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PHtVXu50k8
Thanks everyone for supporting my trip, God moved through us so much and I can’t wait to share the rest of the trip with you all!
In Christ,
Matt Weatherly
Growing In Christ 