My first trip to Peru was forty years ago. I was impressed then, but I am even more amazed at the people of Peru since I have been leading tour groups there for the past few years.
There is a 78-year-old lady from South America that lives in my neighborhood. She works at Grand America, a local hotel. After her shift, she gets off the bus and slowly walks home about three blocks, which is mostly uphill. If I see her, I will offer her a ride home.
She is very short and her skin is brown. Her English is broken and I did not know much about her because it was so hard to communicate with her.
One day on the way home I asked her where she was from. In her broken English, she said Peru. I could hardly wait to ask her if she was Quechua, which are the indigenous peoples whose ancestors built Machu Picchu and all the incredible wonders of the Incas.
Here I have been going to Peru and meeting these lovely people and I did not know that one of them lived just a block from me. Tonight as I was working in my flowerbeds she came walking up the road on her way to her house.
Knowing that she was from Peru, I invited her into my home to watch a video about her country and her people. This video was just released 24 hours ago on YouTube and it has already had more than 130,000 views.
As she sat and watched this YouTube video tears began to run down her face, “It is my people, it is my country,” she said.
I saw in her the love of her homeland and her countrymen. My heart was so touched. I said to her, “Will you go back? Then in her very broken English, she said, “I live here for 15 years, no work for me in Peru.”
I see so many of these beautiful people each time I go to the countryside in Peru.
Devon Graham was on my trip in June of 2013. He is a professional videographer who is a returned missionary and has attended BYU but has had so much success with his videos he is now traveling the world and making incredible works of art.
His videos on YouTube have had more than 9 million views. Sit back and enjoy this beautiful video that brought tears to the eyes of my dear friend.