Iglesia Presbiteriana De Ayacucho

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Hi Folks,

The above means "Presbyterian Church of Ayacucho" which is where I headed at 11am this morning. What a wonderful experience!!

The Church is very small - I was lucky that I spotted it at all from the outside which was purely by accident!!Inside, it is a rectangular building with a stage at the bottom end. I was thrilled to see a drum kit and some music stands on the stage. Wondered if they had a praise band anywhere near as good as ours!!

There were no obvious signs that this was a Church - no communion table and no crosses or other symbols on the walls. The pulpit was effectively the stage and the preacher preached from what appeared to be a Bible stand covered in a white cloth, with a lovely arrangement of fresh flowers in front of it. There was a great sound system (microphones and speakers etc), also electricity and large fans attached to the inside lights.

Inside there was what I can only describe as moveable pews - rows of pews which were not fixed to the ground, each of which could hold maybe five people. The Church was set out in three sections with passages on the far left, the far right and one in the middle. There were eighteen rows of pews in each section (54 in total) and I would estimate on average three people in each pew, making a grand total of approx 162 people in the Church, not counting those who sttod at the back.

The congregation was totally mixed which just reminded me of New Govan. There were older, well dressed couples; young professionals with their children who were all very well dressed; youngsters dressed casually in jeans pretty much as I dress for Church at home; older ladies dressed in traditional dress, and some campesino people who looked like they had travelled down from the mountains.

As I entered, I was handed an order of service by the man at the door who said "Beunos Dias". I slipped into the middle pew in the last row.

The service was beautiful, even although I only have limited Spanish. I guess some words and phrases are universal regardless of country or language. The service was conducted in both Spanish and Quechuan which was lovely. Quechuan is the historic and traditional language of the Andean Highlanders -a bit like the Gaelic is to the Scots.

The Bibe readings were Jeremiah Ch1 vs 1-8 and then Acts Ch 20 vs 27-35. The preacher read a verse which was then re read in Quechuan by a translator. When the sermon started, the preacher would preach a few lines which would then be translated. The hymns sung were a mixture of Spanish and Quechuan. I was able to join with the Spanish hymns, but the Quechuan language is actually very difficult. I was able to follow the words on my order of service, but it would have been pretty tricky to enunciate!!

There was an organ which was played for the Spanish hymns (no sign of the praise band I´m afraid!!), but the Quechuan hymns were sung with no accompaniment. The Quechuan hymns were very moving. I think the only way I can possibly describe it is that it must be similar to the singing in African churches. My friends in New Govan might be able to imagine this as a significant number of our congregation are refugees from Africa. It was very melodic, pretty rousing and sung with a lot of feeling and emotion. I really enjoyed it, even though I had no idea what the words meant. I must see if I can get someone to translate them for me.

There was communion at todays service. Not sure whether communion is celebrated weekly, or whether (as at home) it is only once every few months. I will admit that this is the first time I had any notion of homesickness!! I knew that we were having communion in New Govan this morning, and all of a sudden I really missed all my family and friends from Church. The communion was beautiful, and almost exactly the same way we would celebrate it at home, which made my homesickness even worse, but was also very comforting!!

There appeared to be what was the equivalent of elders who served the minister, and then walked down the aisles to serve the congregation individually. Instead of bread, we had what appeared to be Ritz cheese flavoured crackers. When everyone had been served, the elders returned to the table in front of the stage where the elements were set out. The preacher then said "Take, eat etc" and everyone took the crackers at the same time. After that the wine was served by the same elders. The wine had been poured into individual glasses which were carried on a tray. The wine was green in colour (for those who are familiar with it, a similar colour to Inca Kola), and was very sweet. I think it may have been some sort of chicha or corn wine. It didn´t taste obviously alcoholic, but I assume it was as the pregnant lady sitting next to me drank water instead of the wine. The wine was also consumed at exactly the same time under the direction of the preacher. The empty wine glasses were then collected by the same elders.

There were also two offerings. One for the work of the Church and one for charity - again almost exactly like home. At the end of the service there was a lovely blessing and the Doxology was then sung twice in Spanish. I felt very confortable there and totally at home - only wish that I had found the Church much, much earlier!!!!!!!

The whole service was conducted with the outside doors wide open to let in the air. In the background I could also hear all the noise of Ayacucho slowly wakening up on a Sunday morning.

When I arrived at first, there was no obvious sign of any children. They must have been at Sunday School as they ran in partway through the sermon and joined their parents in the pews. Difficult to estimate the number of kids as they all came in individually.

A lot of people came and went during the course of the service. Some arrived late, and some left early and (believe it or not) some went outside to answer mobile phones which had not been switched off during the course of the service!!

I was one of two gringoes at the service. The other lady there was Dutch, and I chatted to her a little afterwards (really stretching the limits of my French!!). I had to make a quick exit as the service lasted an hour and a half and I was due back at base by 12.30pm for lunch.

As I walked home, someone caught up with me and asked if I was the girl who had been at Church. This was a young boy (early 20´s) called Micael, who is actually the Sunday School teacher. He is a student at the university in Ayacucho studying Agricultural Economics (I think). He had some English and I have a little Spanish. Between the two of us we got there!! He walked me home and chatted about the Church which was nice. He also showed me the Sunday School lesson they had worked on (Luke Ch14 vs 28-33 follwed by three discussion topics). I had a copy of our Church magazine with me which I gave to him, and tried to tell him a little about New Govan. We exchanged e-mail addresses and I explained that I would be very happy for our two Churches to stay in touch. Explained that this is (very sadly) my last Sunday in Ayacucho. He invited me to various other things on in the Church during the week (Bible study sessions etc) but my Spanish isn´t good enough for that to be of any value either to either them or me!! He has said that he will call to the CCS house one evening this week so we can go for coffee and talk some more. He also explained that the man currently in charge of the seminary in Lima is from Scotland!! Micael also had a guitar slung over his shoulder which impressed me no end, but we didn´t have enough time to start on a discussion about praise bands etc.

I´m really excited about this as it´s a great opportunity for both Churches (in Govan and In Ayacucho) to broaden our horizons and reach out across the world!! Just hope I get to catch up with Micael again before I leave next Saturday for my trip. If not, I at least have his e-mail address. Will also need to try to get a photo of him for all my Church friends at home!!

Campbell put me in touch with his friend Juan Carlos in Cusco who told me that there was a Presbyterian Church in Ayacucho. I would naturally have assumed that they were all Roman Catholic as that is the main religion in Peru. Having established that there was one, it was then up to me to find it which I did quite by accident. Big thank you to Campbell and Juan Carlos - I really had a great time there!! Just a shame that no one could tell me where it was (despite asking numerous people) earlier during my time here. It would have been great to go every Sunday and get to know some more of the people. At least I´ll know where to go when I come back to Ayacucho, which I certainly will!!

While I remember, a BIG thank you to June for delivering all my communion cards at home. Very much appreciated!!

During lunch I think I bored Wendy and Vicki with all my chat about Church. Afterwards I did a washing, had a nice hot shower and caught up on some reading. The three of us then headed into town to shop at the local market. Started to get pretty windy and dark which usually means a storm, so we cut our trip short (going without a visit to a cafe for some cake and Inca Kola) and headed home to find that the group who were on the llama trek had returned. From chatting to Caitlin, sounds like they had a great time, although they experienced all four seasons in one day in the high Andes - exactly the same as our group had on the same trip.

Now have only five days left in Ayacucho. Can´t believe I´ve just spent my last weekend here!! It´s gone so fast!!ç

Had a fairly quiet night just chilling out at the house and watching a bit of TV. Went to bed early as back at the nursery in the orphanage tomorrow.

Vicki and I think we have found a use for the lump of concrete outside MG´s shop next door - please see attached photo of Vicki!! MG is the nicknamed coined for the propietor by Vicki - very appropriately "Misery Guts"!!

Thats all for now folks.

Lesley x

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Photos

Presbyterian Church of Ayacucho
This is a photograph of the outside of the Church taken during the week when I literally stumbled across it!!

Alternative purpose for concrete block!!
Maybe MG plans to charge the tourists to pose for their photos. We took this one of Vicki when he wasn´t around!!

Comments

[MUM]

COMMUNMION I IN AYACUCHA
HAD THE HAIR ON THE BACK OF MY NECK STANDING UP WHEN I READ THIS ONE - SOUNDED ABSLUTELY FANTASTIC. WAS THINKING ABOUT YOU AS WE TOOK COMMUNION I ENDED UP WITH ROSE'S READING AS SHE DIDNT MAKE IT BUT YOU WERE IN MY MIND - WAS ABOUT THE 72 DISCIPLES GOING OUT. SO GLAD YOU FOUND THE CHURCH AND LOOK FORWARD TO A BLOW BY BLOW ACCOUNT OF IT AND WOULD BE DELIGHTED TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH THE CHURCH. EVERY BODY HERE OVER THE MOON ABOUT YOUR ACCOUNT IN THE MAGAZINE SO YOUR AYACUCHA COMMUNION MUST BE THE BASIS FOR ONE SERMON FROM YOU. TAKE CARE. LOVE ALWAYS. MUM