Every year in August we have what is one of the largest Catholic festivals in our country here in the city of Cochabamba. It is a celebration for the Virgin of Urkupiña, which takes place in the town of Quillacollo located about 14 km from our city. The story is told of a young girl who was watching her sheep when the Virgin Mary appeared to her out on the hillside. When her family asked about where the event took place she responded in here native tongue of Quechua and said Urku (meaning “right there it is”) and piña – meaning “on the hillside”) From that time the festival has grown every year to the point that over three hundred thousand people come from all over Bolivia and South America. One of the highlights of the celebration is the pilgrimage that the people make from the downtown area of our city walking the 14 km to where the virgin is located. They start around 11:00 pm and usually walk all through the night arriving the next morning when the festivities start. With thousands of people passing only a few blocks from our church we wanted to do something special to try and reach them with the gospel. It has always broken my heart knowing that these people have so much dedication yet they really have no idea where they are headed. They think for their dedication and sacrifice that the virgin will answer their petitions and bless them. This year we decided to set up some tables along the road and hand out free hot chocolate and coffee along with tract as the people passed by. We had no idea what would happen or how the people would receive us but to our surprise we passed out 400 cups of coffee and hot chocolate in less than 15 minutes and almost 3000 tracts in less than half an hour. Our prayer was that we could plant the seed that would change their direction and help them know where they were headed. We are hoping to do much more this coming year. Here is a short video showing how things went.
Urkupiña 2011 from Kevin White on Vimeo.