Province News

Frank Chamberlin, SJ, Reflects on Donor Support of Peru Ministries
Monday, April 02, 2001

Testimony By Frank Chamberlain, S.J.

HOW IMPORTANT IS SUPPORT FROM FRIENDS IN THE UNITED STATES?

The question is really a kind of a nonsense question because both you and I have the answer before the question is asked: yes, it's very important, and that should be no surprise to anyone. What is always a surprise is the real, long-term, effective generosity of so many people in the U.S. for our work here in Peru. I can only speak for myself, but that list of good people includes relatives and family friends, high school buddies, and three parishes (two in the Chicago area and one in Cincinnati) all of whom and which have kept our work going.

When I say "our work" I am referring really to the job I am in now as pastor of our Jesuit parish in El Agustino, a poor sector of Lima on the eastern side of the city. I have been living and working in El Agustino for a little over 20 years (working full time or part time depending on the work assignment at the moment; right now it is definitely full time). I was pastor before in the 1980's, and since there were not too many apples in the barrel when a change of pastor came up last year, I was "selected" once again. One of the pastor's jobs is that of making ends meet financially in the parish. (My father was a C.P.A., of my two older brothers one is a C.P.A. and the other is a Jesuit working in the treasurer's office in the Jesuit curia in Rome. I thought I had "escaped" the money stuff: Ha! Such has not been the case.)

Just to give you some small idea of the importance of that "little help from your friends", our parish, which is really the equivalent of a miniature diocese, has an annual budget now of about 160,000 dollars a year. That includes everything: salaries, the costs of the many different programs the parish sponsors, maintenance of the nine chapels in the parish, etc.

We "pull in" from the local area (Sunday collections, weddings, baptisms, and other activities) a little over $10,000 a year. We are trying to reach 15 thousand in local contributions from the people, but since this is a poor area and since the general economic situation is bad, really very bad, we are always going to have to search for sources of income outside the parish.

And it really is important that the work continue. A parish in a poor sector like El Agustino is a religious center, certainly, with any number of small base-communities that meet weekly to reflect and pray on the meaning of the Gospel for their lives. The parish is also a reference place and support institution for the numerous neighborhood organizations (the communal kitchens, youth groups, local micro enterprise associations, women's organizations to struggle against family violence against children and wives, etc.). The parish is definitely an important institution in the area, both socially and religiously. If you think about what parish life meant in a city like Chicago fifty or sixty or seventy years ago, then you can get some idea of what our Jesuit parish means to the people in our area. There are important differences of course, but there are also many similarities.

So to get back to that obvious question with which we started these notes: yes, the support from friends in the States is so very, very important, more important I suspect than the generous people who help realize. In our case here in El Agustino, we simply could not do even half of what we are doing now without that ongoing support. So thank God there are so many generous people who want to and do help!