As many of you know, in the middle of the mountains near the village of Andahuaylillas, Peru, we have a beautiful house that shelters helpless boys who have no one else to help them. The most important thing is that we are able to show them the love of the Lord. How important it is! It is for us missionaries to bring the hope of the Gospel, even to the little ones.

To help you to pray more concretely, we have the joy of telling you that we have welcomed new members to our community. The first boy is an eight-year-old from Cuzco named Moises. He has epilepsy which makes him very nervous when he has to be with the others. He has difficulties with his studies but the priests and brothers help him with affection and love through his various difficulties.

Victor Manuel is five years old, also from Cuzco. He came to us from Protective Services and lives at our home. His parents never took care of him and he spent his days in the street and the market which is where the police found him. His mother is an alcoholic. He never went to school. When he arrived he was very restless, but little by little he is changing and becoming calmer.

The Priests and Brothers have also welcomed a new member into their community. His name is Thomas Vollander. He is twenty-one and comes from Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne in the center of France. He comes from a deeply Catholic family. He studied at Notre-Dame de Liesse where he spent time learning sacred music (polyphony and Gregorian chant). Afterwards, he was at a conservatory studying chant and piano until he graduated. He also studied at the IRCOM in Angers in western France and obtained a Bachelor of Arts and Political Science. He met our community several years ago because his parents support the Abbey of Fontgombault, an abbey that has supported us for years. Not long ago he accompanied us to the villages we visit in the mountains and really liked this first experience and was greatly surprised by the great poverty of the people and their great sense of God.

And last, a new priest from Sicily has joined our community. Father Pasquale La Milia is 66 years old and was ordained on May 13, 1989. He has served all this time as a diocesan priest and a pastor and member of the ecclesiastical tribunal of Sicily. He came to do a year of discernment among the poor. For years he has had the desire to give himself to the Lord as a religious missionary but it wasn’t possible as he was an only son and had to take care of his parents. First he spent time in Ajofrin, Spain which showed him the beauty of community life and the importance that we give to the spiritual life, in particular Holy Mass and Eucharistic Adoration. Then he spent from April to June with us in Peru and what he enjoyed most was going on mission to the distant villages in the Andes mountains.

We commend ourselves to your prayers. God bless you.