Easter in el Perú

Jesus on the cross at the Good Friday Via Cruzes

Happy Easter to everyone!!!! And to any friends I have that don’t celebrate Easter, I hope you had a wonderful weekend last weekend!!!!

One of our Easter eggs on our Easter Egg tree!!

Easter in Peru proved to be one of the most challenging weekends yet for me. I guess I didn’t realize how much Easter with my parents and at my church, Living Word, back in Texas meant to me. I always enjoyed going home for Easter from school, but this year when I didn’t have Good Friday service at Living Word or Easter morning with my mom, dad, and grandpa…. It hit me how  much I counted on that Easter experience that I am so used to. I got pretty homesick. But with the cloud always comes the silver lining, right?!

Right!! While I was bummed to be so far from home, it was also SO beautiful to experience Easter in this Peruvian culture!! So many different events and celebrations. In our community as well we decided to have a pretty radical Lenten experience, which was challenging but definitely significant of the sacrifice. We decided as a community that each week we would give something up and also add something and continue for the rest of lent. Our list went like this:

Week 1: Give up the microwave, Add 45 minutes of daily morning Lenten prayer and meditation with daily readings.

Week 2: Give up eating outside of the house, Add only rice&beans for lunch every day.

Week 3: Give up buying brand marked anything, Add a Quote wall to the house

Week 4: Give up looking in the mirror, Add an extra mass together weekly.

Week 5: Give up electricity, Add evening prayer before bed.

Week 6: Give up sleeping in our beds (sleeping together on the floor downstairs), Add lunch time affirmations. 

            So by the end we were doing all of these things. To add to our Lenten last week of no electricity, sleeping on the floor, eating only rice and beans, and all the rest of it…. The water stopped coming. Water comes to our house once in the morning and once at night and fills our well, but something went wrong with the city water system and for a whole week 3 big areas of Chimbote were out of running water, including us. It was an interesting week for sure!!  But we made do and conserved water the best we could in buckets and basins, used a lot of candles at night, and needless to say the cats LOVED our sleeping on the floor all together arrangement.

Dying eggs by candlelight

Kyle and Fidea snuggling before bed



Our little floor bed, Kelli, Emily, Fidea, Me, and Kyle (roaches creeping around the floor not pictured)



            One of the most exciting Easter week events included Palm Sunday. We went and bought corn stocks from the donkey cart lady who always sells them on the corner by our church and went to get them blessed at mass. Everyone brought their own plants or corn stocks to get blessed and there was a procession through the streets with our plants. Then the next day we woke up at 5am to hike up the Cerro de la Paz, the big hill in the middle of Chimbote, with hundreds of other young people. We walked for 3 hours, reading the Stations of the Cross on the way, and had mass at the top at the church on the side of the hill.

Padre Sabastian blessing the plants with Holy Water

Everyone with their plants in mass

Sitting at the top of the Cerro with Chimbote city behind us

Mass given by the Archbishop on the Cerro Church

With Chimbote behind me

            Good Friday all over the city there are multiple groups performing what are called Via Cruzes. This is a real person re-enactment of the crucifixion that processes through the streets, stopping 14 times to act out every Station of the Cross (including whipping, fake blood, carrying life sized wooden crosses, soldiers screaming, women crying). Our theatre group combined with the theatre group from a nearby Parish. We started at a Parish about 15 minutes from ours, and processed through the streets for about 2.5 hours acting out the Via Cruzes. I played the part of Weeping Woman, in which I cried a lot and yelled “No!! Jesus!! Por favor!! Mi maestro!!” which means, “No!! Jesus!! Please!! My teacher!!”. There were soldiers, the 2 other crucified robbers, weeping women, the bad townspeople (who yelled the whole time “Crucificalo!! Matalo!!” which means “Crucify him!! Kill him!!”), Veronica, Mother Mary, and of course Jesus.

Our Via Cruzes group gathered before the first station started, I am in the middle a little to the left in black with a blue cloth around my head.

Weeping Women in the background with Jesus in the foreground

Jesus being whipped by the soldiers

Mary and Jesus

Processing from station to station through the street

Rising the cross

The crucifixion

            Easter vigil mass was also beautiful, with lots of candles and singing and even a washing of the feet by our Priest of 12 young people representing the 12 disciples. Our Easter night dinner consisted of home made pizza and wine spritzers. Yum!!

Washing of the feet

The altar on Easter vigil night, offerings of plants and seeds for new life

Dinner

The beautiful sunset on Easter Vigil night, the cerro from our balcony

            On Easter morning, we had brunch together around our Easter Egg Tree. We had homemade cinnamon rolls made by Emily, quiche made by Kelli, and opened our Easter Baskets!! In the afternoon we had the IW Sisters over for coffee and desert which was great, I love when we and the Sisters can get together and have little Incarnate Word family time.

Ready for brunch

Me with my Easter basket on Easter morning!!

Some eggs we made

More Easter Eggs

IW Missionaries and IW Sisters

            So while I was having a hard time not being home, I also had the amazing opportunity to experience such a different and incredible Holy Week. What a real incarnation of finding holiness out of sacrifice!!!!!!

            He is RISEN!!!!!!! ALELUYA!!!!!!!!!