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La Parroquia Jesucristo Pan de Vida |
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September, 2010 Dear friends, In 2005, Fr Frank Jones from Canberra, Australia, arrived back into Ecuador as a returned St. James missionary. He met with the Archbishop of Guayaquil, who drove him to a place called San Francisco, situated on the northern limits of the city. It was where 30,000 people had invaded government land that belonged to the city prison, across the major highway leading out of the city. The people lived in extreme poverty, with no running water, electricity or sanitation services. There were no social services or infrastructure. Even the so-called roads were just goat tracks. In short the place was chaos. And it is a typical St. James mission site. It was here in San Francisco that Fr Frank began a new mission parish, under the name of Jesucristo Pan de Vida (Jesus the Bread of Life). The time passed quickly for in August 2010, Fr Frank completed his five additional years as a missionary of the Society and has now returned home. Before leaving he shared an account of his missionary work. “The story of this new mission parish is a long one. My people were mainly young families who had migrated from various provinces of Ecuador, due to the reality of deep poverty and urgency, to try and make a living in the big city. The invasion of land is common among the very poor. They have no other option. It is the only way for most of them to save their families and create a home. They have to start from scratch, without any support from the civil authorities. That is the reason why St James sends missionaries to places such as San Francisco. That is also why missionary activity is described in the Second Vatican Council documents as being among the greatest and holiest ministries of the Church. In these few lines and with the accompanying photos, I have the opportunity to share the joy of being a missionary of St James and revealing the Providence of God who made the mission a reality. The first thing a missionary has to do is to listen to his people and to live among them, experiencing the hardship of their life. Jesus gave this example by the washing of the feet before he instituted the Holy Eucharist. This is the model we must emulate, serving the poor and fostering the dignity of the person. I first had to begin an infrastructure. With the help of the locals, we set up a simple cane church to celebrate mass. I remember hearing the sad story of a small child being assaulted by a stranger while his mother was out working. Remember that there are no support systems. I had to respond to the needs of the people when they asked: ‘Please build us a child- care center.’ The lack of security along with poor nutrition prompted the start of our first project: the child-care and nutrition center. I was renting a small room outside of the mission as my place of residence. I knew however, that I had to get living amongst the people. While building the center for child-care and nutrition, I began a small medical dispensary up in San Francisco Area 2 which served as both a residence and a place to provide basic health care, which was non-existent. We would also use the medical dispensary building as a parish office and gathering place for youth and the catechists. After those buildings were up and running, we finally started construction on the first regular church building. It was tremendous to have a beautiful and simple church that really boosted the self- esteem of the people and life of the parish. This was done after first having washed the feet of our people. I then built the parish house for the future priests. Then we needed to build a school. I first needed to gather together a religious community of sisters who could professionally and spiritually form the children and their families. I was very fortunate, after much lobbying, to receive the Oblate Sisters, an Ecuadorian congregation of women religious founded over 115 years ago, dedicated to education of the poor. We went ahead with building the convent for three sisters, at the same time building the school. We began with a structure for the first three grades and enrolled 90 students. Today there are 180 students in a program that has expanded up to the 4th grade, including as well a pre-school and kindergarten. Meanwhile, we went on to build a large cane chapel up in San Francisco Area 2 and later a beautiful large grotto dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. It has a small plaza and can accommodate our large groups for first Holy Communion and Confirmation. I had no income for the building of a large church, hence the idea of the grotto. One of the joys of building the grotto and the surrounding gardens was the generous support of our own people who helped Fr PJ Hughes and myself transform the landscape into a remarkable site of beauty and sacredness. The people feel ownership of this place of prayer and peace amongst such chaos. Fr PJ Hughes, who came into the mission in 2009, has been such a blessing for all of us. He is such a generous priest with his time and talents. He built along with the local people a beautiful church dedicated to el Señor de los Milagros (The Lord of the Miracles) in our station in the countryside called El Chorillos. Among all these activities of building infrastructure was the building of the sense of community. We achieved this through the above-mentioned activities of health, child-care, nutrition and education. We visited many people in their homes and began basic Christian communities among our various communities through prayer in the homes. All the while I also had responsibility for the pastoral care of the city prison. When I began there were over 5,000 people in a building that could only support 1,500. The Archbishop asked me to take control also of the formation of one of the wings in the jail. I named the wing after St. Dismas, the good thief. It was a very tough ministry, yet I received so much in return. The inmates shared their journey with me, and I enabled them the opportunity for human development and health care. I would stay overnight once a week. There were spiritual retreats inside the prison once every two months. Legal services where organized along with family support services. Sadly I witnessed severe human degradation inside the prison and yet my time with the prisoners was one of grace and privilege. God’s providence came through the generosity of many friends. As I return home, I feel the need to acknowledge and thank so many wonderful people. First of all there is the Mission Group from my former parish of St. Peter Chanel at Yarralumla, in the Australian Capitol Territory. They and so many others were my partners in mission. It would be impossible to forget my dear friends, the Carmelite nuns at Ormiston, Queensland, along with other supportive, humble friends from Australia, the United States and Ireland. The faith-filled, generous people from a total of nine different institutions –schools, parishes and colleges- from different regions of Australia were part of this mission effort as well. Whatever I was able to achieve, we did it together. Now I hand over the reigns to Fr PJ Hughes with a deep sense of loss in leaving my people. I am grateful, however, for the privilege of being on mission and am peaceful knowing that Fr. PJ will take great care of them all. To all of you our friends in mission, thank you and God bless.” I am very grateful for all that Fr. Frank achieved in his mission work. He was also a great help to me as Country Coordinator of Ecuador and a member of the Society Council. Let us keep him in our prayers as he continues his priestly ministry “in the land down under.” Sincerely, Rev. Kevin Hays Thank you to Fr. Frank Jones for help with the text and to both Fr. Frank and Fr. P.J. for the photos. For more photos of La Parroquia Jesucristo Pan de Vida visit Fr. P.J.'s blog:
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San Francisco when Fr. Frank first moved into the parish.
The parish school.
The medical dispensary.
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