It indeed was a Merry Christmas, December 2010, celebrated with an alfojor Christmas tree cookie. Yes, this is a specialty cookie, delicious, too!!!
In the past, the reflections on my blog have been solely mine. In 2011 this will change! As with many other things that continue to change in our lives, in the realities of life in the church and in society, I wish to broaden the perspectives and deepen the level of sharing. So, I begin this first blog for the New Year, with some reflections of OTHERS who visited Peru recently.
This first reflection from the choir director of a Youth Mission Choir from Normandale Lutheran Church in Edina, Minnesota, here for two weeks. They travelled to several ILEP congregations offering music workshops on singing, piano and guitar with special emphasis on Christmas music. They did a great job! I helped to plan and coordinate their time here, guiding the learning process from this end. Their choir director wrote a wonderful reflection of their time here and of the continuing partnerships that we share. I would like to let her words resound within each of us for a while, giving time and oxygen to their experiences. May their words and their reflections strengthen all of us to a deeper faith and understanding of why mission trips/cross-cultural experiences are important and, dare I suggest, vital, to deepening partnerships.
From Sue Telander, choir director for youth mission trip to Peru:,
written on December 25th, 2010
Greetings from sunny Peru. At least Lima is sunny. Even on cloudy days, the sun puts up a good fight. And being trapped between the ocean and the mountains, it NEVER rains. However, we will put our rain gear to good use in two days when we head up the mountains into Cuzco. I am wrting this from Pastora Dana Nelson's house. Downstairs her two young children are putting on a concert for the girls in our group. Some of the girls are joining in. The boys are at Pastora Fran's house enjoying her hospitality. We just regrouped this afternoon after spending Christmas Eve with families from Cristo Rey. We sang at their worship service last night and then split up to go home with different families. Highlights from that service were the children's live nativity, a little boy who came down the aisle to "help" me direct, and the entire congregation holding candles and singing Silent Night to Dana's guitar on the sidewalk outside of the church. I haven't heard all the stories from the home stays yet, but I'm sure there will be many. Yesterday morning was spent in worship at Pastora Fran's church, San Juan. It is an open space with dirt floors, but now instead of plywood walls, they have some permanent cement walls put up. After the service, there were gift bags to hand out, mainly from Lutheran World Relief. The children had to wait until their names were called out to get a few meager things for their family. The church president said that there were fewer gifts this year and that she hoped they would share them. The yearning in the children's faces as they waited was difficult to watch, yet they still wanted to make sure they were getting gifts from somewhere. For those of you who wonder whether your gifts to the church make a difference, know that it most certainly does to families like these. I have tears in my eyes even as I write this. Those children have to struggle every day with the insecurity of poverty, while one of my biggest problems is where to put all my stuff. Tears come easily for me here. I will never be able to sing Silent Night again without the image in my heart of that dusty lot that is a Lutheran church. And our music is appreciated SO MUCH. The kids have done a marvelous job meeting the challenges of the music workshops and performing wherever they are asked, including a seafood restaurant! They are wonderful, thoughtful kids, who are taking their mission here seriously. I'm lucky to get to spend this time with them. I hope you are all having a wonderful time in the snow as we celebrate the incarnation of God in new ways down here.
Much love,
Sue Telander
With Normandale Lutheran church youth mission choir!
