merry christmas and a happy new year!

Well, Christmas went off with another big bang this year, literally, as midnight was welcomed with lots of Roman candles and sparklers (plus a flower or two).  Of course, it was a small show compared to a week later as the streets filled with life-size dolls burning away last year´s old to make room for this year´s new.  But back to Christmas.  My theater group opened Christmas Eve Mass with the nativity play, in which I starred one of Gabriel´s side-kicks in a white gown with hands folded in prayer and a smile on my face.  It went well and the mass was nice-- it was the first Mass said by our new priest, but unfortunately he didn´t give the homily so we didn´t really get a good taste of him yet!  After Mass we hung around for awhile, giving Christmas hugs to all our parish friends and taking pictures with the life-size nativity.  Then we went home to prepare a delicious dinner of Velveeta macaroni and cheese shells with ketchup (a special treat for us!) until midnight, when we put baby Jesus in the nativity and went outside to light fireworks with all the neighbors.  We mixed the Peruvians traditions with our own and waited til Christmas Day to open presents (by the way thank you for all the cards and gifts!) and lounge around.

But Christmas wasn´t all relaxing!  Since I work in youth ministry in our parish, it was also an important time for activities.  As has become tradition, the youth movement's biggest Christmas project this year was a chocolotada for about 60 of the poorest children in our parish.  But unlike tradition, this year we decided to do it a little differently.  They still received the signature panetón and hot chocolate, but the event was not advertised as a chocolotada.  Instead, we designed it as a birthday party for Jesus.  With animation similar to that typical of birthday parties here, each youth group presented a fun Christmas song or skit.  I acted as Wendy in my theater group´s presentation of Peter Pan 2.  The show culminated in a live representation of Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and angels (featuring my very own housemate Katie doing her best to hold a crying, hair-pulling, very heavy baby Jesus).  After circling the patio with the holy family, the kids re-entered the party room, where their gifts were arranged around a candle.  Each child then received a paper heart with the explanation that Jesus doesn´t need us to gift him expensive things, just our hearts.  One by one, they located their heart next to the candle, picked up a gift, and handed the gift to another child.  Amazingly, their pacience lasted almost to the last child, when they did start getting a little ansy!  It was a beautiful celebration (with very few flaws) in which the youth groups united together to give a clear message to the kids: Christmas isn´t about the gifts we receive but about sharing the love that Jesus came to give us.  Perhaps the kids got more excited by the piñatas at the end, but Jesus´ love was very apparent in the laughter, sincerity and participation of the youth and children alike.

New Year´s was also wonderful with a visit from my brother, Scott!  I think he got a good taste of Chimbote at New Years... fish smell, burning dolls and fireworks, and ceviche.  Now it´s time to get into full summer mode-- hot weather, snow cones, beach, volleyball, home improvements, summer school at the parish, evening games at the youth center, etc.  This week my community mates and I are cleansing our bodies.  That means nothing but raw veggies, apples, vegetable broth, and juiced fruits!  By the end of the seven days our insides should be thanking us for flushing out all the sugar and grease that has been consumed in the past month...  though right now I really just want a big bowl of rice and a Reese´s!

Thanks for reading!  I wish you a very happy new year as you embark anew on God´s mission for you in the world!  

we are a resurrection people

I’m so sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written! I didn’t realize. There have been so many occasions in which I thought about writing, or had something to share, and just never got to it…. But here I am!

We just got back yesterday from our annual retreat. We went to Tortugas, a little beach town about an hour south of here. It was really rejuvenating to have the ambiance of the ocean waves and tranquility of Tortugas to facilitate a few days of reflection and prayer. It was led by Herman Katty, one of the Incarnate Word sisters here. She is our age but much older in wisdom and at the same time much younger in the childlike joy that she finds in everyday life. She is also Peruvian so the retreat was led in Spanish which was an exciting challenge for us. I could share lots of details but overall I feel like I have a new energy for my service sites and my house community! You can read a small piece of my reflections at the IWM blog, where we posted personal versions of the Beatitudes that we wrote during the retreat.

We celebrated Easter here with lots of enthusiasm! A Peruvian (and widely Latin American) tradition is to act out the Way of the Cross through the neighborhood streets on Good Friday. Good Friday is actually a bigger celebration than Easter, I think because for a people who have suffered or are suffering greatly, it is easier to identify with the crucified Christ than with the Risen Christ. And with all the killing in the world, whether it be the slow and subtle murder of a malnourished child by an imbalanced society or the direct and calculated murder of an identified individual in the midst of war, it is easy to see Christ being crucified in our world today. The difference is that we weren’t there when Jesus walked the way of Calvary, so we couldn’t take a stand, though we like to think we would have. But today we can. That’s why we are called to accompany those who suffer most—so that we can say no to the suffering of Jesus in our world today and all rise up in the Resurrection together.

Back to the story… the theater group I participate in in our parish coordinated the acting and I played the part of a bad person in the pueblo, yelling “Crucify him, crucify him!” through the whole process. Since we rehearsed the Vía Cruces, as it’s called in Spanish, for weeks beforehand, I felt like I was living the Passion of Jesus for a long time, and was thus really ready to live the Resurrection!

To celebrate the Resurrection we planned an all-night vigil/retreat for the youth movement. It started with the Saturday night vigil Mass at 8… though for me it started Saturday morning with a market run to get all the supplies. Saturday afternoon we started cooking the lamb and unleavened bread. After Mass we did some icebreaker-type games and then sat down to share a Jewish-style Passover meal—a very cool experience. The rest of the night was filled with more games, a movie, and a campfire. Around the campfire each individual got to share a bit of their testimony… or really how they were drawn into the parish. It was a really neat time to hear their stories and reflect on how God’s call is uniquely designed for every one of us. We ended at 6 a.m. with a short prayer… then I went home and slept for two hours before returning to the church for First Communion class, which was also really fun! We have class from 9:30-11, and at 11 we have a children’s mass. We still have communion, though obviously there are only a few of us who receive it. That day I went up to receive communion, and when I went back to my seat two of my 9-year-old girls turned around to face me. Their eyes were filled with curiosity and they excitedly asked me, “Does it taste good? Is that what we’re going to get?” I said yes, it tastes like happiness and peace, and yes, you will be able to receive it in November, and they looked at each other as their eyes and smiles widened. It reminded me of my own excitement to be able to walk up with all the grown-ups and receive the Eucharist, and even though I had a very simple understanding of what was happening, I think we would do well to share a bit of that childlike excitement as we walk up to communion!

After First Communion I went to theater practice for a little while, which was a celebration of the completion of the Vía Cruces and Easter—also lots of fun, because I just love being with the other members of the group. I left early to return to my house for Easter lunch… lasagna and brownie sundaes! It was a WELCOME treat after our Lenten diet. In the afternoon I was able to talk with my family and in the evening went to a meeting with the Confirmation catechist team before going to Mass in the evening. By that time I was started to crash but the whole day was very joy-filled and I wouldn’t change a second of it! (Re-reading this paragraph I realized it was FULL of exclamation points… and still has lots… but that’s because it was a very exciting day, even meriting multiple exclamation points in true Peruvian style!!! (sorry, Ginger ))

It’s a crazy thing to write a message to the general public, never knowing who might read it, but whoever and wherever you are, thank you for reading! We share our experiences so that we can all become better at loving and serving our neighbor, and we all have a perspective to offer. I thank you for considering mine and would love to hear from you as well!

I wish you joy and energy during this Easter season and beyond, and wish you the strength to respond to the call that you feel in your heart!

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.