Homecoming

thoughts from my Lima, Peru

It is a chilly night in Lima tonight. There are no stars to be seen on the cloudy sky of the third biggest city in the Americas, but the streetlights in the distance seem to enjoy their moment.

As of today I have been in this city, in this country — my country, for 24 days. Before this I had been away for 7589 days, and I don’t believe I currently have the words to describe what it meant to step on Peru’s soil for the first time after 20 years.

It all happened so fast. One day I didn’t know when I was coming, and the next my permit to leave the United States came in the mail. Within ten minutes I had a plane ticket with the final destination of Lima, Peru. Five days later, a 14-hour flight, picking up my luggage and suddenly speaking Spanish only I walked out of the airport doors where I got to hug my mami for the first time 6.5 years.

The Pacific knew I was coming, I told her when I was in LA back in August. She wan’t surprised to see me. We met like old friends, and the entire car ride home she waved in contrast with the pitch black waters.

While it all seemed to happen within a week and so incredibly fast, the truth is this moment cost me 20 years. Can a miracle take 20 years to happen?

A part of me believes it shouldn’t, and the other part of me is reminded of the woman who suffered as the blood left her body for 12 years, until the moment she cut through the crowd and touched the garment of a Rabbi who was walking by.

To everyone else this was a “now” miracle, but she knew that wasn’t the whole story. She knew that because of her condition she couldn’t be part of the society she lived in. She was separated from community, she was alone in so many ways, and she had given everything she had. I think so many of us know that kind of loneliness, that kind of separation and isolation.

My miracle is different, I do not pretend to know what it would be like to be this woman in her social context and location, but I do know that in what seemed like a “now” miracle I was reminded that God is interested in interrupting systems that separate us from our people.

My “now” miracle is a moment that in all honesty, only God and I know the full price of, and I don’t mean monetarily cost. However I cannot deny that I am surrounded by people who love me in ways I will never be able to fully comprehend.

My “now” miracle didn’t happen without the prayer meetings in the little Black and Brown Spanish speaking Pentecostal church where we prayed for papeles. My “now” miracle didn’t happen without the activists and organizers who continue to fight for DACA and immigration reform. My “now” miracle didn’t happen without the women who long before even I knew if I could apply for advanced parole gave me a check to cover the application cost and told me it was time to go home. My “now” miracle didn’t happen without the prayers of so many people and the blessings of so many women who held my tears. My “now” miracle didn’t happen without my family. My “now” miracle is the mustard seed faith of hundreds of people.

The result was an interruption to the borders on stolen lands. It was an interruption to social orders that separated me from my home, from my family, and from the lands who knew my name before anyone else did.

I am still lacking so many words for the emotions, the joy and grief of it all, the life, death, and resurrection, but for today all I know is that I am thankful. This moment seemed so far away, I would dare say impossible, and somehow the faithfulness of Mother Father God still held my hand.

Thanks be to God!

Chorrillos, Lima, Peru - October 2022

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ICYMI:

• I did an Instagram Live conversation with my friend, and author Kelley Nikondeha about her latest book, “The First Advent in Palestine”. You can watch it here.

• I shared the videos me hugging my mami and then my abuelita on Instagram.

• my friend Brandi invited me to record an episode for her podcast, “Reclaiming my Theology”. The episode about Purity Culture is out now.

• Thank you to all for being here, and thank you to my paid subscribers. It means so much to me that you support my work.