February 2022

     Brothers and sisters, it is a great honor to be asked to give my testimony of faith and share with you how Jesus moves in my life and the lives of my family.  This past new year, on January 30, 2022, thankful to the Lord’s mercy, my wife, Karen, and I were able to celebrate 22 years of marriage. Together, through the Lord’s will, we the Ferrufinos, actively practice and remain in the Catholic faith inherited by our ancestors, living not only in word but also in action as Saint Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.

     Through my ancestors, we inherited a beautiful 200-year tradition; even though we currently reside in the United States, it continues to this day. Every January, in our hometown of Somotillo, Nicaragua, all who practice the faith embark on a pilgrimage to the National Shrine of the Lord of Miracles of Esquipulas in the city of El Sauce, Nicaragua. The trip is more than 34 miles and embarked on foot, in ox-drawn cart, horses, or on bicycles. The entire experience is a beautiful exercise and affirmation in our faith. The extreme climate change of hot during the day and cold at night makes walking and sleeping a trial. To say the least, sleeping on the ground or in hammocks, and cooking in improvised stoves with stones, are challenging. Yet the sleeplessness, the mountainous climb, and other sacrifices are carried out in a state of happiness, piety, and penance.

     Along the way, the rosary is recited, families share their food, and one person’s problem is for everyone to carry. We are each disconnected from the modern world and transported to the time of our ancestors hundreds of years ago. Walking by night because of the cooler temperatures, accompanied by your community, both those you know and those you are yet to know, each offering the same sacrifice to God. There is something about walking under the light of the moon, the stars, the silence of the night; where you would be hard to find the noise of an alarm, a cell phone, or car. You are there to simply feel the joy, contemplate the beauty of God's creation, and thank him in prayer.

     Years ago, before my father’s passing, he would take all 11 of us children, and many others on this pilgrimage, while he drove the ox cart. He would share with us these amazing stories and teach us how to orient ourselves by the position of the stars. He used the call of the rooster to tell time and approximate how much longer til the “lazy star” (what he would call the sunrise) would rise. Without checking a watch, he would exclaim, “It’s already a quarter in the morning, soon we will see the ‘lazy star’ rise.” Then almost two hours later, the darkness would begin to give way to the light, and the sun begin its illumination of the sky. These memories are ingrained in me, and I relive their beauty each time we journey on this pilgrimage.

     We then arrive at a place we would call “Quebra ceca” a crystal clear spring so pure and delicious. We rest on the bank and the smell of the campfire, coffee, bread made of corn (a staple or “Cosa de horno” in Nicaragua), and my mother in her element, only enhances the laughter and fellowship of the company.

     But all great things must come to end, for we now reach the last part of the pilgrimage. We set our bets (not of money, as we brought none) for who will see the towers of the Sanctuary first. Usually, it is whoever is driving the ox-cart. Yet this is all when a somberness fills the group, as we take in our surroundings of the village, and set in our sacrifices and thanks for the miracles and great testimony of God’s work within our family. As the Bible says in Luke 6:20, “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

     Every year my family relives these beautiful experiences and lives what Jesus says, cry with those who cry, laugh with those who laugh, suffer with those who suffer. Finally, this year God allowed us to complete a project with a neighbor who is extremely poor, sick, and without family. Thanks to my friends and God’s will in our hearts we were able build her house with better comforts, for she lived in terrible conditions: a house made of sticks, with a roof made of mud, where water dripped inside regularly.

     It is indescribable the joy felt when she gave me a hug and such a warm welcome and she continued to repeat her words of happiness. Next year we will see what else God has in store for us to do for those in need. For our salvation is in the needy, as Jesus said, who allow us to do for them with the things we have. Salvation is in them because as Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).