Letter from Hunter and Ruth Farrell in Peru
June 20, 2006
Lima, Peru
Dear Friends,
The rush of activities here often keeps us from pausing and reflecting on all that God is teaching us—and from celebrating all that God is doing in and through us. Last week, as we moved our office to the first floor of an old house in Lima’s Jesus Maria district, our Joining Hands Against Hunger network of churches, non-profit organizations, and grass-roots organizations took the time to stop and review where God has brought us in this last year.
For the last five years, our network identified three critical areas in which poor Peruvian communities are struggling in these globalized times: local development (enough income to put food on the table); environmental justice (or call it “Creation care”—enough for families to live a healthy life); and human rights (enough to live life with dignity).
Local development
In the last three years, our 125 artisans have increased the quality of their handicrafts and sales volume from $8,000 to $100,000. We’ve opened up a fair trade store in a Lima hotel, where sales are growing. A Presbyterian Women’s Birthday Offering grant enables us to reach out to more artisans living in extreme poverty. By the end of their 18-month training period—in which they learn product design, quality control and microenterprise skills—most of the artisans have increased their income between 100 and 300 percent! We hope to train 400 artisans by late 2008, thanks to the Presbyterian Women and our very dedicated staff!
Though many organizations claim to work with the poorest, few are able to help people living in extreme poverty increase their income in a sustainable way, so we are deeply thankful that “Bridges of Hope” project is having the impact it is. Many churches are ordering a “Christmas Box” of quality Peruvian handicrafts to promote mission during the Christmas season. (The ordering deadline is August 31.) For information, contact Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery (Bob Thornberry directs the U.S. side of the project, “Partners for Just Trade” from St. Louis: partnersforjusttrade [at] yahoo.com). Bob can send a 10-minute video on “Bridges of Hope” that will help churches understand the lives and dreams of the artisans. You can also check out the products and artisans on our Web page.
Environmental justice: Bringing people together to care for God’s children
Our network supported the parents, teachers, and church and community members of the Movement for Health in La Oroya, Peru’s most contaminated city, in their struggle for a healthier environment. A St. Louis University study that our network supported revealed that 97 percent of La Oroya’s 10,000 children have lead poisoning due primarily to the Doe Run Company’s metal smelter.
One U.S. scientist found that arsenic contamination is so bad that the probability of contracting cancer in La Oroya is 2,000 times more likely than the U.S.’s maximum permissible standard. Our network was able to get the word out about what was happening, and La Oroya’s children made headlines on CBS News, the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, and more than 50 newspapers around the globe, and we worked together with Oxfam and other non-profit groups to gather more than 16,000 letters from 52 different countries in support of our children’s health campaign.
This poster advertised the prayer vigil in support of children's health in La Oroya, where 97 percent of the children have lead poisoning. Parallel prayer vigils were held in St. Louis, Missouri, and Columbus, Ohio.
Human rights: Accompanying the widows and orphans
Almost 70,000 Peruvians were killed in our violent civil war (1981-95), 70 percent of whom were poor indigenous farmers and herders in the central Andes. The atrocities committed by both the Shining Path Liberation Army and government troops have left deep and festering wounds in hundreds of communities. Our network brings together widows, orphans, and other people whose lives were forever altered the war. Young people are learning how to process their grief and respond to problems in non-violent ways. The human need in hundreds of indigenous communities in Peru’s central Andean region far surpasses our capacity to reach out, but we continue to be encouraged by the perseverance of so many communities, and by the U.S. groups that come to help out. A group from Broad Street Presbyterian Church (Columbus) is coming in July to work with the Santa Barbara community, raising the roof on the library of their bilingual (Quechua-Spanish) school.
Loving our neighbor in a world of injustice
Most of us grew up in churches where political and social issues were kept outside the church walls. Yet Scripture’s call to love our neighbor and to accompany the widows and orphans has drawn us into new territory that can only be entered into prayerfully and humbly. Many of us have worked in our churches to do more than just "give a man a fish"—we have sought to "teach a man to fish." But if the river that runs through his town is polluted, teaching him to fish is a cruel joke. Pray with us as we seek to love our neighbor in a world where the gap separating rich and poor continues to grow.
With you in Christ,
Hunter and Ruth Farrell
The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 47
