Fr. Alejandro Mesco
I mentioned the last post that the 1998 El Niño rains in Peru caused a massive landslide that blocked one of the streams going by Choco, a stream that had become a raging river. As a result, the river swept over part of the small bluff that houses Choco, killing 34 persons and wiping out part of the town. The news made it to Arequipa, where our family lived, and to the pueblo joven (shantytown) church pastored by Fr. Alejandro Mesco. He, himself, is Quechua and so is most of his congregation. And, in his congregation were sons and daughters, as well as other relatives, of the people in Choco. They were in Arequipa to go to college, to find employment, to hope for a different, hopefully better, life than their parents had had.
And, so, their relatives asked our Church in Peru for help. Several thousand dollars were given to us from overseas donations. Out of that money supplies were bought, a truck was hired, and Fr. Alejandro, a British missionary named Nigel Hadley Rowe, and the son of one of the families in Choco. Now, I will say that the government had been there and had taken a few supplies in, and then promptly forgot about Choco. They sent messages ahead, and the villagers sent mules to meet the truck at the beginning of the trail in Cabanaconde. The final tally was a burro and mule team train of 30 animals carrying supplies, plus several others that could be used to carry people as necessary.
Frankly the mules for people were necessary because people who have not grown up travelling in the high mountains do not have the capability of making that trek without some good training or being in top physical shape. And so it was. Nigel arrived on a mule and had to be lifted off because his legs would no longer obey him. And, yet, he stuck with it and made the 8 hour trip there, walking and riding until his body would no longer even obey him. I should mention that he is a musician who can play the most wonderful keyboard. Musicians are not normally considered very physical people.
When they arrived at the village, the villagers asked Fr. Alejandro to celebrate a memorial funeral Mass despite the fact that he is not Roman Catholic. He explained that to them, but they said that no funeral Mass had been celebrated and their dead had never been properly remembered. But, there was a Roman Catholic church in the village. It was locked up, musty, deserted, and only used once every six months to a year when a Catholic priest would come by, but only if paid. And, so, they opened the church and insisted he celebrate a Mass. And, with misgivings he celebrated one according to our pattern. He asked my advice later, and I made the decision that, from then on, we should not celebrate inside the church anymore, as it was not ours to take, and it would be inappropriate to do so. And, so, from then on, whenever we visited, we celebrated in the town square. For, you see, they asked us to come back.
And, so, unplanned, and in answer to a terrible tragedy, the mission to Choco began.
===MORE TO COME===
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