Perú 6/12/2010: Clean Water for the Shipibos

Photos are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=186717&id=580751501

We went to the Shipibo village outside Tingo Maria. These are indigenous Peruvians, not descendants of the Conquistadores... or Incas, apparently. Anyhow, they speak Shipibo, but some of them have learned some Spanish too. The village holds about 200 people and their old well was not very good. See this link to hear about why we were there to help with their new well:

http://twitvid.com/Q1PN3

They had the hold partially dug and there were two of three concrete "donuts" that were going to make up the walls in place. I'm not sure why they didn't dig the entire hole and then put the concrete donuts in, but they have probably dug more wells than I have. There happened to be a large rock underneath the donuts once we got down to a certain point in the digging, and we spent most of the day working around that stone. Long story short, we finally got it down to where the top of the second donut was level with the ground, then put the third one on top. We prayed over the well and the village, and they sang us a song in their native tongue. There's a video of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7MeSZF-fyA

There was also a Shipibo vs. Gringo soccer game. I don't want to get into the score, and after a while we ended up with several Shipibos on our team as well. It was all pretty cool, except that it was very hot and the bugs were pretty bad there.

I tested out the swimming pool at the hotel and it seemed to work. I approve. Dinner was Pollo a la Parilla and of course it was very good. Why there aren't more Peruvian restaurants in the United States is beyond me - all the food here is delicious.

We finished the night up with more street evangelism in the plaza. We were in a different place and it seemed like a huge crowd gathered. I was a bit distracted by some of the kids from the church who kept trying to talk to me throughout the evening, but I was able to pray for several people and again it was a blessed time in the Lord.

We spent a little bit of time talking with various people afterwards and they (especially the kids) wanted to learn English words for various things. Getting them to say "beard" was pretty amusing, they have trouble with our "r" sound and it comes out more like "beeld."

It's a good thing the Lord gives us strength because all these late nights and early mornings would normally get to me. Tomorrow is another early start with the first of 4 (or is it 5?) church services starting at 8.