¡Mission Peru!
Mission Trip 2008
A wonderful team of young women went to Peru as a Women’s Chorus over Christmas vacation, 26 December 2008 to 5 January 2009. They sang in our companion Lutheran churches in Lima, visited our Huch’uy Runa mission in Cusco, sightsee (think Machu Picchu), and developed relationships along the way.
Photo Slideshow from Dec 2008 trip, with notes from Pastor Dale Howard. Be patient as the photos load they are print quality.
Women's Ensemble - Mission Trip to Peru
Click to read a .pdf of e-mail dated Dec 29, 2008
Click to read a .pdf of e-mail dated Dec 30, 2008 morning
Click to read a .pdf of e-mail dated Dec 30, 2008 evening
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To support Huch’uy Runa, make checks out to Normandale Lutheran Church with “Mission Peru” on the memo line.
Letter from Pastora Dana in Peru
November 6, 2008,
!Hola hermanos y hermanas en Cristo! Hello brothers and sisters in Christ
This past Saturday my family and I went to the neighborhood cemetery with crowds of others to celebrate Todos Los Santos (All Saints). It was beautiful and festive to be with so many people of all ages lovingly placing flowers on the tombs of loved ones. We live and work in the district of Surco in Lima. The Municipal Cemetery of Surco is made up entirely of mausoleums. The tombs are all above ground, and stacked like stone shelves. If your loved one’s body is at rest in one of the tombs on the top shelves, you need to use a ladder to reach it. Some older kids were running around with wooden ladders you could use (for 50 cents). We walked by tombs engraved in Spanish and in Japanese. Most everyone I know who was born in Lima is multi-racial, with parents and grandparents from a blend of backgrounds, whether they be Spanish or Quechua, African, Italian, German, or Japanese….
The music at the cemetery was so interesting to me. Small bands of folk musicians were roaming around, and could be hired for a small fee to play and sing in front of the tomb of a loved one. One group we listened to singing had an accordion and guitars. Another had a saxophone, a big harp, a guitar, and an elder woman singing. Her lyrics were, “No hay justicia en la tierra. Solo hay justicia en el cielo, donde no hay ricos ni pobres…” It means, ‘there is no justice on earth. Justice is only in heaven where there are no “rich and poor”. (Latin American liberation theology has deep roots in Peru. Gustavo Gutierrez still lives here in Lima. He wrote the book A Theology of Liberation. It is about a way of knowing God and reading the Bible from the perspective of the poor and the oppressed.)
Zooming in now, to a very specific small group of believers in Peru, the Evangelical Lutheran Church has been busy celebrating the Reformation. Every year all of the congregations come together for a joint Reformation Sunday service, program and lunch. This year it was held in Lurin at a church called Filadelfia, one of the oldest Spanish-speaking Lutheran congregations in the country. Filadelfia was formed in 1969 by missionaries from the United States. Then on Friday, October 31st the Lutheran congregations gathered again to listen to lectures on Martin Luther’s 95 Thesis and their relevance for today. In Peru, Lutheran Christians take their doctrine very seriously!
On the home front, Tom and the kids and I celebrated Halloween much more cautiously than ever before. A group of families from Tana’s school invited our kids to go trick or treating. (Tana goes to a Peruvian school, not an American or an international school.) Tana was a bride and Anthony was a cat. And as a “fun thing to do with the kids” we hung a ghost made out of a bed sheet from the second story window of our house. But I am learning more and more from the members of my church that many faith communities in Peru teach that Halloween is an evil holiday from the USA which is invading the Peruvian society and is sinful to celebrate. It can sure be humbling when we find ourselves out of step with the cultural norms. As global missionaries of the ELCA, we need to always be culturally sensitive and aware that our image is so important. After all, we are ambassadors of the message of Christ’s redeeming work in the world. It is a message of hope and unconditional love and reconciliation for all people through God’s grace. We are here hopefully building trusting and mutual relationships with our Peruvian neighbors. We sure appreciate your prayers as we try to do this.
I have been preaching on Sunday evenings once or twice a month in a little congregation which does not have a pastor right now. It is a church on top of a densely populated hill in a nearby district called Pamplona Alta. Poverty is really intense in that community. I hope our church (Cristo Rey) can become much more involved with our brothers and sisters up there on the hill. I will visit them again next week to give a talk about baptism. There is one baby and two twelve year old kids in the congregation who want to be baptized. The congregation is called Vida Nueva and it was started by Pastor Claus, a Hermannsburg Missionary who served in Peru for 11 years, and recently moved back to Germany in 2007.
I have included a photo taken in the sanctuary of Cristo Rey. It is Angel and his rock band. They played for a youth service which was a gathering of the youth groups from the four congregations here in the south end of the city. (Filadelfia, Vida Nueva, Cristo Rey and Cristo Salvador.) It was very fun. It made me feel at least ten years younger.
God bless you. Thank you for reading this letter and for caring about the life of the Peruvian Evangelical Lutheran church.
Pastora Dana Nelson Contact Information:
Website www.ilep.org
Mission Peru - Historical Information
Normandale Mission Trip to Huch Uy Runa
November 24 to December 5, 2006
Pastor Dale Howard lead a team of five--Pastor Dale Howard, Normandale Mission Pastor, Damon Howard, Mark Werley and Susan Hoel, Global Mission Committee members, and Sue Schultz, Director of Children’s Ministry. We spent a few days in Lima, meeting with Bishop Pedro and the director of South America. Then we traveled to Cuzco to meet with Clara Silva Santander, director of Huch Uy Runa, and Pastor Ophelia, of Talitha Kum, returning to Lima at the end of the trip for a debriefing with Bishop Pedro.
Monday - Friday