Is that a '75 Dodge Dart you're driving?

Traveling in style...1970s style

This afternoon: The odor of fresh fish in the market. The smile on the face of the woman selling me a piece of fish. The feeling of cold water after I stepped into a drain beside her store. Laughing women pointing to me and encouraging me to be more cautious.

This evening: Playing soccer with Solan and Aidan's friends. Barking dogs. Feeling sand sift through my toes as I sit in front of a neighbor's home. Children hanging from my arms to prevent me from scoring a goal.

This is an encapsulation of this day's experiences. They are experiences that are shaping and giving meaning to my life as a missioner in northern Peru.

More than a few months into life here in Peru, I am learning to shelf the question, “What am I doing here?” and ask, instead, “How will I put myself into something that matters?”

Since arriving here in Trujillo I have involved myself in a few things I think matter. One of those things has been opening up a new school for 15 kids whose parents cannot afford to send them to school. Every morning a small troop of smiling eight to 12 year olds greet me at my front door. These kids are preparing to return to the normal public school when school begins next March. When they leave another 15 kids are waiting to enter our school. These children deliver laughter and hope to my heart as they, with mouths full of pieces of sugar cane, memorize their times tables.
Student from the new school

I also spend a good amount of time fixing broken stuff. In the big picture this stuff matters, I tell myself, but I never imagined mission would involve me in cleaning sewage drains by hand, learning how to create all sorts of structures with colossal bamboo poles, and renovating 2 preschool bathrooms without a single power tool. Throughout each of these experiences an age-old mantra reverberated in my head, “If not me, who?” Aidan and I painting

I enjoy spending time in the preschool overseen by our Comboni community. This is where Aidan goes every day to learn how to be authentically Peruvian. Aidan's teacher, Ana, is a wonderfully committed woman with a deep love for our community. While she does all the official stuff, I get to teach the kids some new songs and run around chasing a soccer ball. In this setting the kids refer to me as “hermano,” brother.
Aidan at his school anniversary festivities-I ran the sports day

As I seem utterly unable to shake off the youth and young adult minister personality, I decided to embrace it. I spend time with the young adults in our community and listen to their hopes and dreams. I listen to their disappointments and let downs. We sing together every Saturday night. We sing songs not for deliverance from this world; we sing thanks to God for the lives we have been given.

A few months back I formed a number of committees to serve as a rudder for what we were about as a movement. Not surprisingly, they want to begin hosting events for the community and develop a study center with books and meeting rooms for conferences.

Last weekend we held an evening bonfire with the youth and young adults in our neighborhood. You need to know that the overwhelming majority of the people in our neighborhood are evangelical Protestants of the Pentecostal flavor. The Catholic young people wanted to invite their neighbors and friends to some sort of faith event that was not overtly Roman Catholic. And so we roasted marshmallows (my contribution), ate chicken sandwiches, and drank lots of a coffee-like product (Peruvian addiction). We sang songs, engaged in spontaneous role plays, and broke into small groups to talk about common ground issues like how faith shapes our daily life. Each participant had a chance to talk, to laugh, and to breathe without fear of recrimination.

This is a brief glimpse into my life here in Kumamoto, Peru. You hopefully noticed the lack of glitz. My life is mostly spent propping up and encouraging those around me. Someone once described ministry as a constant search to find the embers of hope within our neighbor's lives. Once you find those embers of hope, you fan them like there is no tomorrow. That makes a whole lot of sense to me.