Visiting Remote Communities

We’ve started visiting two communities with a priest here, Padre Braulio. Every Thursday, he goes to two communities, Alto Tena and Wayrayacu, to say Mass. We went for the first time this year, and my husband Wellington played music for Mass (I sang along to any songs I knew, but a lot of the songs he sang in Kichwa I still need to learn).

In Alto Tena, they don’t have a chapel, so they have Mass in a large covered area (it’s like a covered soccer field just with cemented floors) that the community uses for events and school activities. There weren’t that many people present for Mass because this past week they’ve been celebrating Carnival, which is where they have a lot of festivals leading up to Lent. So a lot of people who normally would be there were at the festivals.

After Mass, I spoke with a woman named Norma and a girl named Katerina who had a young daughter. Norma said the next time we came, she would prepare a drink for us and some food. They are so generous with what little they have! They seemed excited to hear that we continue to join Padre there.

In Warayacu, they do have a beautiful chapel. Before Mass, the catechists say prayers with a group of children to help them learn more prayers, and they have a small reflection on a reading. After Mass, we went to visit the mother of Carmen, who is a catechist there; her mother, Juana, has been recovering from a sickness and hasn’t had much strength to get out of bed. We went with Padre, and he said prayers in Kichwa with her, gave her Communion, then blessed the house with holy water. Afterwards, the family gave us some fish soup and cooked yuca to eat.

On our second visit to these communities, Wellington’s younger brother, Maykel, joined us.

There were a lot more people at both Masses. Padre did the Mass for Ash Wednesday, as many of them didn’t go to Mass that day. So they got to get their ashes at this Mass.

During Mass in Alto Tena, I got to hold this beautiful little girl named Manuela, who just turned one the day before. After Mass, I got to hold her again, and some kids from the village came by to take her from me, and she didn’t want to go to them! I eventually gave her back to her mother, Katerina.

Norma and Katerina did have food ready for us after Mass; they had made maito de tilapia with cooked yuca. Which is when they wrap tilapia in a big leaf and grill it to a certain point. And then yuca is a root vegetable here that they use a lot.

We set up a game called Smashball to play with some of the kids, but after setting it up, we realized that the ball for the game needed to be inflated more to be able to play. So they weren’t able to play it like it normally should. So next time we go, we hope to play that game with them!

In Wayrayacu, it was beautiful to see how many people showed up for Mass and to receive their ashes. Carmen sat next to us as she likes to help sing.

Wellington and I look forward to continuing to visit these two communities with Padre and getting to know these communities.

Please keep these two communities in your prayers, that the faith there may spread like wildfires. And for Juana to recover completely from the sickness.