God's Gang

In our last newsletter Veronica wrote about working with the gangs in La Victoria. This is a part of Lima where Angels fear to tread. Four of the gang members attended our young people’s retreat last September and God worked miracles of conversion. Veronica concluded the article about the gangs with this sentence: “So the next project is classes to prepare them for baptism.” By chance Veronica met a boy who had been in the seminary but felt that God was calling him to work as a lay missionary. She asked him if he would be willing to go to La Victoria and teach a class to prepare the gang boys for baptism and first communion. To her surprise Angel (that is really his name) said, “No problem , I live only a few blocks from the gang.” Angel not only taught the catechism to the boys but he also plays the guitar and taught the boys to sing religious songs. We held a Christmas party for the gang on December 31. We served turkey dinner with all the trimmings to the 80 gang members and presented them with a ping-pong table, volley ball and net, and basketball and hoop. After the meal Angel played the guitar while the boys sang religious songs. It was the first time the boys had ever tasted turkey. The local Italian parish priest was excited about the new converts and decided to have the mass and baptism at the gang’s place so that it could be a witness to all the boys. On January 27 two of the boys were baptized and ten received first Holy Communion.

Avenue Mission Possible   

After the all night bus ride crossing the mountains we arrived safely with all of our boxes at Yungay. Our guide, a young seminarian from Yungay stopped the bus while we unloaded all of our boxes by the side of the road. After a short wait the welcome committee arrived with a 1935 Ford truck. We loaded all of our boxes and baggage in the truck and headed out. As we chugged along off the main highway they were excited to tell us that this street had been officially named "Avenue Mission Possible". It was the only road in this section of Yungay that was partly paved. It was their way of thanking us for all the boxes of warm clothing and other items that we had sent to this area during the last 5 years.

Our truck came to a stop in front of the Immaculate Conception Church which they are building. The greatest desire of the community was to put a roof on the church. We agreed that Mission Possible would buy the material for the roof if they would construct it. Some of them left immediately to buy the materials for the roof while others invited us to their house for breakfast. In an hour two trucks arrived. One was loaded with steel rods to weld the rafters together. The other truck was loaded with roofing sheets.

The next surprise was the children all gathered on Avenue Mission Possible in front of the church and presented a program of song and folk dance. We presented each of the children with candy and soap from our boxes. When their priest, Fr. Tom, arrived we presented him with a beautiful gold monstrance for the parish. Fr. Tom took us for a drive up to a beautiful lake just below Peru’s highest mountain, Mt. Huascaran (22,205 ft.). On May 31, 1970 was the most destructive earthquake in the history of the western hemisphere. The epicenter of the quake was 15 miles west of Chimbote. The earthquake jarred loose the west ice covered face of Mt. Huascaran. This caused an avalanche of an estimated 50 million cubicyards of ice and rock to come down on the city of Yungay at 200 miles per hour. Approximately 50,000 people were buried alive along with the city, 20 feet deep. There were 7 survivors. The Old City of Yungay is a national cemetery and the city of New Yungay has sprung up next to the buried city.

Fr. Tom stopped to say mass and benediction with the new monstrance at 3 isolated mountain villages. The mountain roads were narrow, without railings and badly washed out with logs for bridges and holes between the logs. The last village we were to visit was totally inaccessible with Father. Tom’s pickup, so the peasants came walking to meet us on the road where we distributed many boxes of clothing.

Angels on Assignment

Do you believe in Miracles? We do. We were getting ready to leave Chimbote on the 9 P.M. bus for a 10 hour ride over the Andes mountains to our work in Yungay. We were tired and weary with all the last minute jobs to do, packing the boxes to take from Chimbote to Yungay. There were endless people waiting for help or just a hug to say goodbye.

Finally we were on our way as our tired bodies constantly slid back and forth in our seats with every hairpin curve. About 4 A.M. in the morning our bus stalled out in no man’s land high on the side of a mountain. Many got out for a stretch or headed for the nearest tree. Nuts and bolts had rattled off and we had lost the fan belt. Fortunately they had an extra belt along and they borrowed bolts from different places on the engine to make the repairs. It took about an hour to make these repairs and during this time another bus passed us and many lamented that they should of taken the other bus so they could have made their early morning appointments. We just said our rosary and waited and finally the bus driver said "All aboard!" and we were on our way again.

As we gained altitude it became foggy and rainy and after about an hour of bumping and swerving back and forth on the dangerous mountain road we noticed a big commotion of flashing lights ahead. With the rain on our windshield it was hard to see ahead but we all ready felt trouble. As we came nearer our hearts were sad to see dead bodies lying in the mud alongside of the road and a truck overturned and completely destroyed. In our lane ahead of us was the badly damaged bus that had hit the truck head on, the same bus that passed us earlier when our bus was being repaired.

God only knows how many died or were injured. Deep down inside of us we felt our Angels had been hard at work loosening bolts by the dozen and taking off our fan-belt. We cried and prayed for the still warm, dead bodies and for all the injured in the bus that passed us. Dear God we thank you for caring for us one more time and to our guardian angels we say "Thanks and keep up the good work!"

Answers to your Questions ??? by Veronica

How long have you and Ralph been married? Would you believe 44 loving years, 45 in November !996. These have been interesting , hard working, loving years and I would do it all over again.

If you could be a missionary in a country of your choice which would it be? Well if I had a choice I would be a missionary here in America where we live. Then there would be no language barrier or cultural differences and we could be close to family and friends. But God opened the doors for us to come to Peru and other Latin American countries. Even though the language is difficult, the language of love overrides every difficulty and God seems to have put us here to work and sacrifice for "His poor".

What is the most frustrating thing in your work? For me, the most frustrating thing is always getting the answer of - "Si mañana!" To me this word is unacceptable because mañana never comes. Now is the acceptable time and it is unfortunate that procrastination seems to be part of the culture here. When we first came to Peru 18 years ago a Polish Priest, Fr. John from Wisconsin, who had been in Peru about 20 years gave us this advice. "If you want to be a missionary in Peru, you have 3 choices - go home, go crazy, or go native." We took his advice and do all three.

Why were you in Peru so long this time? Good question! I was fighting for all of you in America who sent boxes of clothes , rosaries, and other things for the poor and also special boxes for Priests and sisters in Peru. Yes fighting the bureacracy to get our container released from customs that we shipped on December 16th. We can’t explain the system here - neither can the Peruvians explain it. What I do know is that all the boxes would have been auctioned off if I hadn’t continued the fight. My father taught me a good captain never abandons the ship so I stayed and fought a good fight. On Easter Sunday I was lonesome for home and feeling sorry for myself until I looked out my window and saw a man with one leg.. He begged me for a pair of crutches because his had been stolen. I got him a pair of crutches, dried my tears and thanked God for my problems. Ralph returned to Peru on Mother’s day and we continued the fight. Thank you for all of your prayers.

Are you still having retreats? Yes, this year we are planning 2 retreats at the Sacred Heart retreat center in September with Fr. Francis Bagen from Florida. One will be for adults and the other for youth

How is the foster program doing? Fantastic! Our job searching group is doing a great job to help some of the unemployed find work. With 85% unemployment it is very hard to get a job. Some Foster programs sponsor the same child for 20 years which is good but there is a danger of making them dependent on you instead of helping themselves. We believe it is better to help more people through the crisis times as we have many who are seriouly sick or badly hurt and are in desparate need until the crisis passes. Of course there are many that do need long term help because of incurable sickness or severly crippled, and other circumstances. With 500 on our waiting list, what we do need is more people to make a committment to participate in the program.

Congratulations on your work with the gangs. Is it still going on?

First of all the congratulations go to God, for it is his work. He has inspired ten more boys to be baptized into the the church and are taking classes from Angel and Joel in preparation. The boys are still sewing with the 4 machines we gave them. They also built a small groto so I grabbed a box marked statue and took it with me to visit the boys. When I opened it I found not a statue of one person but three, the Holy Family. What a wonderful surprise from the Lord as many of the boys never had a father. Now they have St. Joseph as their father, Mary as their mother and Jesus as their savior. Whoever sent the statue, thanks from the gang.