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I was involved in the parish from the time I
was 12 until I was 23, when I came to Lima for my studies. I
worked and participated in the parish of San Miguel in Arequipa through
a youth group called Voz y Mensaje that has been in existence for over 25 years, having
come into being during the eighties, inspired by liberation theology,
Medellín and Puebla. This participation was a school of political and
Christian preparation for life.
There I instructed children in catechism, I was
a youth worker, a radio commentator and even a neighbourhood leader and I
believed that we young people of the parish were the best and that the
youngsters in the streets who were not in the parish were wasters, no
good. What a tremendous Pharisee I was! (A friend said this jokingly to me
one day, and he was right.) Moreover, the parish ladies used to say that
we were good youngsters and we believed it.
When I was in the Parish I used to believe, like
many young people who are active in the Church, that it was there I would
get to know Christ, that it was there my faith would be strengthened, that
it was there that I would meet God and all those things we used to say
with great conviction if the prayers and retreats because we believed
that. Now, I am no longer in the parish and for several years past
I can say that I didn't meet God, but that He has met me.
Now that I am not in any parish, because of my work,
and am invited to one parish or another to provide some social training
for the young people who are active in their parish, I don't say to them
that they should come to the parish. Now I tell they the opposite! Move
out of the parish, God is in the street! And the street speaks of God. Be
missionaries! is the way a religious sister would put it, using
theological language. Say it whatever way you want, but go out into the
street!
GOD IS IN THE STREET AND IS WORKING
Last
week in a Zárate parish, some young people who were evaluating
a workshop had a surprise as they reviewed the historical Jesus in
his time: Jesus who was born poor, among animals (in the farmyard
the country people would say), whose father had a carpenter's workshop (like so
many Peruvians with their micro-businesses), who lived in the street, was
a marginal person who preached to the poor, who was a poor man. Perhaps
he might well be in the street today?
One
afternoon I decided to visit one of the organised groups of child and
adolescent workers at MANTHOC, for which I work, and I went to the Casa de
Yerbateros in the El Agustino district. Sr Ana Clara, a collaborator with
the house, asked Pamela (9 years) and her little sister Rosmery (6
yrs) two child workers, to show me the wall paintings they had done
in El Agustino.
So, led by the two child workers, I went through the
streets of the El Agustino area – the market and the hill Cerro 7 de
Octubre, tightly packed with little shacks, a dangerous area for some in
Lima.
The two of them declared proudly that this was the market where
they worked, they pointed out Edith's stall to me and other child workers
and then we came to a mural painted by their children's organisation. This
consisted in a planet earth with little shacks and a slogan that referred
to keeping the district clean.
We continued climbing up the streets of
Cerro 7 de Octubre where only the mototaxis go, and Pamela and Rosmery
told me that there is now less rubbish than before because they are
promoting cleaning campaigns and the rubbish collected is recycled, and
they continued showing proudly the places where they meet and co-ordinate
with the local authorities. Then we arrived at the top where other child
workers had just finished a mural which had the clean district as theme.
Their hands covered with paint indicated perhaps the colourful Peru they
were looking at in their campaign, a clean Peru starting from their
neighbourhood.
THE FACE OF GOD WAS A CHILD WORKER
Was it, perhaps, God
who was guiding my life in the streets of El Agustino and teaching me that
he is working in the street and that he has the face of a woman
worker – this through Pamela and Rosmery who are carrying out cleaning campaigns and are
teaching an adult how the reign is built up, built up by
the work of these little ones, small in size, but great in mind and
heart? All of them are playing their part: what you did
with these little ones you did with me.
.
Perhaps also, through their
children's organisation, they were exercising the Human Right to a clean and
healthy neighbourhood that would contribute to improving the quality of life?
Were they not also exercising their political rights by giving their opinion and
demanding that the adults fulfil their duties?
Perhaps
they were exercising their citizenship, based on the Higher Interests of
the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Children and Adolescents? It
is obviously so, and citizenship is something that is learnt.
I
remarked to
a friend that very often we are all immersed in our work, occupied
by chatting on the computer, going off to co-ordinate
with institutions, waiting for the minibus that is late, worried about whether our children
have eaten or not, or if they have done their homework or
if the receipt for the water or light has come, taking
little or no time to cultivate a spirituality that would enable us to
see God in what we are doing.
It is a big task to carry out a real reflection
on this, and this not just for those of us who have had
the opportunity of being met, interviewed and hired to work in the Lord's
Vineyard and in the construction of His reign on
this earth, starting from the street and from our work, promoting also a different
society, a just and fraternal one. It is also a task for
those who continue to search for God, those who do not
find him, who get tired of searching for him or feel that he
has abandoned them or does not exist.
To know that God is walking
 alongside me and that
he is cleansing the earth of everything that does not help us to live
worthily in his image and likeness, like the campaign of cleaning and
recycling for a clean country. It is silent experiences that will bring
about the growth of human beings: citizens and Christians. I say this
thinking of Pamela and Rosmery, the child workers who guided me in El
Agustino, and who are continuing to grow. One of them wants to be a lawyer
and the other to start a micro-business – this was something else they
told me proudly; at least the God of now will not then be in the street
and in a few years time will go to university.
And we, where are we
going?...
Jesús Macedo Gonzales
Collaborator of the
Political Dimension of MANTHOC (1)
and Director of the Institute
of Social Training
( (1) The JPIC Bulleting no. 3 has an article
describing MANTHOC. Ana Clara Capretti, L.S.A., has been working for the
past twelve years in the day reception centre, where everything is
focussed on the child's reality; there they find help and stimulation to
grow in dignity, in spite of their situation of poverty.
She co-ordinates the 'missionary' work of a team in which
simple things are offered: how to prepare a table, personal hygiene, studies,
games, training in handcrafts.
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