Thank you, dear friends, for your patience while I´ve been away from my blogging. We´ve had lots of Spring cleaning going on at our home, so we´ve been quite busy, but we did get away for the day on Thursday, with a group of people from the church for a little trip to a small village Southwest of Zulia, our state, to Perija, home to the Yukpa Indians. We have done this trip a few times, as we´ve made friends with a group of Chirstian Yukpas and have made a tradition of bringing them food and clothing, about once a year.
Perija, is a beautiful place in the foothills of the Andes and borders the jungles of Colombia. The lovely river of Kunana runs along through the village and attracts lots of visitors, and Yukpa locals.
This indigenous group is very poor and has great needs, but they are a gentle people, kind and generous with what they have. Whenever we have visited we have been greeted warmly, and with handcrafted gifts that they make with the natural resources from their land. They weave baskets to sell from the grasses that grow there, and necklaces and braclets from the seeds of trees and plants. Their way of saying "welcome", is by placing necklaces about each of our necks, men and women alike. They also gift the women in our group with handcrafted baskets and avocados, which grow naturally on their land. It is a wonderful custom they have and we enjoy it each time as if it were the first.
After the welcoming, they will gather everyone together into a group to sing songs of praise and thanksgiving to God for His provisions, as we pull down the many boxes we have brought for gifting to them.
It is a sweet little cermony that happens each time we go, just exactly the same.
We spend a good deal of time on the road there and back, about three and a half hours one way, so we always pack a lunch and stop along the river, find a nice, large flat rock and spread out our picnic to enjoy, before we head further up the road to meet with the village people.
This is a tradition we have come to enjoy!
2 comments:
Oh Colleen.....this blog entry was worth the wait!!
Beautifully written, it touched my heart and makes me think that if the story did that to me....how incredibly wonderful the experience must made all of you feel!
Such a loving gesture of your time, effort and energy.
God bless you, and your loving heart my dear friend!!
XO Michaelene
dear colleen after a week of conference and seeing a video that made me cry how can i not be moved by this post...this is why we go, this is why we send....the theme was "a kings randsom...refocusing...souls...here in american and there...in the nations of the world...amen...good post
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