How do you come to be serving in Ecuador? What attracted you to this mission?

I arrived in Ecuador by accident. I intended to go to Nicaragua or El Salvador but when I joined the Society of St James I discovered that only Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia were open to the Society. My reasons for going there were not deeply spiritual. I felt that the so-called first world was very oppressive and unjust to countries like Latin America and wanted to offer my services there and contribute my 'granite de arena', grain of sand, to alleviate the plight of the poor.

What do you most enjoy/ appreciate about your life and work in Ecuador?

What I most appreciate are the loving friendly people, their life of faith, their undying hope for betterment, their tolerance and patience in difficult situations and their constant sense of fun and enjoyment of their lot in life.

As regards my work I have the daily satisfaction of seeing how so many poor and worthy people benefit from the various projects I have been able to establish. Though plagued by ill health and the resulting absence from the parish I am trying to establish I have been able to construct three chapels, four nurseries and am planning for medical attention in each nursery and a central clinic to coordinate medical attention for the area.

All of these things bring great benefits to the people. In my last parish where I was for twenty two years we were able to rescue a whole town of 100,000 from a state of fear, oppression and poverty and liberate them so they could become masters of their own lives. I will always be proud of that involvement.






Early Mass on the street corner














What are your biggest challenges?

Personal health must be one. How to keep healthy in a very unhealthy environment having to carry a very heavy work load! How to respond to people's deep spirituality though almost total ignorance of their Catholic faith? How to free people from political and social oppression in a situation where evangelists, pentecostalists and every other church or religious movement ever invented crowd the scene and try to win adherents through campaigns against the Catholic Church and where political dissent is more often than not responded to by means of the bullet.

Tell us about the people you serve - the community, their daily lives, their faith.......

The community I serve is a collection of peoples, tribes, ethnic races from different parts of Ecuador. It is a community where young families and young children abound. The generality of people live in bamboo huts supported on four stilts with zinc roofs, openings in the walls for windows but a generous amount of light and air coming in through all the walls and perhaps the floor.

They have a lovely, simple faith and see the hand of God in all things but are now so confused by the various churches which have invaded their intimacy. Very few have permanent jobs: the men work in the construction industry and the women as servants in the 'big houses'. They are a very relaxed people, live and laugh for the day and trust that the next will not be too hard on them. They are a happy people with a lively sense of fun.

What are the main projects you and the people are working on at present? 

I have been absent from the parish for prolonged periods during the past two years because of ill health. At the same time I have designed and built three churches and four nurseries and I am in the process of building another larger church and parish centre. In each nursery there will be a medical room and I am at the moment planning a medical centre and pleading with all and sundry to give me financial help for the project. I am also supporting a centre for children and youths at risk (street kids, those from disorganized homes, who have run away from school etc). I also need funds to keep the centre going.






A recent development:
the church is on the top floor with a nursery below









 

How do you see the connection between your spiritual role (priesthood) and the work of providing facilities such as schools, healthcare etc? 

I do not see any connection. A connection would imply two disconnected entities or activities. My priesthood is to the whole person, not as an isolated individual but as part of a community. It implies all aspects which dignify human life and living. As a priest the basic motivation for my commitment to the poor comes from a spiritual conviction: as Christians we have special responsibilities and obligations to the poor because ministry to the poor was a fundamental aspect of Jesus' ministry. Secondly, material development not accompanied by growth in human and spiritual values is doomed to failure - our world provides ample evidence of this truth.

How can we at home support you and your people?

Support must come from a conviction that your donations will be put to good use. I do not think that I have a bad track record as articles in newspapers, programmes on television, in Readers Digest and other magazines give ample testimony to people in this country. In Ecuador I have been honoured by the nation's parliament and by the city council of Quito and I do not know of any other foreign priest who has been similarly honoured. I state this not in order to blow my own trumpet but rather to assure you that your donations would be put to good use.

Basically I can do what others enable me to do in order to improve the lot of my people and your donations are the enabling factor. I am indebted to family; priests of the diocese and from other dioceses such as St Peter's in Glasgow and St Margaret's, Ayr; friends from New York to South Uist, the 'pennies of the poor' in Castlebay, Barra; from Germany to Canada and other parts of the world; the Justice and Peace Group in Eaglesham and recently of SCIAF. The accumulation of small contributions is the basis of bigger projects.

In conclusion, I consider myself as being the diocesan contribution of the ministerial priesthood to the missions and I would like to be supported by the diocese as such. I would also like that every year each parish have a special collection for the mission in Ecuador so as to have a closer identification with what we are doing in Ecuador and thus express more clearly the fact that we are all the one church; that we are Christ's family on earth; a people of God united in our journey towards God, the Father of us all.