Anjanette writes about the March for Jesus

Last Sunday (6 days before the March for Jesus) in conversation after church I mentioned to someone I met that I enjoy worshipping God on my flute, something I rarely do these days since I play the keyboard at church . Well it just so happened that he was in charge of coordinating the music for this years March for Jesus. So at very short notice I agreed to play, thinking perhaps that everyone else (keyboard, drums, congas, electric guitars, bass guitar, singers) would be organised with their parts already prepared and knowing what they were doing as I was joining at the last minute. I should have known better and what a cultural experience this has turned out to be !

Almost 20 hours of my week have been dedicated to practising, writing out parts (the band I played with tend to just play everything by ear), standing around waiting for people to arrive to open the door for practice , for others to turn up for practice and 4 of those hours included setting up and playing in the plaza during the actual event.

Most Peruvians learn music using do re me fa so la ti , well apart from the sound of music film I don't know too much about do re mi. I am not very familiar with people shouting out chords like do menor or fa mayor so I have been struggling with a number of foreign languages this week!

Despite the frustrations it has actually been a really wonderful experience. The March for Jesus involves many of the Cusco evangelical churches joining together, (something we were always very keen on when we lived in the UK) . I am pleased to say that I made some new friends this week from various churches, learnt some fantastic new songs, it was a privilege to play with some very talented musicians, I loved playing in a large band with people who are devoted to using their musical gifts to praise God. We played a number of different styles; among them flamenco, marching songs, Rap, ballads,calypso, rock, and a really fun Huayno/reggae fusion.
It was particularly good to be referred to collectively as the jovenes (young people) in the band!

It was great to be on the platform , playing and watching as 1500 Christians marched into the plaza de armas where we held the service. I enjoyed participating in the original March for Jesus in London about 20 years ago! This was our 3rd Cusco March for Jesus, it always gives us a boost and lifts our spirits. Pastor Scott was also involved, he prayed on the platform in english for all the onlooking tourists, we pray that they were touched and challenged by what they experienced. We certainly had a ball today, our little church at El Puente is very small and it was a joy to be in the plaza amongst a huge crowd of Cusco Christians all worshipping God together.