March 2, 2010

Dear Sponsoring Congregations, Friends and Family,

Greetings from Lima! The earthquake in Chile this week, on the heels of the devastation in Haiti, has left many folks in the Peruvian church scared thinking “what if” there is an earthquake in Lima. Peru and Chile are next door neighbors. (Once Tom and the kids and I had to leave Peru for visa/immigration purposes, so we took the nearest route out of the country which meant crossing the border by car into Chile. i.e. it is very close to home.) A gentleman in our congregation told me yesterday that he fears an earthquake in Lima, because unlike Chile, which is a much more developed country, the vast majority of buildings in Lima are not anti-seismic. In the 2007 earthquake in Peru, whose epicenter was in the Ica/Pisco region, he remembers bracing himself in the doorway of this apartment on the second floor, praying the Lord’s Prayer over and over which kept him calm while everything was shaking. Our prayers and hearts go out to all the people Chile.

Thank you to the Messiah Lutheran Sunday school class in Nebraska for your good questions about how kids spend summer vacation in Peru. Kids like to go with their families to the beach to swim in the Pacific Ocean and play in the sand. We can sometimes see dolphins swimming by and leaping out of the water. Kids (and adults too) also like to play volleyball and soccer. Summer has flown by. I can’t believe kids are going back to school already now in March. I must emphasize that our perspective is from this huge capital city on the desert coast. But kids in Peru also live in the tropical Amazon rainforest, and in towns and villages in the Andes Mountains where it is now the rainy season and it has been flooding. Peru is so diverse and so beautiful, with Costa, Sierra y Selva, (the coast, the mountains and the jungle).

A few little things to report: Projects take longer than I expect many times…. (a cultural difference that I slowly adjust to) so unlike I wrote in my last newsletter, we have not yet constructed the bell tower on the roof of our church. But in the meantime we are having fun on Sunday mornings lugging the 50 lb bell out onto the sidewalk, and ringing it. It is heavy, and takes one person to lift it and another to gong it. It’s pretty funny. Other news: We are happy to tell you that all the kids in Vida Nueva church in Pamplona Alta passed their final exams at the end of the school year, which made their summer vacation even sweeter. (I shared in earlier letters that Cristo Rey members have been hiking up the hill to tutor those kids and help them with their homework in preparation for those exams.)

My husband Tom said to me last night, “Dana, in your next newsletter, you should really talk about your house-blessings.” Okay. Since I was installed as the pastor at Cristo Rey I have done four house blessings. For example, I got a phone call from a parishioner one evening, “Pastor Dana, can you please come to our house? We are hearing noises in the kitchen, and our neighbor says she saw a ghost in the alley who didn’t have any feet. My kids aren’t sleeping well at night because we think there are bad spirits in the house.” There are some things that seminary didn’t fully prepare me for, such as casting out demons. Bu thanks be to God, it is not me who casts out demons, but Jesus Christ who does this. The house blessings I have led so far involve quite a bit of singing. I take along my guitar, song books, a small bell, a candle, and a Bible. The family members and I move from room as God blesses the whole house, every nook and cranny. I don’t make this up. I use the ritual in the “occasional services” book (by Augsburg fortress). What each family has in common, I am noting, is that they each recently moved from an old house into a new apartment, and felt vulnerable in a new environment. Some families wanted me to bring a flask of “holy water” from the baptismal font so they can sprinkle it around the house. I bring it because they want it, but I teach that the water itself does not have special magic powers. Rather our merciful and all-loving God is at work in our lives, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and through the Word, giving us faith and hope and new life, (even in the midst of fear.)

Seriously I am grateful for the Global Mission Institute (GMI) at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. Tom and I were blessed to live on the campus for five years, and soak up the rich experiences and wisdom from the international students. GMI was a big part of our spiritual formation.

Just last weekend our congregation of Cristo Rey was involved in a very different kind of house blessing. Dionicia and Patricio and their four children and grandchildren, after 20 years of “lucha” (struggle), have finally been able to put a good, strong roof on their house. Thanks be to God! In a very traditional Andean ceremony, all the relatives and neighbors came together to help finish constructing the roof. Then they blessed the roof, a sign of protection and security for the family, and hung bottles of champagne and flowers in the shape of a cross on their house. Dionicia and her aunts cooked food and made chicha (fermented corn drink) to feed everyone who came to the celebration. I have attached photos. Whereas the other house blessings were urgent requests because of a problem (fear of ghosts), this house blessing was more like a wedding… years of planning, years of community cooperation and hard work, culminating in this great celebration thanking God for all God has provided for the family through the community.

God bless you and keep you, may God face shine upon you. Thank you for your prayers for and with our Peruvian sisters and brothers. - Pastor Dana, Tom, Tana Anthony

Contact information: www.ilep.org

Congregación Ev. Luterana Cristo Rey

Calle Conde de Nieva 237

Urb. La Virreyna, Surco,

Lima 33, Peru

telephone 51-1-278-0169 (church)

Patricio y Dionicia

Roof Blessing