In the heart of the jungle in Cuzco, Peru, Sr. Giovanna Llerena Alfaro, a Dominican Missionary of the Rosary, walks alongside the Indigenous communities of Bajo Urubamba, promoting an Indigenous Church and a form of evangelization that arises from contemplation.
By Sr. Elaine Castro Matheuz
The Peruvian Amazon is a vast territory characterized by an immense biodiversity, Indigenous communities, and a rich cultural patrimony. It is a place of spirituality, where nature and the sacred are intertwined everywhere.
In this context, the mission to live and announce the Gospel takes on special value, as it requires listening, contemplating, and respecting God’s presence in all things.
A call to charity in the jungle
For seven years, Sr. Giovanna Llerena Alfaro, a Dominican Missionary of the Rosary, has had the grace of living in a corner of the jungle of Cuzco, Peru, in a privileged environment, which allows her to continue to carry on the mission of the first missionaries who reached these lands.
“We are three religious sisters, Dominican Missionaries of the Rosary, and two Dominican friars who share our vocation,” she explains. “We are on a mission to accompany the Indigenous people of Bajo Urubamba, promoting an Indigenous Church with an Amazon face, starting with the formation of pastoral agents in the different communities we visit.”
In a spirit of communion, Sr. Giovanna’s mission recalls the importance of “removing one’s shoes, because the place you are standing on is sacred.”
“It is important to remove one’s ideas and mindsets of protagonism, and to recognize that we are in a sacred place, a place of encounter, of interconnection, of cultural and spiritual wealth; a place filled with God,” she says.
Dominican Missionary of the Rosary Sister Giovanna Llerena Alfaro with Indigenous communities of Bajo Urubamba
A vocation that arises from the heart
What drives Sr. Giovanna to dedicate her life to the Peruvian jungle is a profound conviction which arises from herself and from her Congregation’s charism.
“I feel that it is in my congregational DNA,” she says. “My missionary vocation is complemented by my Congregation’s charism, which is evangelizing in places where the Church most needs us, and in these moments, I believe the Church needs us in the Amazon.”
Ever since she was young, Sr. Giovanna has been sure of wanting to be a missionary in the jungle.
In 2017, she began her service as an obstetrician in a hospital on the edge of the jungle of Cuzco. It was then that her Congregation first appeared in the Peruvian Amazon.
“In 2018, the search began, and the first mixed and itinerant Dominican community was formed in Bajo Urubamba,” she notes.
Love and service for Indigenous communities
Sr. Giovanna’s mission consists in walking alongside 26 communities belonging to four ethnic groups: Matsigenkas, Asháninkas, Kakintes and Nantis.
To reach those towns, she and her community travel for hours on fast-flowing rivers, taking God’s word and hope to places where time seems to have stopped.
Since the first missionaries set foot on these lands, friendship and closeness with the locals have been the pillars of their work.
Sr. Giovanna and her community carry on the mission to preach, forming pastoral agents who, step by step, build an Indigenous Church rooted in the culture and customs of these communities.
The mission outposts of Kirigueti and Timpía, overseen by the religious sister, house students belonging to different native communities. There, young people can complete their secondary education, a crucial element given the lack of this education level in their own towns.
The presence of these residences goes beyond academic formation. They are places of encounter and comprehensive growth, where Sr. Giovanna and her community work so that young people can become future leaders capable of transforming their communities starting from faith and commitment.
Witnesses of a silent reclaiming
Since her first visit to Kirigueti, in 2018, Sr. Giovanna has witnessed a silent reclaiming of the communities, a call to be present and to accompany.
Throughout these years, the community has undergone profound change, strengthened by a process of formation and trust-building.
“Pastoral agents have more elements and tools to defend their rights and their stance in the face of extraction companies present in the territory,” she says.
The ties of friendship and closeness, sown in times of silence and awaiting, are now flourishing in an Indigenous Church, which recognizes herself as an integral part of the land and her culture.
