Hello everyone,
Here’s a brief update from Boston - I hope you enjoy it!
MORE ABOUT LIFE AND MISSION IN ECUADOR
Being back in Boston for so long, it can be hard to keep sight of the overall mission. So coming back now and then to reflect is a necessity and a reminder:
“For the vision is a witness for the appointed time, a testimony to the end; it will not disappoint. If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”
As I’ve been mentioning over the last year plus, I’ve taken important steps in bringing together the spiritual and social/language/cultural aspects of the mission into a practical vision. It’s continued to be a challenge to move forward with this with the work busyness I currently have. The mission effort itself is a lot of work, and since these are new concepts that aren’t really recognized, there’s a need not only to generate and present examples of the vision, but earn confidence at the same time. And at the root is my spirituality and life in Christ. So, my focus remains on that as a first priority. I hope to soon be posting more invitations and short reflections related to the journey, on the website here aside from these updates.
Although there are great practical possibilities for this vision in Boston, the root is the relationship with Christ rooted in the mission both in Boston and in Ecuador. There is a spirituality here, that relies on encounter and God’s grace.
“Amen, amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing; for what he does, his son will do also.” (Jn 5:19)
So, as I’ve been mentioning, there continues a constant looking and listening, and development of relationship of people and activities in both Ecuador and Boston, and a going back and forth.
“But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom.”
CURRENT EVENTS IN ECUADOR
Crime
Elevated crime from drug trafficking gangs still continues, but still primarily only in certain areas on the coast. On the coast, a gang blew up bombs near a shopping center as a protest against the government’s crackdown on illegal gold mines in another province. The government was using the military to bomb and destroy the mines.
Prisons remain very violent as gangs fight each other for control. Just today, 27 inmates were hanged in a prison on the coast. The president has built a new maximum security prison that is now receiving the most dangerous inmates from around Ecuador. It’s built in the style that Nayib Bukele has used in El Salvador to transform the country into what most Salvadorians consider a safe place. So, it’s really a complicated and important time for Ecuador’s future.
There is also a referendum in mid November to once again allow foreign military bases. It’s anticipated that it would bring a US military presence back to deter crime. There was a base in Manta until 2015, when the president and congress disallowed foreign military bases.
Strikes
A few months ago, the president also reduced or eliminated gasoline subsidies, which caused the Indigenous communities in the mountains to organize strikes. Roads were blocked in the zone that feeds Chontal, and so had an effect on life there. It’s a complicated situation, and the government sent in military forces who may have used excessive force, and apparently taking a few lives. The president’s car was bombarded with stones and other objects as he passed through one visit in the area. The strikes have ended, and subsidies are being reduced or eliminated. It’s uncertain to me what effect that will have.
In MIndo
Zoe and family
Zoe and her family are continuing along well enough. Zoe is pretty stable now, and Liam is getting bigger, learning how to ride a bike. He’s very intelligent in school, too.
Nazareno and Cecilia and their children from the retreat center are also still doing well, as is Jorge and Alejandra who share an arts store together. I’m in contact every now and then, and hope to keep in more contact.
in Chontal
The current fundraiser
In Chontal, things are much the same, as I hear. The schoolyard roof was originally planned to start in mid-August, but there’s been a continued delay because of a change in leadership in the organization that’s procuring the supplies, plus the strike in that region slowed everything down. But I’m not sure right now where things stand, and I’ll be speaking with her hopefully this week to find out more. We sent $1,250 in September.
Rafaela
Rafaela continues recovering well from her open-heart surgery. Just today I got a text from her mother after a follow-up appointment. We hope everything continues to go well, and I look forward to seeing everyone when I can next return to Chontal. Again, thank you to everyone who has supported over this time, and I hope you feel in some way like a part of the community.
ECUADOR - BOSTON
Language in Communion
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I had started doing some language - specifically with pronunciation - with Ecuadorians, starting with people in Chontal. I’m working with immigrants in Boston and slowly incorporating these principles. But the big move is toward a core activity, especially in mutual language exchange: promoting and accompanying people becoming adult language/culture learners in communion. I’m starting to incorporate this more in my ESL classes in Boston, and want to eventually launch it on its own.
There are opportunities to participate if you are interested:
participate and/or assist in a language sharing group: becoming a language learner and sharing one’s own language
financially contribute to join with the community effort to come together, and support the members most in need while receiving more
If either or both of these interest you, please post a comment below or feel free to contact me: jerome@barriers2bridges.org
Into the Waters: An International Immersion Visit & Retreat
Come check out the details below. If you are interested in an 9-day, guided visit to Ecuador in a small group of 4 or less, to join with me in dipping into the culture with local people, feel free to contact me: jerome@barriers2bridges.org.
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• Arrival / Urban life and roots: 3 days in the capital Quito and in Otavalo
○ Up at 9400 feet, we’ll start in Quito and immerse in the culture, including a visit to the equator and the historical center. Next, we’ll visit Otavalo, a global indigenous center.
• Rural life and roots: 2 days in Chontal, a remote rural village in the medio-Andes.
○ At about 2100 ft, in a subtropical cloud forest climate, we’ll experience the rhythm of a simpler, poor rural life, integrated into the life of the local people, including the agricultural roots of Ecuador.
• Retreat & relaxation: 3 days in Mindo, an ecotourist center for relaxation, retreat, and reflection.
○ A global bird-watching attraction, we’ll relax in lodgings very close to nature. Waterfalls, chocolate factories, butterfly farms, artisan shops and a retreat center will provide context for a time of guided reflection and discussion.
• Return: 1 day in Quito to prepare for a return
We will be traveling among the local people, by public transportation and taxis, along routes that I’ve known for years. You must make a signed commitment to stay with me at all times and follow any guidelines I present. We’ll have a period of private time each day for prayer, reflection, or relaxation.
Other notes:
• Travel: There will be some bus travel times from 2 to 6 hours in some cases, where we will see the mountain- and country-sides.
• Safety: We won’t be in the high-risk zones related to narco-trafficking and high crime.
• Health: Certain vaccinations may be suggested. Traveler’s health insurance is at one’s own discretion.
PREACHING/TEACHING & WORKSHOPS
ALM: SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS
Website/Blog
On the homepage of this site, you can find the latest spiritual reflections that I post to A Living Monstrance. Or, you can visit the site directly here. These reflections come from my spirituality and lifestyle, and are guideposts along the journey.
Books
I’ve also collected the reflections into a series of books, each one containing 150 reflections, in sequential order. The latest book is up to the year 2017, and I have made some progress publishing two more in the series. They’ll make it to publication some day in the next year, hopefully!
You can order any of the books by going here to Lulu.
REFLECTION TEACHING VIDEOS
I have a few series of videos, for your prayer and social life, that go further and deeper than the reflections of ALM. You may find them uplifting if you’re wondering how to pray and understand the Scriptures to find something life-changing in them; and if you’re wondering about how to sort through what is often a confusing social landscape.
Food in the Desert
This video series introduces a way to find food in the Gospels, by reading and living them in the same dynamic in which they were original created. You don’t need to be a scholar, just willing to accept and follow the same Spirit of the authors. (Spanish versions are included later in the playlist.)
A Spirituality of Equality
This video series, produced during the Great Pause of the pandemic, invites you into the village of Chontal to walk along a path of reflection about human equality from a Gospel spirituality and lifestyle. (Spanish subtitles are available on all videos.)
SPIRITUAL REFLECTION WORKSHOPS
I’m still offering a variety of workshops, for both English and Spanish speakers. They focus on life transitions by understanding, sharing and memorializing your unique personal life stories, through a small group encounter with the Christian Paschal mystery of life, death, and resurrection. If you are interested in any of them, please contact me directly: jerome@barriers2bridges.org
Re-Birth from Life Transitions
(The graphic below will soon be updated from “Pandemic” to “Transitions”!) Are you experiencing confusion or anxiousness as the pandemic experience moves to the rearview mirror? The scripture is full of “40” stories: stories about rebirth. Encountering these stories together with our own can help you get back in touch with your personal journey and see a way ahead with hope.
Your Tree of Life
This is a foundational vocation discernment workshop that helps us discover more who we truly are and what we are called to do, from the root of our being. It focuses practically on ministry and/or career discernment, but the experience enters into all of life.
In the beginning creation story of Adam and Eve, the Hebrew people are invited to remember the story of origin that recalls who God made them to truly be, as well as their human weakness that can separate them from following through on this authenticity. The mystery of Christ brings us back into the original garden and gives us access to the Tree of Life. The expression of this mystery in this workshop - through basic applied principles of discernment from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola - allows us to remember our own personal True You stories that make up the core of our own tree of life, as well as those life stories that show us how the protective bark of that tree breaks down.
If you are looking for something to give you a new step in clarity, freedom, energy, and peace - to help you remember again who you really are - this workshop could be for you.
Taller Mi Pascua de Inmigración
This is a foundational workshop retreat for immigrants (now for Spanish-speakers), in which each person has the space to remember, unpack, tell, and honor their story of migration, following the testimony by the People of God of their leaving Egypt and crossing the Red Sea to begin a new stage of life with God. If you know any Spanish-speaking immigrants who you think might be interested, please feel free to send them the information flyer at the More Information button below.
Boston
I’m still living in the temporary basement in Roslindale, and I’m grateful to be here!
I’ve been able to catch up with a number of people over the last year or so, and also since I’ve just returned. If you’re around and want to connect, please feel free to reach out.
Language and Culture
Starting in August 2023, I was working again online for the Harborside School in East Boston, for adult immigrants (largely Spanish speakers from Latin America). I’m teaching one beginner-level English class, am an advisor for 2 more, and have been teaching basic computer use classes as well. It’s been good to have some income and stay connected, the people are good people, though the vision of language learning and forming community is different from mine. I’ve been able at times to share language learning skills and pronunciation teaching and tools at times as well.
In 2024, I completed a round of the pronunciation courses with some new and old learners, which went very well. We’ll be looking soon to start classes again in 2026 with a mix of newer and older learners in the fall in Revere.
The ultimate goal is to develop the course participants into a group, that could meet as desired at regular intervals in an open but guided format. The group was would focused on the identity of becoming language and culture learners, and include specific themes regarding those identities. The pronunciation course is a sort of “baptism”, which leads to a more open exploration. Developing this will be at the center of renewed efforts once the school year calms down!
Spiritual and Pastoral
Barriers to Bridges
Last year, I had some Latino immigrants express interest in:
a workshop/help in learning how to pray
the approach of becoming an adult language learner
the pronunciation course
the migration workshop
I’m aiming to renew efforts along all these lines, which have been back-burnered as my energies have been dedicated a lot to my first year teaching experience. But I’m beginning to bring these elements now into the teaching space, so I hope to grow these while teaching.
Franciscan Shrine Hispanic Community
The re-incarnated Hispanic community continues at St. Anthony Shrine in Boston, operated by OFM Franciscans. Things have been somewhat slow and stable, as folks are now gathering after Mass for food. Hopefully, some spiritual activities can rise up soon, as the group is small enough, though there’s some resistance. We’ll see.
Ecuadorians in Lawrence
In August and into September, I returned each Saturday evening to the weekly novena in Lawrence, MA for the Ecuadorians in a local parish there, preparing for the feast of the Virgin del Cisne. Each week I’d do the 2-hour trip up to accompany in prayer and song and food, and preach a Gospel reflection.
The fiestas was on September 13th, and it was a fun, cultural-filled experience with a large turnout.
Check out videos here at these links:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/FcHh5f1QzyFRdicBA
https://photos.app.goo.gl/GPCPsN46jSn29FnA8
https://photos.app.goo.gl/useKc8h1uf8jvTUM9
https://photos.app.goo.gl/DuYNEnz1BSEZss2k6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/4XE4XSmrZ7azQkuq6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kJSLHwX76pPYHxUC9
Many of the indigenous people are from the village Alao where I visited back in 2017. It was good to see a lot of people I had seen in a bit. And grow in the Kichwa language!
Fitchburg
I’m visiting once in a while a friend who’s a Colombian priest in a parish in Fitchburg, and will probably be visiting here more often this fall and winter. We were in the seminary together, and occasional visits can work well for both of us, with the help I provide and the opportunity for me for time away in retreat and pastoral environment.
Health
I finally got a primary care physician and met about my blood pressure. I’m in the process of coming off blood pressure medication. I was taking 3 meds, and now I’m down to just 1, and that half the dosage I was taking when I left Ecuador. I’m hoping to move off medication by Christmas!
The body pains were likely from all the heavy backpack carrying I did since mid 2024, which I’m not doing now, plus stress. It’s not perfect, but I don’t have the same level of body pains.
My weight and overall fitness are pretty good. (Again, as usual, the public transportation system here in Boston keeps me running and walking, and in good shape!)
Financials
There are no significant changes in the B2B financial situation. I haven’t much for income this year, as the school and other commitments has kept me busy, but I have more availability outside of school now. I’m hoping to offer more the pronunciation course and spiritual/vocation workshops, which can generate some income.
Here are the 2025 financials for Barriers to Bridges (I’m still working on updating the balance sheet). Again, a big thank you to those make gifts, no matter who small. It's much appreciated.
Other Stuff
I hope to have more photos of odds and ends to share in an upcoming update!
Reflection & Vision
Facebook. I get on to keep up with people in Ecuador and the US and other places, so I open the app, and I start to scroll. And scroll. And then .. Wait a minute - there's a friend's post! Ads have taken over. So I couldn’t miss this one.
A pendant is given as a gift, and it shows different woman opening it up with surprise and admiration, while a man's voice is reading the inscription on it. And when it says these words, the video pans to several different women moved to tears: I would rather be with you in the hardest times, than be in the most comfortable place without you.
What do the advertisers know?
That when there's real love, you want to be with that person come hell or high water, in sickness or in health, for rich or for poor, for better or for worse.
To love means one thing:
The company is enough.
I was out walking with a friend from Rwanda a few weeks ago around the North End of Boston. It's the Italian neighborhood that over the last 50 years has turned into a tourist and special evenings location for an evening of Italian ambiance: food and drinks and music and desserts. It's a special event place, with fine Italian restaurants, far out of our price range. So, we just walked around the neighborhood, through the crowds, and having a blast talking and catching up about so many things, going deep, becoming vulnerable in our conversations, and connecting and laughing, discovering and listening to each other and enjoy the great treasure of friendship.
We didn’t need to go into any of those businesses. We didn't need anything.
The company was enough.
At one point we walked by the window of a nice Italian restaurant: a romantic, window cubby with a table for two. A young man and woman were dressed up for a date, and seated across from each other. And each one silent, on their cell phones. I stopped, and it just came to me: the restaurant atmosphere and the food was more important than the company.
I have been going to Ecuador for over 15 years. You know that I go to places that don’t have a lot of the amenities we're accustomed to in a US city. There's poverty in a lot of ways. There's no hot water for showers, internet is spotty, rains can get messy, healthcare is a 3 hour bus ride away, and sometimes the roads get blocked by landslides. But I travel 3,000 miles by trains, planes, buses, taxis, whatever it takes and whatever it costs. I'm so happy to be with the people.
I love them.
The company is enough for me.
The story of Jesus is a story about one thing. God has given up the comfort zone and spent nine months gestating inside the womb of a poor woman, and has just been born without clothes or money, fully vulnerable as human newborn is, in a poor house and placed in a manger, a food trough for animals in a poor house in a small village in an area that's not on anyone's tourist bucket list. He's lived a lower class life, and shared his inspiration from the Holy Spirit until he was mutilated and humiliated and crucified publicly. He's God - so He's paying a price beyond human imagination.
For one reason.
To be with us.
No matter what you are experiencing in life, no matter what you've done or what's been done to you, no matter what you have or don't have, no matter what you think you've become or not, or what you yourself or anyone else thinks of you, there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can separate God from you.
He became the child in the manger, to the man on the cross, for one reason.
Your company is enough for him.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39)
“Come, follow me.”
Closing
Feel free to comment or reach out anytime.
I'll post again when it's time.
May God bless us all,
Jerome