A few days ago, our sister Yessica Rosas sscc set off on a journey to Puerto Maldonado, in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, to live a mission experience that, as she herself acknowledged before leaving, would be ‘different, because it means going to live another reality with another type of people, with a macrocosmic view’.
Her destination is the Intercongregational Itinerant Community (CII), founded in March 2020 in response to the dream of the Conference of Religious of Peru, inspired by Pope Francis' Laudato si'. This community currently consists of four SSCC sisters, including Yessica; Pilar Guerrero (Ecuador), Martina Barrios (Paraguay) and Alicia Mamani (Peru). For the congregation, it is the Latin American mission community.
There, they travel along rivers, roads and narrow paths to accompany indigenous peoples such as the Amahuaca, Harakbut, Ese'eja, Shipibo-Konibo, Ashaninka, Matsigenka and Yine, many of whom live in areas far from the city. ‘We are in an area where illegal mining is carried out, so the ecosystem is badly affected,’ Yessica tells us on arrival. ‘Life here is very active, I don't have time to get bored. They know us as the travelling sisters because we go from one place to another.’
The mission consists of visiting and accompanying indigenous communities, offering sacraments, pastoral training, listening and, of course, promoting their development and improving their living conditions. It also involves identifying basic needs that reduce gaps and promoting the defence of their culture and territory.
For Yessica, this experience, which will last until 29 December, is also the conclusion of a formation process lived in community, ‘all united with her,’ and a time to learn about realities where life is lived with simplicity but also with enormous challenges: ‘I only know that it is not as I imagined, but much better,’ she said joyfully.
The presence of the sisters on this itinerant mission in Puerto Maldonado is a sign of a synodal Church committed to integral ecology, which seeks to empower communities so that they can solve their own problems, protect their biodiversity and strengthen their cultural and spiritual identity.
08/15/2025