Here we are a year and eight-ish months later. I am officially back in the US, but before I departed from Arequipa, I wrote these final words to my church community. After apprenticing under the Daggetts and working in communal missions, this little speech sums up the radical effect my time in Peru had on my life and what it taught me about following Jesus and loving others.
My dear family,
Firstly, I want to say thank you. Thank you for being my parents and my siblings through this last wonderful year and eight months. Thank you for inviting me in, for sharing your city, your work, your communities, and your lives with me. This has been a time in my life of joy, growth, and love thanks to all of you. You have all been friends and teachers to me. You have taught me so much through my Spanish learning journey, about the combis, Avelino, but also about hospitality and radical love. Watching each of you follow Jesus and act with radical love I recall two quotes from a book I have read called “The Irresistible Revolution” “God comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable”. I have seen in each of you how you love those who feel like an outcast and how you never seek comfortability over caring for those in need. Within this church you take care of one another offering a hug, a ride, an invitation, and so much more. Outside of the church I see this church loving the person who is the most different from them. You all have taught me further how I can bring light to the darkness and how I can bring God’s kingdom into the here and now. Into this present world that we live in, because (like the same book I mentioned before says) “Few people are interested in a religion that has nothing to say to the world and offers them only life after death.” I see in this church human beings that are loving the other and bringing about new creation and bringing healing to those who are hurting. Those who are hurting right now.
Divine relief through divine love.
Through watching and learning from each of you while I have been blessed to live here, I have been encouraged to listen to God’s plans for my future. I have heard him say “Sarah, you must seek out those who are hurting and care for them” What a wonderful blessing this community has been to me to show me how that can work in real life. From your example I am praying to start a community of gringos and latinos, homeless and sheltered, rich and poor, friend and stranger so that through love and some really yummy food we may share God’s love together through community. Thank you for being my community and my family. I pray a blessing over each of you that from this day forward you may each continue with peace and strength from God. That you may hear him telling you who you are and his plans for you. I pray to God that I may be a servant to you and to Him no matter where I go in this world.
Thank you for following Jesus. Jesus the justice seeker, Jesus the caregiver, and Jesus the lover.
Love, Sarah
