accomplishing the common things

“You are a unique person made by God capable of loving and being loved. Accomplish the common things in life in uncommon ways.” –George Washington


At this point in my life, I am realizing that being a missionary isn’t necessarily about have a packed schedule of organized service, but about turning everything I do into an act of service. With that, I’d love to fill you all in a bit on my day-to-day activities…

It’s about ten o’clock in the morning right now and I’m sitting at my kitchen table typing on the laptop. We don’t have internet in the house but it’s nice to have a computer so we don’t have to spend so much time on the internet when we want to write e-mails or blogs or print documents. I’m realizing that I haven’t shared many details about my living situation in general, so I’ll share a bit more about the house. Our house is located on the edge of Dos de Mayo and Magdalena, two neighborhoods in northeast Chimbote. They are well-established neighborhoods, but still considered “young towns” because they were originally started as invasions, or essentially squatter communities. Most of the houses around us are constructed of cement and are fairly good in terms of quality, but many have unfinished second floors or attachments constructed of estera, or a woven reed-like material. Walking north or east of our house will lead you to the edge of Chimbote, where there are many more houses constructed completely of estera. Our house is very similar to those in the immediate vicinity minus the fact that it’s huge. We have two complete stories, with four bedrooms, a huge living room partially divided in two, two bathrooms, a large dining room, kitchen, and large patio and garden out back. Just before Thanksgiving we painted our living room orange, so it feels much more lively and homey than it did before. We are slowly making changes and improvements using the resources we have to make it our own and make it a welcoming space for visitors. In terms of amenities, we are a step above most of our neighbors because we have a water well behind our house and a pump that carries the water to a tank on top of the house. All the houses in this area of town have running water, but the water is only turned on for a couple hours in the morning and night, so houses without a well are more limited in terms of water usage. A few weeks ago our pump broke for about a week, so we filled buckets from the well to use for showering, drinking, washing clothes/dishes, flushing toilets, etc. For drinking or cooking the water must be boiled. What else… ah, yes, we don’t have a water heater, so the options are a cold/lukewarm shower or a hot bucket shower. When it was colder I generally opted for the bucket shower, but now that it’s summer the cold showers are no problem. We also don’t have a washing machine so we wash clothes by hand and hang dry them, but it’s not a bad chore. Our other big chore is dusting and sweeping, because our street isn’t paved yet so the dust is incredible. We cook all our own food in the house, but fruits or vegetables must be eaten cooked and/or washed with dish soap.

This week we got a new addition to the house – ducks! A friend of ours has about a hundred ducklings to get rid of, so after a careful decision process we decided to adopt three of them. As you can see in the picture, we built a little corral in the back corner of our patio for them. We have yet to name them but that’s our next task! And that’s our hammock in the background… :)

Now a little bit in terms of daily activities… it’s a little difficult because I don’t necessarily have a regular schedule, every day is a little bit different. That fact is intensified because of summer vacation (Jan-Feb), when most programs take a break. I’ve started to fall into a bit of a routine this week, though. I’ve been getting up at 6:15 to go running with a couple friends, which I love! Some mornings it’s a little painful but we run down the street I love on straight out of Chimbote to a sand dune. I love this little escape into the country, seeing all the farmers heading to town with donkey carts loaded with goods to sell (usually corn). This morning while the others ran laps on top of the sand dune (which my legs don’t find very agreeable… haha), I picked a little peak off to the sand and did a little meditating… it was so beautiful to sit there, looking out over the fields, listening to the sounds of birds, donkey hoofs, and distant mucic, letting the cool morning breeze wash over me. I’ve learned to wear bug spray when I go running, because the other day I returned to the house with 30 bug bites between my legs and arms. I’m still recovering from that one!

Anyway, back to my daily activities. My mornings right now are generally filled by cleaning the house, going to the market, or running random errands downtown. Yesterday morning I went with Sister Katty, who recently returned from a semester studying in Mexico, to the public university, where she was part of the leadership team for the campus Catholic ministry. It was their last gathering of the school year, as classes just ended about a week ago, but it was so good! The priest was super animated and the mass was very participatory and informal… it was the most life-giving mass that I’ve attended here. They don’t start again until April but if it seems appropriate at that time I might get involved with student ministry there. Sister Katty, who is actually a student at a private university here, prefers to participate in the campus ministry at the public university because tuition is free, so the students with more economic challenges study there. It also just felt really good to be back on a college campus. So we’ll see what comes of that!

There have also been some exciting advancements in the parish: we have officially opened the youth center! With a couple games sent by my sister (they love playing UNO, Ginger!) and some games that we bought here, we open the youth room three nights a week from 8-10 so they can come hang out and play games. We also open the parish center for sports one additional night and Saturday afternoons to play soccer or volleyball. So right now I am at the parish Wed-Sat from 8-10 at night plus Saturday from 4-7, and then I have theater practice at the parish on Sundays from 10ish-1ish, plus masses and miscellaneous meetings. I love this time with our parishioners and am really starting to feel at home with them.

And I can’t forget to mention the blank spaces filled by summer activities! Trips to the pool or the beach are also at the back of my mind to plan, though so far I’ve only made it once to the pool and have yet to get to the beach. But summer in Chimbote means VOLLEYBALL! Peruvians love their volleyball and they are GOOD… it’s a sign of summer to see a group of kids (or adults, really) playing volleyball on side streets with their nets stretched between two telephone poles. There are a couple families that put up their net every night about a block from our house and I finally went and played with them a few nights ago. Since then I’ve played almost every night, and even won a little money! It does make for some late nights, but hey, that’s summer! The weather is hot, but there’s usually a cool breeze and it’s quite comfortable in the shade, so taking advantage of our hammock is a favorite after-lunch activity…

Okay, if you made it this far, you are probably tiring of reading, so I think I’ll stop there. You are all continually in my thoughts and prayers… my prayer for you all right now is that you continually find the JOY in the small things. I had a conversation over ceviche the other day with the coordinator of the theater group and expressed my doubts about having anything real to offer to this community. He said, “Of course you have something to offer, tu alegría!” (your happiness!). So that we all remember that in every encounter, in every situation, we do have something to offer!

I would love to hear from you, or answer any questions or cloudy spots that may exist about what I’m doing here… or about life… or really anything!

PAZ y ALEGRÍA for you.

the church in chimbote

Since studying a bit of liberation theology in college I have developed a strong interest in the Catholic church and how it lives out its mission, but I had no idea what I was getting immersed in by joining the Incarnate Word Sisters in Peru.  I really had no intention of getting super involved in parish activities… and then by some strange twist of fate (or maybe that’s just how God works) the parish work here just drew me in.  It has been in many aspects frustrating, in others encouraging, in others very life-giving.  I have definitely seen mixed signals of the vitality of the church in Chimbote… we face challenges of participation and commitment, but we also have many religious and lay people are who dedicated to building the reign of God here in Chimbote.  

This week was the Diocesan Assembly to reveal the pastoral strategy for the coming year in light of the most recent Latin American bishops conference, Aparecida (a conference in which the bishops gather to re-orient the direction of the Latin American church).  I really enjoyed hearing the bishop speak on this topic – he spoke very passionately and directly about the challenges and opportunities facing the Church in Chimbote.  Always being a bit cynical I would have liked to hear more about our personal responsibility to restore dignity to the poor and less about the need to make sure young people learn the Creed… but it was made clear that the Church has a preferential option for the poor, and I do understand that there are real problems with catechesis programs here, so I’m overall pretty satisfied.  He also said that every family should have a copy of Aparecida in their home, which is pretty amazing, especially for me, coming from the U.S., where it seems very, very few people actually read anything put out by the bishops.

Along the same lines, our monthly diocesan newspaper came out this month and included an article written by a Spanish priest who works in San Luis, one of Chimbote’s “young towns/pueblos jóvenes” (area of new development, but very poor development with terrible living conditions).  He offers a great introduction to the message of Aparecida and the preferential option for the poor, which I have written about before.  I liked it so much that I took the liberty of translating it into English so you all could read it and understand a little bit more about the role the Catholic Church plays, or should play, or tries to play and often fails, or plays in some occasions but not others (you get the point), in Latin America and in the world.  I especially love his interpretation of charity, which is inseparable from a critical assessment of the structural causes of poverty.  Enjoy.

The Church and the hope of the poor

by Father Fernando AsínCastellón (Mar Adentro, January 2011)

“(The option for the poor) asks us to dedicate time to the poor, pay kind attention to them, listen to them with interest, and accompany them in their most difficult moments, choosing to share with them hours, weeks, or years of our lives and searching with them to transform their situation” (Aparecida, 397).

“All that which has to do with Christ has to do with the poor, as Jesus said, ‘When you did this for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it for me’ (Matthew 25:40)” (Aparecida, 393).

The preferential option for the poor should permeate all of our structures and pastoral priorities.  It must be manifested in visible options and gestures, principally in the defense of life and of the rights of the most vulnerable and excluded and in the sustained accompaniment in their efforts to be agents of change and transformation in their situations.

The social doctrine of the Church (I prefer to say “the social message of the Church”) is capable of stirring up hope in the midst of the most difficult situations, because if there is no hope for the poor, there will not be hope for anybody, not even for those called rich.

“Only the proximity that allows friendship permits us to profoundly appreciate the value of today’s poor, their legitimate yearnings and their own style of living the faith.  The preferential option for the poor should lead us to friendship with the poor.

“Day after day, the poor make themselves agents of evangelization and integral human promotion: they educate their children in the faith, they live a constant solidarity between relatives and neighbors, and they constantly seek God and give life to the Church’s pilgrimage” (Aparecida, 398).

Of course, each parish community should have a catechetical team and a liturgical team.  But it would remain crippled without also having a team for parish charity.  And, at the diocesan level, the diocesan charity team promotes and supports the parish when they don’t have the capacity for full human development projects.

The charitable team must meet three objectives.  First, it must provide social assistance, which would help and accompany those who suffer from immediate lack of food, medicine, money for transportation, etc.  A second objective is the communication of these necessities to the greater Christian community and the denunciation of the situation of poverty and injustice and its causes.   The third objective, no less important, is to carry out human and social development projects which signal the Reign of God.

The preferential option for the poor, said Pope Benedict XVI in the opening address of the Conference of Aparecida, is implicit in faith in a Christ who God made poor for us, in order to enrich our lives with his poverty.  I hope that we have the same attitude as Christ and continue his path.

me pican mis ojos! an anecdote

If anyone ever tells you that Peruvian chili peppers are like no other, believe them.

Kelli and I went to the market on New Year´s Eve morning with stir fry on our minds for lunch.  One of the last items on the list were peppers, so by the time we started looking for them we were a little tired and came upon a stand with ricotto peppers, the hotter variety, and asked if they had some that were less picante, or spicey.  They man pointed some out and we bought them.  We got back to the house in somewhat of a rush because our friend Giancarlo was going to be coming over to help us finish our muñeco, or doll, that we were going to burn that night to celebrate the coming of the new year, and we had to clean the house in the afternoon to get ready for the night as well.  So I frantically started cutting up the vegetables.  When I cut the peppers, I made a mental note to wash my hands before doing anything else.  I didn't notice any burning sensation in my hands or eyes so assumed they were probably good enough to cook and eat with the stir fry.  Just as I was finishing, I heard a knock at the door so I stopped to let him in to work on the doll.  I walked from the kitchen to the front door fixing my pony tail a bit, typical mindless rearrangements that I do a million times a day.  And then... for some unknown reason also felt the mindless urge to wipe my eyes, one hand on each eye, a really good wipe, no messing around.  Just as I opened the front door, it hit me, and I doubled over, squeezed my eyes shut and yelled out.... ahh, the pain!  Poor Giancarlo, so confused, helped me run, eyes closed, to the bathroom and started to help me throw water on my eyes, yelling instructions at me all the while.  ¨Don´t use your hands, Emilia, they pica!  Here, wash them with this bar of soap.  Nope, they still pica.  Keep washing them.¨  Then he filled a bucket with water and just had me stick my head in it, essentially.  Ah, relief.  And come out to breathe.  Still burn.  Resubmerge.  Here let me rub ice cubes on your eyes.  Ah, relief.  Dang that´s really cold.  Still burns.  Let me wash my face with soap.  No, your hands still burn.  Wait.  More ice.  More water.  Relief.  Ok, use a little soap.  And apparently Peruvian medicine says that oils in females´ hair relieves the pica, so we rubbed my hair over my eyes as well...  it was all very chaotic.  And very painful.  I was a little worried about damaging my eyesight.

Luckily the redness went down before the New Year´s Eve celebration.  Just one of many crazy things that happen here, to give you a little taste.

Next time you eat something and have the option to use hot sauce... do it.  And think of Peru.