My name is Pierre André. I am 33 years old and come from France. I heard about the Missionary Servants of the Poor for the first time in 2013 from my mother who had gone to a talk given my Father Walter, Corsini, msp, in a town hear my house in southern France. I was finishing my studies in accounting and management at this time and wanted take a year to travel outside of France and help the poor and think about my future. During the last two years of my studies in 2012-13, I had realized that the accounting work I was doing while I was in school was not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life, though there were many things about the job I liked. I thought often about our economic system, our modern society, etc. that made me wish for a better world where faith and the love of God and neighbor were better lived. I also wondered if I had a vocation.  In Paris where I studied, I had participated in various service projects with the poor. In winter, for example, I spend the night with them in the church or meeting them in the street to give them something to drink and to talk to them. These experiences marked me and moved me and I felt I wanted to do something more for the poor. So, when my studies were completed, I decided to do a “humanitarian year” with the MSP and they accepted me. I was struck by their spirituality, their complete surrender to the poor as persons consecrated to God and by their trust in Divine Providence.

After spending a year at the House of Formation in Ajofrin, Spain to learn some Spanish, I went to Peru to help in the mission for a year. They entrusted me with the care of a group of seven boys from 5 to 8 years old. I had to take care of them while they studied, worked, played, and prayed. When they weren’t in school, I also worked in the sacristy. I was also lucky to be able to go on mission once a week on Wednesdays to teach catechism classes to very poor children in a village at 13,000 feet above sea level. This allowed me to see the great material and spiritual poverty that exists in the Andes Mountains and I realized that there was still much to do to help these people out of their misery and bring them to God.

I have been discerning my vocation little by little, both during that year of experience and throughout my entire missionary life. But I especially felt the call of God eight months after arriving in Peru when I made a retreat in the Our Lady of Silence Monastery where our contemplative MSP monks live. There during prayer I felt that the Lord wanted me with the Missionary Servants of the Poor and that there I could do much good. But I especially felt a call to the contemplative life with the Institute.