A Desperate Situation in Peru
Dear Friend of St. Jude,
I have always been able to count on you when an urgent situation arises in one of our missions. I am so very grateful for your compassionate support of our ministries around the world.
Today we have an urgent situation in our mission in Lima, Peru, for which I need your prayers and help. I hope I can count on you again. Please let me explain…
As you may remember from a previous letter, displaced people from Venezuela seek refuge in Peru, due to an ongoing political and economic crisis in their native country. The chaos there has caused severe food shortages, shortages of medicine, power outages and soaring crime rates. For the past five years, families have been fleeing the country to find refuge in neighboring countries. In fact, it’s reported that these unbearable conditions are fueling the largest humanitarian crisis in Latin America’s history.
Most of these men, women and children arrive in Peru with little or no resources, and many are in desperate need of food, water, medicine, healthcare and shelter. While Peru welcomes these refugees with open arms, the country has few services and resources to handle the influx.
Some of these refugees continue to make their way to our Pallottine mission in North Lima, which is an area of extreme poverty. Our Father Joseph, has graciously welcomed these families, many with young children, into our parish. Thanks to you opening your heart to these impoverished families, Fr. Joseph has been able to provide them with basic necessities and other needed aid.
In fact, because you responded to our previous appeal for assistance, we have helped provide children and adolescents with educational needs, including help with homework and supplies, crafts, physical fitness, dental services, and food.
Our Pallottine priest, Fr. Manoel who works with Fr. Joseph in the Lima mission, is abundantly grateful for your help with his projects. Thanks to you, Father Manoel was able to achieve his initial goals of setting up a dental office and providing legal advice and psychological counseling. “To keep these services, as well as basic services going,” he says, “we need ongoing resources and funding. There are so many people in dire need.”
The COVID 19 pandemic has added a new burden to these refugees’ situation of extreme vulnerability. The isolation and inability to find work have increased their hardship and suffering. Help with food and other basic necessities are needed now more than ever.
My dear friend, your prayers and generosity help us bring Christ’s love and the hope of St. Jude to the poor in our missions in 54 countries around the world. It is my sincerest hope that you will help us again now in this critical mission in Peru. Please reach out with me to these lost and impoverished neighbors who urgently need God’s love and kindness. Please send your most generous gift of $10, $15, $25 or even $35 or more.
When you send your gift, please be sure to include your prayer requests. We are honored to pray for St. Jude’s powerful intercession for you and those in your life who need help and hope.
All our Pallottine missionaries, along with those they serve, join me in thanking God for you. We ask God to bless you for your genuine acts of love and compassion and fill you with His abundant grace! Also, please know that I will personally thank God for you and for your heartfelt love for a neighbor you have not met… and for truly serving Christ in the poor.
Wishing you the hope of St. Jude,
Fr. Peter Sticco, S.A.C.
Novena Director
P.S. Please send your prayer requests along with your most generous gift today. I will make sure your prayer requests are remembered in the prayers, Novenas and Masses at our Shrine and in daily Mass that is celebrated on St. Jude’s tomb in the Vatican.