Siervas del Plan de Dios

Ayaviri, Peru

Thanks to the generosity of many, these children in Ayaviri now have a place to study

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For more than 11 years, we, as Servants of the Plan of God, have been contributing with the integral development of the children and youth in Ayaviri, Peru through our CDI (Centro de desarrollo integral / Integral Development Center). This center assists children and young people at social risk.

The children attend the center after school to receive tutoring with their homework, such as helping them to do research and deepen in what they have learned in class. This reinforcement is provided by teachers who day by day are helping the child in their performance. Furthermore, the children who attend this center also receive a nutritious dinner after finishing their homework. Since some of them live below the poverty line, we seek to help them integrally through serving nutritious food for their physical growth. We also try to get the children’s closest relatives to contribute to the center, where each family member takes turns daily to cook and help with the cleaning of the CDI.

Another aspect of our integral assistance includes providing their mothers psychological workshops on parenting, abuse prevention, and entrepreneurship for women. The aim of the entrepreneurship for women workshop is to help these mothers to be able to earn some income to help alleviates their economic situation.

Moreover, we work with professionals to monitor the children’s physical and mental health if any additional assistance on these levels is required.

Finally and most importantly we help children to know and love God through prayer, retreats and parish activities. We want the children to believe that love is real and that they have a Father in heaven who will never abandon them.

La comunidad católica china en Arizona

“The Visitation”, our project of the pilgrim Virgen in Arizona

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Through the pandemic and during the extensive time of quarantine, we have come to realize that we are like Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, who needs a loved one to share her joy, hope, pain, and fear. Mary, our blessed Mother, heard our cry and loneliness. She went hastily from house to house bringing Christ to her children and nourishing them with spiritual gifts.

On May 31st, 2021, the feast day of Visitation, two Mary statues were sent to visit families among the Chinese Community in Toronto (ON, Canada) and Phoenix (AZ, USA). Each family received Mary at their home for a month. Along with the statue they were given a book called My Ideal, Jesus, Son of Mary, to help them grow in love with Jesus through the help of Mary.

"The Visitation", the pilgrim Virgen

Since the project started, Mary has brought a lot of fruit to the families and the community. The volunteers and participants in Toronto reported that with her presence many families have made a special place for prayer in their homes, and their children became more aware of her presence and greeted her more frequently. Sr. Po-Yee, who is in charge of the project, has also witnessed a good change in the Chinese Catholic Community in Phoenix. For instance, a priest visited the Chinese community and nourished them with spiritual food in their native language (retreat, confession, Mass); the frequency of their gathering increased from one year to once every 2 months, and more new members were brought to the gathering. Last but not least, Mary has given a gift to all the Chinese Catholics. She invited her beloved children to offer their gifts and talents and made it happen within six months a new Chinese translation of the classic Marian book: My Ideal, Jesus, Son of Mary, by Rev. Fr. Emil Neubert.*

Family praying the rosary with "The Visitation" of the pilgrim Virgen

Our Marian pilgrim project, Th e Visitation, continues to travel among the Chinese people in North America. With a lot of hope and joy that families continue to welcome our beautiful lady, our mama Mary, into their home and let her be the guide and the perfect way to embrace her son, Jesus into their life.

We would like to invite you to join us to consecrate yourself to Mary using the same book we recommended to the families. Please download the plan here: {English] [Chinese]

*If you are interested in supporting our ministry, you may buy this new translation through us (Please email us at secretaria@siervasdelplandedios.com). It is available in Lima (Peru), Toronto (Canada), and Phoenix (U.S.A). 

Open letter from our superior general

Open letter from our General Superior

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To our families,
former members and their families,
friends, benefactors, and
people close to our community

Lima, June 24th, 2022

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

It has been two and a half years since our First General Assembly and midway through our governance, we can say that it has been a time with many challenges. One of the most significant challenges has been to continue examining the history of our institution and to come to a greater consciousness of the culture we had lived in, in which values such as obedience, freedom, unselfishness, and self-denial, among others, were seriously distorted.

Looking back into our history, we can recognize how the misuse of power had led to a series of deviations from many essential elements of the Christian and consecrated life. Today, we can recognize from a distance, and with greater consciousness that we have suffered and replicated the misuse of authority, which has caused profound pains in many people. Amid all difficulty, we perceive the loving and healing action of God who in his mercy and fidelity keeps calling us to give ourselves to Him.

The external help that we had received over the past years and listening to our own stories have allowed us to look at ourselves from other angles and to become more conscious of the abuse of power and conscience that we had lived in our community. Though there is still a long way to go, we discovered the need and the commitment to initiate a profound reformation and to build a more solid foundation that promotes a good, free and healthy consecrated life, which enables us to give an authentic testimony to the Gospel to whom we serve.

Therefore, even though we are aware that this is one step of the long journey to healing that we have started in ourselves, along with our families, people who are closed to our community, and those sisters and their families who cross paths with us, with greater consciousness and deep sorrow, we want to ask forgiveness from the depths of our hearts for the pain that we caused, for the abusive actions that the members had gone through in the community, for the delay in expressing it, and for not knowing how to take care of your suffering in the appropriate time and manner.

We also want to thank each of you, who in good faith, have sought different ways to help and contributed to this process that we are living today. Thank you for your company and patience, and for the confidence to share your experiences with us, and thus embark on new ways of communion and change.

The internal process is heartbreaking and we see the responsibility to keep making progress with the decisions and actions taken in this first stage:

  • Receive a more integral formation (external instructors) that helps us to be more conscious of what we had lived, practiced, and suffered. Also, make a plan to build a culture of respect and good manner, to maintain a healthy relationship of trust, dialogue, and joint responsibility.
  • Form the current authorities and those who help in the initial formation and provide external advisers to the formators of initial formation. This formation seeks an interior transformation to serve with charity and mercy.
  • Offer the necessary conditions for one to improve self-knowledge and vocational discernment.
  • Initiate the work of revision and implementation of the abuse prevention protocol, of which we now have the first draft of the protocol.
  • Implement an independent commission (called “Comisión de Atención y Acogida” which can be translated as “Commission for Attention and Reception”) which has already started to attend our members within the community in its first stage. Now, we want to make this commission available to the public, to meet those who are in need to be heard or want to give their testimonies or denounce. The Commission will investigate everything that needs to be clarified and redressed.[1] The commission is presided by Isabelle Soublette[2], whose email is:

atencionyacogida.testimonios@siervasdelplandedios.org

Furthermore, we are thankful for the accompaniment of the Church, who by the Canonical Visit in progress has been enlightening and helping us. We are waiting for their conclusions and the decision of the Archbishop of Lima, to proceed on our journey of institutional growth and strengthening.

We entrust ourselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Heart full of love and mercy that heals our wounds and teaches us to embrace suffering hearts.

We ask for your prayers so that the Lord gives us the strength and courage to keep walking in the truth and charity that only comes from Him.

Kindly and fraternally in Christ,

Natalia Sánchez Hincapié
General Superior
Servants of the Plan of God

[1]This does not replace the mechanism to receive denouncements established by Archdiocese of Lima: comisionescucha@arzobispadodelima.org
[2]Clinical psychologist with experience in attending victims of abuse. Nationality Chile.

Celebration of another anniversary of our school “La Alegría en el Señor”

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With great joy, our school “La Alegría en el Señor” (the name of the school means “Joy in the Lord”) celebrated the 68th anniversary on May 15th. After two years of the pandemic, people were able to assist this celebration, which includes different activities and a Thanksgiving mass, in person.

On May 15th, 1954, Ms. Rosemarie Stemmler started this great project, which permits us to continue today to help a lot of children and young people to achieve their dreams. Our students receive a comprehensive training centered on the human person and a Christian values based education, which seek to help each student to strengthen their own identity and value.

Currently, the school has an infrastructure designed to take care of the students’ needs. Furthermore, the school is partnered with our physical rehabilitation center whih permits us to provides with personalized care for our students and their families.

If you wish to know more about our school “La Alegría en el Señor”, you may visit the school’s official website: https://laalegriaenelsenor.edu.pe/

Sisters visiting the tomb of Aguchita

Our sisters in Ayacucho and Lima participated in the Beatification ceremony of Aguchita

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Last Saturday, May 7, the beatification of the nun, María Agustina Rivas Lopez, affectionately known as Aguchita, was celebrated in the jungle community of La Florida in the province of Chanchamayo, in Peru. Sister Maria Agustina was murdered out of hatred for the faith by members of the terrorist group “Sendero Luminoso” in 1990.

Aguchita's relic

The beatification mass was celebrated by the Venezuelan Cardinal Baltazar Porras Cardoso, envoy of Pope Francis, who mentioned that in the case of Aguchita, “the martyrdom was not an improvisation, but the final holocaust of love for her vocation.” He also indicated that the life of the new Blessed Maria Agustina “signified a very simple and profoundly Christian life, rooted in a mystical experience, which is an example for the present generation. She is an example showing us what we can do as believers: promoting the good of our neighbor with joy, hope, and with an authentic sense of mercy “for what she” as a good shepherdess she gave her life for her sheep “.

Our sisters from the community in Ayacucho has particiapted, as part of the delegation from this town led by Monsignor Salvador Piñero, in this great celebration. Moreover, our sisters Natalia Garro and Paola Orjeda joined this beatification of Aguchita from Lima. The sisters were able to visit the place of her martyrdom and the place where the new blessed served during her last three years in the Amazon of Peru. Two of our sisters here shared their experience of participating in this event:

“It was a great gift to be there. It was a very special grace to be able to go as a community. To celebrate the holiness of Aguchita as one Church. It helped me to discover and to exhalt the goddness in my sisters, the action of God in each of the servants. It was an experience that renewed my apostolic zeal. It made me to want to live even more in simplicity, intense love and self-giving.” (Sister Janeth Cárdenas)

Beatification of Aguchita

In this new time that God permitted me to live in mission, it was a gift to be able to go to Mother Aguchita’s beatification. She taught me that “death is not improvised”; rather, it is something to be built up day after day and that my union with God has to go much deeper in order to be able to irradiate Him to others.” (Sister Dulce Romero)