In this modern age, when we have communication devices at our fingertips, let me tell you the system the Incas had. They used ropes with knots that contained their messages, called quipus. Read about them clicking here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu
The Incas had couriers called chasquis that relayed the messages. Along the main roads they had houses called Tambos, where they stored everything that the Inca emperor and the military would need on their travels. Besides food they also stored clothes, hides, blankets and weapon. A Tambo was also used as the inn for the Emperor and his court.
Along the roads, about every three miles, were smaller houses where the chasqui-couriers were stationed. They could quickly relay messages to and from the capital. One chasqui would pass on the quipus to another, who would then run quickly and pass it on to another, and so on. The punishment was death if anybody hindered the chasqui-couriers running along the road. Read about them clicking here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaski
The city of Huancayo is divided in three main sections: Tambo, Huancayo and Chilca. In 1965 my parents and I started the ministry in a rented store-front on the main street of TAMBO. I was very excited during this trip when one day driving by in a taxi we got a red light right by the building and I could take a picture of what used to be our first church.
The door you see on the blue wall opened up to our meeting place. In the beginning, people were afraid to come in and they would flock in the doorway. My dad quickly learned not to say a word, inviting those people in, because then everybody fled. He preached to empty benches and a doorway full of people.
We had children that ventured in, and with time many of them brought their parents. In the beginning I used to have Sunday school outside on the sidewalk. Every week I put up posters announcing the services, but people tore them down. I still did it!
Here are some of the children from those times. We had Sunday school, radio and television programs, open air meetings, and camps, apart from the regular services for adults.
From that first TAMBO meeting place there have gone out many chasqui-messengers. My parents opened a Bible Institute to train servants of the Lord. Like the Inca-couriers ran with messages, they have taken the message of the Gospel to many different places.
One of the most rewarding and interesting encounters I had on my trip was with one of the former kids from those first days in TAMBO. Due to unhappy circumstances his parents prohibited him to continue at the church. Many, many years he walked away from God. But fourteen years ago he turned back to the Lord.
It’s the boy in the middle. He could never forget the love he had experienced in our children’s ministry. The seed of God’s Word sown in his heart was not waisted, and the message he wants to relay today is how important it is to sow God’s love in the heart of children.
That is my passion. God gave me life after cancer. I want to use the rest of my life in doing my part in sowing God’s Word and showing God’s Love. I’m inspired after meeting several of my Sunday school kids and my Bible school students that are faithfully serving the Lord and spreading the Gospel. They are the modern-day chasquis, and I am privileged to know them.
