Andean harpist



Harpist and harpmaker Leonardo Cahuana and his daughter Edith Ruby Cahuana visited our friend Cayo Vargas and gave a small concer in his living room. (This is only one song!)
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...to boldly go...

At three A.M. this morning, my co-workers Cayo Cardenas and Walter Ccoicca left for Incahuasi, a remote (even for Peru!) area the other side of the cordillera Blanca (the really high snow-capped mountains). Incahuasi is on the way down into the Amazon Basin and among other things makes some of the best coffee in the world - I am enjoying a cup right now :).
The bus trip, in an old, small, rattle-trap bus made on a converted truck chassis, will take them 13 hours or so, depending upon the weather at the pass and mechanical breakdowns. But that is better than last year until this year you had to go a long way by mule! This area is so remote, in fact, that are still vestiges of the Shining Path Terrorists in the area, another reason that a Gringo can't really go there.
They are going to set up a Thompson Bible conference that will be held there next month. This area is full of churches, but has not got any trained pastors and it is so remote that American missionaries don't usually go there. In fact, the churches that are there are the result of Christians moving to the area to grow coffee and are not the result of church planting. So, it is really a new field in many ways. And because of the terrorists and the difficulty of getting there, I will probably never or seldom go there. But the Lord has brought us Peruvian - Andean Quechua - co-workers and that has opened yet more doors for us here. They can go places that I can't!
They will also be meeting with the churches there about starting a regular Bible Institute there. They have been asking for teachers up there for as long as I can remember and now that Cayo and Walter are working with Believers Bridge, we can meet that need. Cayo and Walter, both seminary graduates with years of pastoral experience are expanding our ministry here to many such areas - places like Ocros, Puquio, Huancarama - that are at very high altitudes or very far from roads or are unsafe for foreigners. Please pray for these men and their families as they pour their lives into the ministry here. Cayo has only got $200 monthly support and that may only be for this year. Walter so far has no support, he is still pastoring a church and can only work part-time and with me paying for his travel. The fields are white, but the laborers are few, pray to the Lord of the harvest that He will provide for the needs of these workers, who are willing to go where no missionaries have gone before.