{"id":307090,"date":"2019-10-02T20:02:54","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T18:02:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/jenny-and-javier-a-calling-in-the-amazon-rainforest\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:40:11","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:40:11","slug":"jenny-and-javier-a-calling-in-the-amazon-rainforest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/jenny-and-javier-a-calling-in-the-amazon-rainforest\/","title":{"rendered":"Jenny and Javier: A Calling in the Amazon Rainforest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only weeks before the Pan-Amazon Synod, Gustavo E. Clari\u00e1 traveled to a Peruvian village in the Amazon rainforest. He tells the story\u2014not of fires, deforestation, oil companies, or precious-metal seekers\u2014but of Jenny and Javier, who chose to live in the South American Amazon with the desire to bring, as a family, the light of the Gospel to \u201cpoorest of the poor.\u201d<\/em> \"5d017b9e\u201cFrom Argentina, we decided to move to L\u00e1mud, Peru,\u201d said Javier, \u201cthe town where Jenny was born, in what is called \u2018Ceja de Selva\u2019 (half jungle, half mountain). It\u2019s located near to where the great Mara\u00f1\u00f3n and Amazon rivers begin. We wanted to be close to her parents, who are now elderly and in delicate health.\u201d Javier is Argentinian. He met Jenny while she was studying in Rosario, Argentina. They have three daughters, aged 2, 4, and 17. They sold \u201cwhat little they had\u201d and left for the Amazonas, Peru\u2019s poorest region, 1,600 kilometers from Lima and 14 hours from the nearest Focolare house. Moving from a big city like Rosario to a town with 2,500 residents at 2,300 meters elevation was a big change for the family. \u201cWe knew we wouldn\u2019t be making a return trip,\u201d he said. Moving from a big city like Rosario to a town with 2,500 residents, at 2,300 meters elevation, was a big change for the family, and it was especially challenging for Javier. At a young age, both Javier and Jenny met the Focolare\u2019s spirituality of unity; they now wanted to live the Gospel as a family. That\u2019s why \u201ctheir biggest concern\u201d was to get to a place where they \u201cwould be alone,\u201d with no one with whom to share this ideal of unity. They decided to do everything they could to bear witness and proclaim the Gospel with their lives, so that even in the Amazon, a seed of the spirituality of unity would be planted. They decided to live the commandment of reciprocal love so that Jesus would always be spiritually present in their family, according to his promise: \u201cWhere two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst\u201d (Mt 18:20). With the conviction that, as Chiara Lubich once said, \u201cone of the fruits of Jesus in the midst is giving birth to a community,\u201d they left for Peru. A few days after arriving, the local bishop visited their town. They introduced themselves as a \u201cFocolare family.\u201d The bishop blessed them and encouraged them to continue in their commitment. They began by touring the periphery of the village by visiting \u201cthe poorest of the poor.\u201d They went to people\u2019s houses\u2014if you want to call them that\u2014where they found elderly people who \u201cdidn\u2019t even have a decent bed to die in, such was their poverty!\u201d They met many families and children who could afford to eat only once a day. \u201cWe would bring them something to eat, hug them, look them in the eye, and give them a word of encouragement,\u201d said Jenny. Sometimes, they would stay two or three days with them, \u201csharing their pain, their poverty, their brief joys and hopes.\u201d \"fcbe210dHopeful that they could help bring to life a small community in their town, they began to organize meetings of the \u201cWord of Life,\u201d but with no success. They changed tactics several times. \u201cWe never got discouraged,\u201d said Javier. \u201cWe knew that Jesus has his<\/em> time and the important thing was to stay in the game.\u201d They invited their neighbors again to meet about the Word of God, and gradually some people joined, including some of the mothers of the children in kindergarten with their daughters. They also organized a children\u2019s program. This felt like the beginning to them, a small calling. Then the parish priest asked them to take on the family catechesis of the village and ten other surrounding villages, including some located two hours away. Recently welcomed their first visit from the Focolare community of Talara, a city located 650 kilometers and 12 hours by car from L\u00e1mud. It was a visit that marked them in a special way, \u201ca before<\/em> and after<\/em> in the life of our community.\u201d Jenny and Javier share in the joy of those who have found their place in the world. \u201cWe are few, but something was born!\u201d they say. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to set expectations, but we believe that Jesus has a soft spot in his heart for the Amazon, for the poorest of the poor. This is so perhaps because he was also born among the poor, and he stayed with them. We don’t know the roads he wants to take us, but they\u2019re the only ones on which we want to travel! Like Him, we want to give our lives for our people.\u201d <\/p>\n

Gustavo E. Clari\u00e1<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only weeks before the Pan-Amazon Synod, Gustavo E. Clari\u00e1 traveled to a Peruvian village in the Amazon rainforest. He tells the story\u2014not of fires, deforestation, oil companies, or precious-metal seekers\u2014but of Jenny and Javier, who chose to live in the South American Amazon with the desire to bring, as a family, the light of the Gospel to \u201cpoorest of the poor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}