Marist Brothers Darlinghurst Old Boys Union
Correspondence
27 April, 2018 from Fr. John Anderson [Class of 1963] to the OBU:
Many thanks for the invitation.. would much like to be present at Mass
and Luncheon.. they are great celebrations. Distance makes it too
difficult..
A
few lines from the city of Iquitos, northeastern Peru. A city of half a
million people, on the banks of the Amazon, and as yet not able to be
reached by road. We are an Apostolic Vicariate, i.e., mission territory,
in the charge of Spanish Augustinians, and we border Ecuador. I came to
Peru in 1982, with the Columbans, worked with them in Lima and in
Sicuani, in the southern Andes, and came to Iquitos in 1991.
Am
Parish Priest of the Parish of Sta Rosa de Lima.. we are preparing for
our Golden Jubilee in 2020. A military airport goes through the middle
of the parish jurisdiction. We have four Mexican Sisters in our Parish,
who came last year.. God is very good to us, and our Sisters are doing
very great good in our Parish. Two of our Sisters and myself teach in
our Seminary, out from the airport, and on 15th July our Bishop, Miguel
Olaortua Laspra, OSA, will ordain as priest Deacon Juan Anderson Pérez
Ramírez, whom I baptized in my first years here. Will be a celebration
of great joy for us all. Gradually there are more priests from Iquitos,
at the moment, ten among 35, with two more working or studying outside
of Iquitos.
Some people have enough to get by on, while others are very poor.. on
the way to the Seminary, you can see very simple dwellings and people
come in from the tributaries of the Amazon, looking for work and
education for their children.
A
couple of days back we had a robbery in the morning.. three men with
pistols came to a home only 100 meters from our Parish, entered, tied
up the man of the home, and took what they could within 45 min.
thanks, Kym,
John