Sharing the Gospel at
the ends of the Earth
THE RECORD, Thursday, August 30, 2001
By GREGORY RUMMO
The
Christian's greatest responsibility is to be a witness
for Jesus Christ by living an exemplary life and by
sharing the Gospel with others. That duty begins at home
with family, friends, and neighbors. But it should not
end there. We have a responsibility to share the Good
News with the whole world.
Just before ascending to heaven, Jesus Christ issued
the Great Commission, instructing his followers to share
the Gospel with everyone. "You will receive power
when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the Earth" (Acts 1:8).
I recently had the chance to be among believers
helping fulfill this commandment. I went with 30 other
men and women, most of us "Gringos" from the
United States, on a weeklong trek to distribute Bibles
to the Quechua living in the valleys throughout the
Andes Mountains in the Ancash region of Peru.
It felt as though we had embarked on a journey to
"the ends of the Earth." Just getting to the
starting point was an ordeal. After arriving in Lima
late on Friday evening, we awoke early the next morning
for an eight-hour bus ride to Huaraz, a small city
perched at about 10,300 feet in the Andean foothills.
My friend Phil Winfield, a Baptist missionary who
lives in Lima, had arranged for the purchase of almost
10,000 Spanish New Testaments, Gospels of Luke, and
Quechua harmonized Gospel accounts. On Sunday afternoon,
we loaded the Bibles and our gear into two smaller buses
for a four-hour ride over dangerous, unpaved roads and
creaky wooden bridges spanning raging rivers.
Stopping in every village along the way, we passed
out literature and shared the Gospel with everyone who
would listen. In Carhuaz, our first stop, we parked our
buses next to the village green in the center of town.
Soon, we were surrounded. The press was so great that we
held a service in the park. Many people prayed along
with the missionaries to trust Jesus for the forgiveness
of their sins. After a tearful goodbye, we began the
arduous ride on the dry, dusty roads to Huaypan.
The two buses bucked and swayed on the sinuous roads
through the small Quechua villages that dot the valleys
around the base of Huascaran, Peru's highest mountain.
We drove through Tumpa, Musho, Huashco, Hushno, and
Armapampa.
In each village, we handed out the Word of God.
Several times, a small crowd gathered as one of our
missionaries explained the Gospel story to them. In some
instances, we simply handed Bibles through the windows
of the buses as the people ran out to see what all the
commotion was. It was dark when we pulled up to a small
field behind the schoolhouse in Huaypan.
"Estamos aqui [We are here]," our Quechua
guide, Adelid, said with a big grin. As we set up our
tents, children from the village appeared, curious to
know more about us. We spoke with some of them, giving
them candy and Gospel tracts. We ate a hasty supper and
sat around the campfire, sharing stories, singing praise
songs, and toasting marshmallows.
The next morning, we started our trek at the school
we had camped behind. The children came back, along with
the men of the village and some of the women. They
eagerly lined up and accepted Bibles from us. That warm
reception was repeated in village after village over the
next five days. "It was like passing out
hundred-dollar bills in Central Park," said John
Jarvis, one of the members of our group.
We walked more than 54 miles at altitudes ranging
between 9,700 and 15,613 feet. We spoke to people along
the way -- in their front yards, in fields as they
farmed or tended their sheep, or simply by the side of
the road. We requested permission to go into the schools
in every village through which we walked. With only one
exception, we were invited to speak to the students and
hand out God's Word.
On several occasions, I was reminded of Jesus' words,
"Open your eyes and look at the fields. They are
ripe for harvest!" (John 4:35). Truly there was a
ripe harvest of souls that week in Peru.
Tuesday evening, we camped in the village of Vicos.
We showed "The Jesus Story," a film that had
been translated into Quechua. We made a screen by
hanging a white sheet on the wall of an adobe house
across from our campsite and powered the projector by
hooking it up to a car battery brought along by our
guides.
Almost 400 men, women, and children showed up that
evening. For more than two hours, they stood and watched
images of the life of Christ. For many of the Quechua,
it was the first time they had ever been exposed to the
Gospel.
Before hiking out of Vicos on Wednesday, we visited
the school. The entire student body -- more than 600
young people -- lined up to receive our literature. They
then sang us a song as we went on our way to Joncopampa.
This was my second missionary trek among the Quechua.
In July 1999, we were met with a similar response. In a
school in Vaqueria, for example, after we had shared the
Gospel with students and distributed New Testaments, the
teacher told us that no one had ever given her or her
kids a Bible before. "Gracias, gracias," she
told us tearfully.
The apostle James wrote: "Listen, my dear
brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the
eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the
kingdom he promised those who love him?" (James
2:5).
On the overnight bus ride back to Lima along the Pan
American Highway, I thought back over the week's events
and pondered this verse. Truly, we had been privileged
to travel to "the ends of the Earth."
n To see additional pictures from both the 2001 and the
1999 treks, visit www.AndesBlanket.org
Gregory J. Rummo is a
syndicated columnist. Read all of his columns on his homepage,
www.GregRummo.com. E-Mail Rummo at GregoryJRummo@aol.com
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