Marist Volunteers at the Marcellin Champagnat Home in Puerto Maldonado

This is the testimony of Zoila Flor De la Roca Prado, local Peruvian volunteer, Santa Maria de Los Andes Province. She is at the Marcellin Champagnat Home in Puerto Maldonado, Peru, living in community with brothers and lay volunteers and missionaries. The home welcomes young native people from different ethnic backgrounds who are studying at the secondary school in the city. Zoila describes her experience during the COVID19 Pandemic, some projects that the Marists developed with the young people, community life and Holy Week.

My name is Zoila, I am at the home of the Marist Brothers in Tambopata, Madre de Dios, Peruvian jungle.

Here, they give shelter to young native people from different ethnic groups who come to the city to study high school. This year, I joined this mission and I share my community life with Brother Jesús, Doris (who is here for a while) and two Spanish missionaries, Isidoro and Ángel.

This year, I had almost everything ready to receive the children who were coming from their community to begin their studies, when we heard the news: “quarantine, nobody can leave their house because of the appearance of a very contagious virus…?

Everything changed, plans, everything. Uncertainty took over. The boys would no longer be coming, they could not travel, leave or enter their community. What was to be done?

They had to change their mentality, learn to work in community on the different tasks they were assigned, discover that there was so much to do! And the nice things, to give importance, to rediscover, to value the small things, the big things that one does: cleaning, cutting, buying, paying, singing, setting the table, cooking…

And the coronavirus gives me a lesson, since, with everything we did, I had to make quarantine. Fifteen days in my room, alone and how not to learn in these circumstances the value of community. Brother Jesus and Doris, helping me in everything, with the risk of contagion (it should be noted that they are elderly people) and how they shared out the tasks. It reminded me of our Lord who said: MY FAMILY IS THAT WHICH DOES THE WILL OF MY FATHER. Lessons learned at home that make you rediscover the value of whoever is by your side.

In this time, it has been and is the value of availability which is the most important thing I have discovered, the service of each of the members of the community in order to move forward. The concern of Brother Jesus, supporting all of us in carrying out and completing different projects.

Although our young people are in their communities, they have been supported by continuous communication with their teachers and parents. They have been sent data, homework. Also, food, books and materials. We have been looking after them so that they can carry out their work from a distance and not lose the year.

The whole community participated actively in the prayer of the rosary, in the Vicariate, which we transmitted via Facebook.

This year, we experienced Holy Week in a different way, living it with other people, without leaving home, building murals relating to each of the days of the triduum (Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Easter Sunday) on the doors of the house, in order to help people see and experience it.

Searching for people with financial difficulties in order to support them emotionally and materially.

Sending small cakes and sharing the fruits of the house with a shelter for abandoned children.

All this time that we continue to spend, the uncertainty, the contagion, the deaths continue, but also the joy, the hope that by working together (at home) we can do many things for others.

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Zoila Flor De La Roca Puerto Maldonado, Peru