‘Emerald of the Andes’: a church where the poor lead the poor

PERU Focus

At 7.00am 50 children between four and 12 years old are gathered on the roof of the simple one-storey building of the Esmeralda de los Andes (‘Emerald of the Andes’) church. The church is in a settlement called Canto Grande San Juan de Luringancho, just north of Lima. Every day the children come to eat breakfast before starting school at 8.00am. On arrival they carry the simple wooden benches, the only furniture in the worship hall, up onto the roof where they sit to eat.

In the early morning, a local mother serves buns and cups of warm chocolate-flavoured milk and oats to children at the Esmeralda de los Andes Church (`Emerald of the Andes`) as part of the Pan de Vida program, run by the Peruvian Bible Society and the Urban- Rural Holistic Mission (MISIUR). Lima, Peru. Photo: UBS/Stein Mydske (PER03DJ-41.JPG)

As in the other Pan de Vida projects, this meal – two buttered buns, one with jam, one with cheese, and a bowl of warm chocolate-flavoured milk and oats – will be all that many of them eat until evening.

Julian Tarazona Bermudez, the pastor of the church, runs this Pan de Vida project with three volunteers, maturer youngsters from the neighbourhood. The children are encouraged to arrive clean and on time, and, in the longer term, to develop Christian attitudes towards themselves, to others and to society in general.

An assistant checks off the children’s names to find out if anyone is missing. Later in the day someone will visit the homes of those who didn’t turn up to find out why. There is a long waiting list of would-be entrants to the project, and if children keep being absent, they forfeit their place. The costs of the breakfasts are covered by the Urban-Rural Holistic Mission (MISIUR), the church buys the food and there is a rota of local mothers to prepare and serve it. Before they eat, Pastor Julian leads the children in a song and a prayer.  

After breakfast on Saturdays, instead of going off to school, the children stay at the church for a Bible class from Pastor Julian. The resources for this consist of the ‘church library’, a small cupboard stocked with books provided by the Peruvian Bible Society.

Pastor Julian started the work in Canto Grande two years ago. Originally, he was pastor of a Pentecostal church in a neighbouring community. Then the church decided to plant a mission church here and released Pastor Julian to be its pastor.

But for some reason the promised economic assistance from the parent church never materialised and he simply had to manage everything as best he could. A skilled builder, he set about building the church himself. So far only the ground floor is finished and as yet there are no internal doors to separate the church proper from the rooms where Pastor Julian, his wife Victoria and their two children live.

He receives no salary from the church as the members are too poor and having no other employment, he lives by faith and occasional gifts. (WR 388/8 - 10/11.04)