My Parish Bulletin Article on Peru for Fathers´ Day by Deacon Stickney

Greetings from Perú and Happy Father´s Day. For three years now, I have been accompanying students from Brophy Prep on a service trip here. In Tacna, Perú, the southernmost city, students live with families for nearly two weeks. These are stable families , where stability, not surprisingly, is associated with the presence of fathers..

                We stay in a little neighborhood of 500 families called "Habitat," which was built in sections by families who worked on 100 homes at once, without knowing which one would be theirs. The comunal effort and the selection process that followed created unity among the families. As each section was added, the neighborhood grew to surround the Catholic church, Catholic school and playground. The families organize volleyball and soccer games, provide little shops and restaurants in their homes for one another and walk their children to school. It is heartwarming to see little kindergartners outfitted in their neat grey pants and blue-sweater uniforms (it is winter here), rolling their bookbags behind them on their way to school. That was the plan of Fr. Fred Green, S.J., who this year is celebrating his 51st year as a priest in Perú.

Because of internal migration of the poor from the Andes and Amazon areas to the coast where Lima and Tacna are located, the Habitat community has been growing at the edges, with poor shacks springing up made of estera (woven bark). Many of these families are without fathers.

                The Brophy students are building a block house in this "invasión" area for a single mother with two children in the school. Yesterday, as we were mixing concrete by hand for the stem walls, I heard the sound of a violin coming from inside their shack, with its estera, cardboard and discarded paper bag walls. It was Alonso, the eight-year-old boy, practicing on an instument that, together with tuition, had been provided by the school.

Where there are no fathers, it is important that the Church become a father to help these mothers. Let us today be grateful for the stability and care our fathers provide us with.