Hands

Your hands capture my attention
as they contain a world in and of themselves.
Old, cracked, wrinkly –
they tell a story of a life of hard work…
Cooking, cleaning, washing
from sun up
to sun down
these hands have given themselves
in the service and care of others
The muscles store memory
of how to chop the vegetables
how to stir the soup
how to wash the dishes, the clothes, the floors
how to sweep the dirt outside
that will inevitably find its way back in tomorrow.

Perhaps these hands have served with love,
or maybe from a sense of duty,
or maybe as a simple way to survive,
doing what needs to be done
day in and day out;
the work that everyone needs
but refuses to do –
your hands are strong
because they know what it takes to survive.

And now I sit amazed,
staring at these old hands
that are learning new tricks,
proving that it is never too late
to do something for yourself,
to empower yourself,
to take back a little control.

Hands that have held
babies, brushes, brooms,
forks, knives, and spoons
now learn how to hold
a pencil.
Such a simple instrument,
smaller than many you have worked with,
yet so foreign to one denied
the opportunity of education.
This small piece of wood and lead
is a key
to a whole new world
of words and power
knowledge and freedom.

Hands that have
chopped, stirred, washed, and swept
now learn how
to write.
A seemingly simple task,
but difficult for hands
that have been formed by years
of hard manual work.

So we start slowly.
I hold the pencil
and show you how,
then you try yourself.
Baby steps, back to the basics;
but you know patience and endurance
as it is imbedded in the very skin
that now surrounds your newest tool,
your newest challenge….
and so we breathe
and take another slow step.
Practicing writing
starting with simple shapes –
circles, arrows, triangles
to get used to connecting
the led to the paper
with the motions of the hand.

My hand over yours –
young and old have so much to absorb
from one another,
and I am profoundly and painfully
aware of my privilege –
the privilege of having smooth hands
that have been prevented from knowing
days full of cooking, cleaning, caring for others;
the privilege of having hands
that know how to hold a pencil,
and how to use that instrument
to write down
my own thoughts, desires,
hopes, fears…
All I can do is humbly offer
my own hands now
for the service of yours,
and hope that a few of your wrinkles
transfer to me,
so that I never forget
the pain or the privilege.

Two hands now
working together
we practice the strokes of the pencil.
And then you fill a page
of exercises by yourself,
often stopping to relax your hand
which is not accustomed
to this new task called writing.
Stretch the fingers
wiggle them around
in and out, in and out
roll your wrists
slow and stiff movements
working against years and years
of muscle memory.

And we continue on
to the vowels –
Aa Aa Aa Aa
capital and lower case
first you trace
a line that has been written
and then continue to fill
a page all your own.

What are you thinking
as you learn to write
one letter at a time,
to recognize and read
one letter at a time?
Do you think of the day
you will finally be able
to sign your name?
Do you imagine
being able to help your children
with their school work?
Do you think of all those thoughts
you would love to share
and have recorded?
Or maybe it’s the simple anticipation
of the freedom gained
in the power to write if you so desire.
With each letter
you learn to write
and to read.
Little by little,
you are opening the world
and yourself.

Ee Ee Ee Ee Ee
As our time comes to and end
and you finish your exercises for the day,
I stand in wonder and awe of your hands –
hands that today
have filled 3 pages with exercises,
hands that are learning
and finally serving you,
hands that refuse
to give up and give in,
but instead seek to add
a few more lines,
a few more wrinkles,
in new spots
from new tasks.

Today I saw the hands of God
using the most simple and basic of tools
in the early stages of creation,
the dawn just about to break over the horizon,
and offered gratitude
for the opportunity to be here
In the beginning…
and it was good.

Cuy (guinea pig)

I can't believe that I forgot to mention I finally tried cuy (guinea pig) for the first time! It is a special treat here in Peru and I was really nervous about eating it because I had a guinea pig (Fuzzy) for 8 years. Well, when I went to the campo the family served us cuy for lunch, which is a real honor. So of course I ate it.... and I have to admit it was actually pretty tasty!

Live cuys

Cooked cuy

Me eating cuy (Padre Wilmer in the background)

Life's Happenings

A few quick highlights. To being, I have to give a quick shout out to Marcelle, my roommate, for saving my life on Friday night and therefore allowing me to continue writing (and breathing). I was choking on a piece of delicious quiche that actually prevented me from breathing, and Marcelle was sitting next to me and quickly jumped up and gave me the Heimlich maneuver (no joke) and out popped the quiche. So, in case anyone was wondering, the Heimlich really does work. It also really pays to live with a nurse.

We also had our first earthquake tremor on Saturday morning! At first I thought it was just a truck going down the road, but it was a pretty serious vibration so I jumped out of bed and asked the other girls and they said it was an earthquake. So that was pretty exciting. No worries though, it was really small and no damage or anything.

Also the big news here in Chimbote is the relocation of the Progresso market. It is the market that we have always shopped at and probably the largest and cheapest in Chimbote. The problem was that people just kind of set up shop and filled the streets of the Progresso neighborhood. So the city has been trying to relocate it to 3 different areas, but many of the sellers would not be able to move to the new location because they don’t actually have permits. Well, this weekend marked the official move and they brought in almost 2,000 police from surrounding areas to enforce the removal of all the vendors from Progresso. I’m not sure all what happened yesterday but there was violence and forced removal, maybe even a few deaths. Today there was a huge demonstration/march through the streets that I saw go by the church. I would guess there were over 2,000 people marching in the demonstration. I tried to buy a newspaper today but they were all sold out everywhere I went. It seems like a mixed response, but most of the people here are pretty upset about the city’s actions and new policies with the vendors. I’ll try and get more information in the coming days. I heard there will be a strong police presence here for the coming 15 days. We also have to find a new market to shop at and the prices will be more expensive…

Last Thursday and Friday I was invited to a small town about and hour outside Chimbote called Rinconada to play flute with the choir there for the kick off to their patron festival. My friend Roger who plays guitar and has been teaching me some Peruvian songs on my flute is helping them out for the 2 weeks of festivities and masses. It was the first time I left Chimbote since arriving and it was such a great trip, to be in the campo (rural area / countryside) and breath fresh air and see new places. I was also really proud of myself because I traveled by myself and didn’t get lost! The best part was on Friday when Padre Wilmer (who is the only priest for 20 communities!) took me around to visit many of the rural villages. It was so beautiful to be in the open environment with mountains, and plants, and rivers. I was humbled by the hospitality of the people who offered food wherever we stopped. Padre said that often the people don’t have any money, but at least they have food, and they were so willing to share whatever they had. It was a day in the Latin America I had initially fallen in love with in Central America, and I’m so grateful for the experience. I came home with a huge bag full of fresh strawberries that I helped pick as well as a new fruit called picay (?) and a liter of milk straight from the cow that I watched get milked. It was probably the best day I’ve had so far here in Peru and I could feel the spirit of the divine so present in the surrounding nature and in the people.




































Paz y Bien

Life's schedule

I’m going to try and cover all the relevant work and background information early on so that in the coming months and years I can post mainly reflection pieces. So, I’m starting to get a schedule more or less and below is what a typical week might look like.

Monday:
- Morning: English conversation with 5th and 6th graders at San Jose Obrero school
- Afternoon and Evening free
Tuesday:
- This is the one free day I currently have, but will probably use it for hospice pastoral visits, or pastoral visits with the new home health program 3 of the other girls started.
- Cook lunch
- Evening: Teach beginner level English at St. Francis parish
Wednesday:
- Morning: Help Sister Karina with her English at Centro Amar
- Evening: Right now I help with Intermediate English, but I might let Marcelle take over so I can practice and play flute with one of the church choirs.
Thursday:
- Morning: English conversation with high schoolers at San Jose Obrero
- Cook lunch
- Afternoon: Visits with Sister Karina to help with literacy and catechesis in one of the poorer neighborhoods
- Evening: Possible theater practice if we have a show coming up
Friday:
- Morning: Free, also a possible time to do pastoral visits with hospice or the home health program
- Afternoon: Prayer and reflection with the Good Shepherd sisters
- Evening: English conversation at our house
Saturday:
- Most of the day free
- Evening: Confirmation class at the parish
Sunday:
- Morning: Theater practice
- Afternoon: Animacion group practice (we learn songs and dinamicas to animate groups at parties or gatherings)
- Evening: Confirmation class, mass at 7pm, JUMIFRA (youth council) after mass

These are the consistent activities, but there are always new things or meetings which come up each week. There is a lot more English in my schedule than I was initially wanting, but in being open to serving where there is a need God has helped change my perspective about the nature of work and the value I give it or fail to give it. Work, like all things in life, should ultimately be about love and relationships. Often the work that I don’t want to do is work that I don’t value or see the importance of. I don’t look deeply enough and get caught in the surface action. English (as far as teaching vocabulary and grammar) is not a passion of mine, but it is proving to be one of the greatest needs or desires of the people here. So, English is how in many ways I am able to build relationships and share love. Through communication and exchange I am getting to know different people and through this work and these relationships I have infinite opportunities to express and grow in love. And luckily there is also a need where my passions do lie, in my faith and in working toward the liberation of all people. I am incredibly blessed and grateful for all of the communities and people I work with here in Chimbote! As you can tell from my schedule I have a good mix of different activities and people.

The work with the Good Shepherd sisters is new and I'm excited about the possibilities it holds. The main focus of the Good Shepherd sisters is women and children. Here in Chimbote they work a lot with prostitutes and sex workers. They offer counseling, social services, self-esteem workshops, and prevention for their children. I will be going into the community once a week with Sister Karina and helping to teach the women literacy (basic reading and writing) as well as catechesis. Many of you know of my interest in feminist theology and I would love to form a women's faith sharing group to explore feminine spirituality and reflect on women's stories in the bible. I think working with the Good Shepherd sisters might provide the perfect space for this, and Sister Karina has also mentioned her desire to form women's faith sharing groups. The sisters also have a dream of opening up a house for young mothers here in Chimbote. They currently have houses in Lima and Trujillo. Sister Karina was sharing with me that teenage pregnancy and abortion is a big problem here in Chimbote with some girls having 3 or 4 abortions by the time they are 16 or 17. A safe space for them to go and be cared for and supported would help this problem. So this is also a potential project I could help with down the road.

Well, no shortage of work to be done here in Chimbote and I am blessed with so many great opportunities to share and receive and grow. I hope that the work you do speaks to the loving relationship of the Divine alive and active in our world!

paz y bien

Celebrating 800 years of the Franciscan Order and 20 years in Peru

Sorry it’s been a little while. Life has become full with less time to sit and write. This weekend marked the end of three weeks of festivities at St. Francis parish celebrating 800 years of the Franciscan order and 20 years of Franciscans in Peru. I helped with a number of events and tried to attend as many as possible. Below is a run-down of the events.

The whole celebration started September 27th with a morning of recreational games and music for the whole family. Our youth council and confirmation kids were in charge of this event, so I had lots of meetings leading up to the big day trying to make sure we had everything prepared. Well, organization and preparation are not what Peruvians are known for so up to that morning I wasn’t sure how everything would run. We would have been good to go if the electricity would have worked. The event was outside in the plaza by the ocean and for whatever reason the electricity did not work; so we had 2 choirs and a group of animators from Periacoto (a Franciscan parish in the mountains) all ready to go but no sound. Yet, it was a beautiful day and we made do. I think all those who came (which weren’t many outside of our own youth) had a good time but I know the padres (priests) were upset because it had cost quite a bit. That afternoon there was a blessing for pets and people from the parish brought their cats, dogs, rabbits, and even a guinea pig (although they mostly eat them here) to be blessed by one of the Padres. It was a lot of fun to see all the kids with their dogs and cats and to see actual pets in Chimbote, since there are so many wild dogs who roam the streets. St. Francis loved all of creation and this was a great way to encourage and celebrate caring for animals.

Then we were supposed to be opening up a photo display in 3 different locations the following day, Monday, but the displays were far from ready. So for basically the next 48 hours I worked with Padre Carlos and another woman, Juanita, on preparing the photo displays and setting them up in their locations. By Tuesday evening everything was finished, so only two days late. Either I didn’t understand or Padre Carlos failed to mention that that evening (Tuesday) we were having a reception to kick off the photo display. I thought we were just putting a few finishing touches on the display at the cultural center, so I showed up in my overall jeans, black t-shirt, sweatshirt, and winter cap. Everyone else was dressed in their formal Franciscan robes or nice clothes so I asked if they had an event afterward and they said a brindis (toast). I soon found out we were all going to the brindis. I was a little embarrassed, but everyone was very kind and no one cared what I was wearing; they were just happy I had helped with the photos.

Wednesday they had a panel forum on life and caring for creation, which I was not able to attend because I was sick and resting.

Friday night we hosted a rock concert in the same plaza as the events on Sunday morning, but thankfully this time the sound worked! About a week or so before the concert Padre Raul told the group EXODO (a band from our parish who was in charge of the event) that he wanted one of the missionaries to be an animadora (kind of like an M.C.) for the event. Courtney is in the band EXODO so she couldn’t be an animadora and no one else wanted the job, so I reluctantly said yes on the condition that I had a script. I was still settling into life and not sure what to expect as well as being concerned about the language difference. Well, Friday night comes and no one has a script for me, but they all seem to have a lot of confidence I will make a great animadora. There are three other guys who host the concert with me and it turned out great! I had a lot of fun and after the concert (and actually still to the day) everyone said I had a lot of energy and did a great job! (although some also said they couldn’t understand a word I said ☺ ) So I can say that in my first month in Peru I helped host a rock concert downtown. I’m also starting to expect that everything will start late. The concert was scheduled for 7pm and our first band didn’t start until about 8:30pm. But it was great and aside from being cold (with the wind from the ocean) everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Saturday we hosted a marathon from Nuevo Chimbote to Chimbote. I’m really not sure how long that is, but it wasn’t a full marathon length. It started at 8am so I didn’t attend this event either, but it sounded like a success. Also on Saturday was a poetry contest. I attended this, but since it started about 2 hours late I only heard 3 poems before I had to leave for Confirmation that night. Also, the participants never showed, so other people just read the poems that were submitted. Everything had to do with the theme of creation and St. Francis’ Canticle of Creation.

Wednesday (the 30th of Sept.) contained a painting contest and I was pretty impressed with the paintings of both students and teachers. Most of the people here seem to be very gifted in the arts, whether it be music, dance, drawing, painting, theater, or singing. I love it!

Friday morning we had a jornada de limpieza publica which I thought meant we were just going to go around and clean up the streets etc. It was actually more of a march through the streets. Three different schools showed up with their students and everyone had made signs about respecting creation. The most beautiful thing was that all of the posters were so different and truly represented a consistent ethic of life and respect of all creation. Whereas I thought ok, we are focusing on the environment, these students saw the connection between all life and their posters reflected it. There were posters about not littering, not polluting, as well as posters against abortion, against domestic violence, about respecting one another, caring for animals, etc. A great event to have considering it is respect life month. One of the schools brought a band as well so music accompanied our march through the streets, raising awareness and picking up trash along the way.

Friday afternoon there was a program for children in honor of national children’s week (semana de los niños). There were balloons everywhere as well as Disney princesses, Backyardigans (Megan and Beth this made me think of you and Geriana, Ariel, and their siblings), and of course pooh and barney. Lots of singing and dancing and dinamicas provided the kids who came with hours of entertainment and fun.

Saturday was the choir contest held at the Catholic University ULADECH. There were five choirs who participated, but since this also started late and I had another event at 7pm I only heard the first 3 choirs. I also had my first visitor to Chimbote on Saturday! A girl that I went to SLU with, Shannon, is currently living in Lima for a couple months and came to Chimbote on her way to another city. So she met up with me at the choir concert and spent the night. It was fun to have a familiar face and to catch up with Shannon on what she’s been up to. On Saturday night our theater group from the parish performed some scenes from the life of St. Francis. It turned out really well! Everyone did a great job and we had lots of positive feedback. I was a blind person who was cured, and someone who received the good news from one of the Friars.

Sunday was the actual feast day of St. Francis of Asisi so we had a big mass in the morning followed by a small procession around the block of the Church with a statue of St. Francis. The nine days leading up to the feast day were part of what’s called a novena. This means there are nine masses, one each day, leading up to a special celebration.

Finally to wrap things up we had two big events this past weekend. Friday the 9th was a celebration with the whole Franciscan family commemorating 800 years of the Franciscan order and 20 years in Peru. Priests came in from Lima and Periacoto, and the archbishop of Chimbote said mass that evening. There was a charla (discussion) in the afternoon, followed by mass, and then performances of dance, music, and theater. The group of youth from Periacoto did an incredible job as performing two dances: one from the mountains (sierra) and one from the jungle (selva). Our theater group performed our skit again on the life of St. Francis. It was a great celebration of St. Francis and Franciscan spirituality with the whole community gathered together!

Then on Saturday I attended the second annual Franciscan youth encounter. It was from 8am-5;30pm and was similar to youth rallies I have attended in the U.S. We were split into different groups, each with a name that corresponded to St. Francis or the Franciscan order. There were 4 different talks in the morning as well as time to get to know the people in your group. While joven here usually means anyone between 15-35, most of the kids were around 15-17 years old. About half of my Confirmation kids came and there were lots of different parishes represented. Many Franciscan sisters helped plan and organize the event and were wonderful to meet. In the afternoon we had dinamicas, dances, and then ended with a mass where all of the kids received necklaces with the letter T (not a cross as I was corrected, but the letter Tao which is a Franciscan symbol). I thought it was a successful event and hope to help form a group of Jovenes Fransicanas (JuFra) at our parish.

So, that’s just the parish events that have been going on. I’m getting involved in a few other activities but I’ll start another blog for that. This one is pretty long already!

paz y bien (that’s the motto everywhere around here with the Franciscans)

p.s. I wanted to include some pictures, but my computer doesn't like me. So I'll try and work on that.

Feast day of St. Therese of Lisieux

Today is the feast day of St. Therese of Lisieux. I just learned that she is the patron saint of missionaries, and so it is an especially meaningful feast day for me as I currently serve as a missionary in Peru. I also want to give a shout out to Therese of the Divine Peace Inclusive Community in St. Louis since Therese is their primary patron saint as well. Praying for everyone at Therese and also all missionaries around the world today. Below is a beautiful prayer by St. Therese of Lisieux that I find particularly poignant for me in trusting I am exactly where I am meant to be. Enjoy

May today there be peace within.
May you trust in God that you are exactly
where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts you have received,
and pass on the love that has been given you.
May you be content knowing that you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. Amen.
— St. Therese of Lisieux

Book List

I added a book list to the left-hand side of the blog. I have actually had a good deal of free time so far to read, and since this is an important part of my formation and growth I wanted to share what I've been reading with all of you. Let's see how this list grows. I'm working so far on books we have in the house (including ones I brought along) and books the sisters have (which they have a pretty impressive collection of different theology-based books). Any recommendations you have or want to send my way (in the form of an actual book because odds are I can't get it here) are more than welcome! Oh, and so far I strongly recommend all of the books I have read.

Happy Reading!