Peru - Lima
HEALING TOUCH EMPOWERING LIVES IN PERU, 12-06
By Anne Day BSN, MA, CMT, HNB-BC, CHTP/I
My travels to Peru to teach a HT Level 4 December 1 - 3, 2006 were an incredible experience! It was a time of personal expansion of consciousness, as I experienced (along with my husband Larry), how much different it is to live in a third world country. The extremes of poverty were very challenging to witness. But amidst the communities of the poor were very bright lights of the spiritual strength of many, many people there.
I was honored to work with 3 very dedicated Healing Touch Instructors in Lima who have taught thousands of people HT, and were ready to be trained to teach the HT Level 4 class. These women, from Catholic Communities around the world, Carol Reamer, originally from Ohio, Eileen Kearney, from Ireland and Emiliana Gonzalez Sanllorente, from Spain, all have been in Peru 13 - 20 years, working with the poor and the disadvantaged. Margaret Kehoe and Nita Alvarado are also in training to become HT instructors.
Since 2000, when Mary Jo Bulbrook and Sister Barbara Cavanaugh brought the first Healing Touch class to Peru, there have been 5,000 people who have taken HT from all over South America, and 30 who have completed Level 5. Emiliana is now assigned to an area in northern Peru, where many of the women who come to HT class often have to canoe 6 hours! There is a strong interest in Healing Touch and willingness to come long distances for a class. Other instructors who have contributed to the Spreading of the HT Light in Peru were: Carol Kinney, Donna Duff, Judy Turner and Cynthia Hutchison.
On a tour of one of the poor communities there, we were privileged to see a new children's center that was just getting ready to open. Amidst the shanties that shared walls with this center, the beauty and energy that radiated from this place was remarkable. Instead of the usual bars on the windows, they had beautiful wrought iron angels, obviously shifting the energy of the light from the challenging poor environment outside to a place of healing within.
We met beautiful women who had either completed Level 5 or were in the process of taking classes, who gave HT treatments to many people in their community. The stories of how HT was changing their lives was amazing! For the first time, many of them were becoming aware of a whole new world as they read the books on the recommended reading list. They were gaining new respect from their husbands and children on how they were helping themselves, their families and their community with HT.
As one of the women who had completed Level 5 this year told us the story of her case study, I was very impressed by the fine healing work that she was doing. Her case study was a man dying of AIDS, who couldn't walk and had sores all over his face when he first started coming to her a year ago. Within 3 months, he began to change dramatically, and by the end of one year, he was walking, had no sores on his face and felt like he had a new life! The pride of this woman and her instructors brought tears to my eyes! I believe that the purity of spirit of these people brings the healing work to a very profound level very quickly.
Just before I arrived in Lima, a big article had been published in a prominent Lima paper featuring the HT work that Eileen and Margaret are doing in this poor community. It was written by a journalist who is a friend of a man with AIDS who has had wonderful healing through the regular HT treatments he is receiving at their therapy center. Their phones were ringing off the hooks with interest in HT treatments and classes! They just wrote to tell me that they are now being featured in a TV report on Tele Mundi, a division of NBC. So the HT publicity is really expanding in Peru!
At the Level 4 class, 6 students who had completed Level 5 came to share with the Level 4 class the last day. Their profile books and homework were of very high quality. Again, the stories of how HT has changed their lives brought me to tears. As I watched the healing work of the students in the class, I was assured that they are being taught well with very high standards for learning pure Healing Touch. Janet is proud of them I am sure! I am totally committed to support these people and the great work that they are doing in Peru. I realize now in a way that I had not comprehended, the importance of all of us supporting their HT path all the way through certification.
The Sisters who have devoted their lives to helping the Peruvians will not be there forever. We need the native people to become certified so that some of them can become instructors and continue to "Spread the Light of HT". We need the help of any CHTPs who can speak Spanish to help be mentors for these people who want to become certified in Peru. It would involve monthly contacts by e-mail with the instructors who are mentoring students there, and who will give summary reports and pursue questions that need assistance to answer.
I have volunteered to mentor all those in this class as their nurse mentor, as a "supervising nurse mentor" in contact with their local mentors. I feel confident that this will be a joyful and satisfying service. I ask you all to ask yourselves how you can serve to support our international development. It truly is a gift that will have worldwide effects as more hearts are opened to the energy of unconditional love and the oneness of our core star light.