Becca Armstrong

There’s one word we all keep hearing 

Unprecedented. There’s a lot we don’t know and we have no guidebook to follow. What we do know is this: almost overnight, there was a 45% increase in COVID-19 cases in our community’s little corner of Lima. We have 24 U.S. volunteers (who will no longer be allowed to return on their original flights due to travel restrictions) and a total of 70 other Peruvian families and displaced Venezuelans living together in our buildings. They are working together to build a safe place where love lives out loud in small ways every day.  

The stakes are so much higher than a toilet paper shortage 

All of the hope and promise we have felt in our corner of Lima is being challenged now.  No one is able to sell anything on the street. Personal vehicles can only be driven with special permission.  There is a mandatory curfew each night from 8 pm to 5 am. Grocery prices are sky-rocketing. One 20 lb bag of rice cost 100 soles (about $30 USD) one week ago and now that same bag costs 300 soles (about $100 USD). There are police helicopters and cars patrolling the streets adding to the uncertainty and fear that many can feel right now.  

A humble meal 

Jason sent me this photo of their dinner last night. It’s a far cry from many of the multi-course meals this former corporate man has eaten, but that’s not what he talked about. He included a note of gratitude that each person in the building had a full belly–an abundant blessing to people who would literally not be eating otherwise. Some in the community there have decided (at their own volition) to forego one meal a day. Cheerfully. 

These are not just numbers and news: This is personal. 

Yes, here in the United States, we are dealing with stay-at-home orders in some places and recommendations in many others. But we still have freedom of movement. My family and I get outside every day in the fresh air. And we can walk into our local grocery store and have access to the same foods at the same prices any time we want. We are not going to sleep listening to sirens.

We can’t do everything, but we must do something 

Sometimes when we feel like everything is out of our control we find that doing something really does kindle our hope. We could really use your help right now. This situation is not going away for any of us and our family in Peru is in an even more vulnerable situation than we are right now in the U.S.  

Your donation today puts rice and beans in bellies and hope in hearts.  Please help. Donate here.

Jason and a team of medical volunteers left for Peru one week ago.  They discussed the possibility they face today–that they may not get to come home when they planned–and they decided to go anyway.  

They went to care for the 70 refugees from Venezuela and the women who have moved from Cusco.  Half of the team chose to stay back because the local hospitals had just received news of their first confirmed coronavirus cases. They did not want to risk being the one to bring it into the parts of Peru where we are building community.  

One week later….feel that for a minute….just 7 days later…. Peru has closed its borders and no one from that team will be coming back to the U.S. for at least two weeks. Peru is taking aggressive steps to stop the spread including instituting a travel ban.

Jason and our team are getting a taste of what it’s like to not be able to go home–something every Venezuelan in Peru and refugees around the world deal with for much longer than 2 weeks.

On a personal level, I am getting to experience what many family members experience when a partner can’t return home.  It requires a whole other level of love–not a love for a person but a belief that love is bigger than any person, and it never separates us.

No matter the location, we are in this together.  There was never a time where that phrase has felt more real to me than right now as it feels as if the entire world is coming to a halt. There are many uncertainties, and we can feel the fear around. But at Something New, we refuse to give into the fear. We are determined to not leave anyone out — to say yes to being a friend, say yes to the minor inconveniences of social distancing, to say yes to hope. Hope is for when we can’t see.  

We do not know what is about to happen, but we do know that we. are. Something. New.  We have always been and always will be committed to responding to needs that cross our path.  We will continue to care for the people in our path in Peru and be looking for other ways we can support in our local community and beyond.

Thank you to those of you who donated to our hygiene kits for international women’s day. We had no idea how much more they would be needed just a few weeks later. 

This poem by Kitty O’Meara has made the rounds on social media already. It is what we are hoping for in all corners of the world.  It will be something different. Something needed. Something new.

And the people stayed home.

And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.

And listened more deeply.

Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows.

And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.

There are so many stories to share that I am confident will lift your heart and give you something that you need– connection, perspective, or inspiration.  We will share those as the days progress.

Thank you for all the ways you have connected and supported our projects and communities. In this time of darkness, let’s join together to be the helpers–the lights in the darkness, the love and peace in the midst of fear.

The world needs Something New, and we need you.