Brad's Thoughts

I think ever since living in Washington DC, and probably even before that, I’ve had a pretty firm understanding of poverty. And beyond what I’ve seen in the states, I’ve seen the videos and heard the stories for years about third world countries. But I don’t think you really grasp it… I don’t mean just understand it, something that happens in your head… I mean you don’t REALLY get it until you have stood in their homes and shaken their hands and smelled their air… A video or documentary can never convey what it’s really like to be there. And having been there you can never see our world quite the same. It can be overwhelming at times, but I am reminded of Bl. Theresa of Calcutta (Mother Theresa)’s perspective. She used to say that if she looked at the masses of those in desperate need she would become paralyzed. What difference could one person possibly make? But if she looked into the face of the one person in front of her, she could not help but do something.

The Church here, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and a priest from Fargo, ND, Fr. Jack, and Sister Peggy have made incredible strides over the past 30 years to implement real change in these people’s reality. They work to change the systems that keep the people in poverty and despair, and at the same time deal with the symptoms of those systems that need changing until they are changed. (That’s what Catholic Social Teaching is all about.) As we walked through the streets of the poorest parts of Chimbote, getting a glimpse of the reality of people’s lives here, and the bright spots of Fr. Jack’s and the Church’s work in the midst of it I kept thinking, “What can I do? What gifts do I have to bring to this?” That was frustrating to me when I considered one of my strongest gifts to be interaction… communicating, joking, teaching… I couldn’t share this at all as I don’t speak more Spanish than what Dora the Explorer has taught me.

Our fellow pilgrims are wonderful people, as are those who live and work here more permanently in Peru. The local Peruvians are an awe-inspiring people with a difficult history, and most of them live incredibly inspiring lives. We have been richly blessed in this voyage already.