A trip back to the shanty towns...

Yesterday I spent the day in San Juan where the poorest of the poor live. We traveled to the clinics, the schools, and the rehabilitation center. I went with a new friend that I met on Sunday. It's kind of a strange story of how we got connected:

A friend of mine from my freshmen year of college sent me an email a couple months ago when he saw that I was living in Peru. He told me his sister had a friend that was traveling in South America and would be making her way to Lima and that I should meet up with her and show her around. So after a few emails back in February, I kind of forgot about her until last week when another email populated in my inbox.

We decided to meet and grab some ice cream. We ended up finding out that we had quite a bit in common. She told me some interesting stories about how she had lived in East Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, Germany, and for the last 4 months traveling all around South America.

She was hoping to find some work doing something internationally in the health field. So, I immediately thought of the work that the CLM is doing in San Juan. In the past, she said, that she had worked with organizations that had ideological agendas that were hard for her to reconcile, even despite the good work that they were doing.

So I made a few phone calls and we arranged a trip with a Fraterna (a woman that takes a vow of celibacy and obedience and lives in a community of women) to go with us. She turned out to be one of the sweetest women I have every met. From time-to-time you come across people that just glow of joy and happiness, this was one of those women. Our faces hurt at the end of the day because of how much smiling and laughing we had done!

Anyway, so we spent the day with the poorest of the poor. We stopped in at some daycare centers and schools and played with the kids and had a ball. They teased me that I was a rock star because the kids loved me so much. I should have brought my camera, but I forgot.

We went around and saw all the projects that the CLM is doing, everything from preventative health care, to providing psychological care for families, to rehabilitation, to teaching them how to provide for themselves and learn new skills. With all of these projects, there’s a very strong sense of taking care of the entire person, a focus on the dignity and worth of each human life, from conception until natural death.

My new friend Alexis, I think, was quite impressed with how authentic this work was, without concern about ideology, or even about religion. Of course, there are icons, and we uphold the teaching of the Catholic Church, but we treat without question.

There were points on our trip where even I was overwhelmed by the incredible love and concern for people that the volunteers had, and how authentic and complete the spirituality driving the projects were, even though I had been there before.

At the end of the day, I came back to my room physically and emotionally exhausted. It’s amazing how seeing so much poverty can be overwhelming, but at the same time, so much hope for the good and love that is being sown.