In the countryside, the basic social, economic, and religious entity is the family, and everything else revolves around it. Furthermore, the ideological basis of the peasant family is its religion. So any agent of social change or adapted pastoral has to take into account that common denominator and the mental structure that supports it. This article will present some data to substantiate these two statements and will end with guidelines for people from the "Westernized" world who find themselves in this situation in the countryside.

The declared purpose of the Andean Pastoral Institute is to know the cultural reality of the peoples of the Sierra in order to carry out more effectively the pastoral and social actions necessary for a thorough evangelization. To this end, several studies have already been published, a good number of short courses and meetings have been held at the headquarters of the Institute, and the leaders of the IPA have participated in many pastoral meetings of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions of the Region. Acknowledging all the positive aspects of the work already carried out, I would like to state in this article that, in my opinion, there is still an important stage missing in the process of rapprochement with the peasant world.