Fr Don Hornsey SSC, now 72 years of age, is parish priest of Combapata in Peru. There are over 50 communities of varying size under his pastoral care. All these communities have their own internal order, there are leaders in open dialogue with Fr Don and no community feels paralysed due to the absence of a parish priest. With help from benefactors in Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. Fr Don has developed facilities in the parish centre to cater for eighty men and women who come into town for biblical seminars or other topics of common concern. The centre has recently been completed by a bright, warm Chapel. The parish centre provides Fr Don with the means to help community leaders grow in faith and to help them recognise their own ability and confidence to lead and animate their own communities.
Fr Don regularly visits community peoples under his pastoral care for meetings and celebrations. Weekly meetings are held in each community, led by their own leaders or missionaries to help them live out the missionary role that all of us receive at baptism.
These days, most leaders in Combapata communities are literate in both Spanish and Quechua, which makes it easy for Fr Don to hold bible and sacramental courses for community leaders and catechists. All our basic courses for rural lay leaders are run in Quechua, while similar courses for leaders in the main towns are in Spanish. Inregard to outreach to society in this part of the world, there are four major areas that Fr Don either supports or leads: (1) the Parish First Aid Post; (2) collaboration with civic leaders; (3) an ecological garden to help put fruit and vegetables back into the typical local diet; and (4) hospitality in the Parish centre.
The Parish First Aid Post is run by Sabina, a trained nurse who has extensive pastoral experience. There is a State-run medical centre two doors from the parish centre but they do not have an adequate stock of low priced medicines. The Parish First Aid Post stocks and buys general medicines from an NGO in Lima and makes them available to the public. Sabina spends time counselling and listening to those who visit to the First Aid Post as well.
There are a variety of government and civic organisations in town in which Fr Don has built good relationships with. He is invited to meetings with Civic leaders and the effort to bring services to community becomes much easier through collaboration. Fr Don is also a member of the committee in charge of organising the town’s centenary celebration.
The ecological garden project is an extension of work being done by a local engineer in the neighbouring town of Checacupe. Rice, pasta and other non-traditional foods have become a major part of the diet of families in the area. The garden inspires and encourages healthier dietary habits for those communities who tend to eat very few vegetables and very little fruit. The garden project with its accompanying education program will hopefully put vegetables back into the diet of all, including the poorest.
The parish centre is like an oasis in the desert. Fr Don hopes individuals, parish groups and communities will feel free to rest here, to find peace in their hearts, to have an opportunity for quiet conversation with Our Lord, to study and reflect together on the bible, and to share the joy of mission and Jesus Christ. 
Fr Don revels in the natural beauty of the countryside, in Peru. He sees so much of God's beauty in the hills, valleys, rivers, fields and forests where the parish is located. As a missionary dedicated to crossing cultural boundaries, Fr Don feels privileged to be sharing his life with the Quechua people of the Andean highlands. He is constantly moved by the rugged toughness and straight forward, matter of fact approach to life that he sees in those with whom he shares. At times there is little comfort in their lives, there is suffering and injustice at the hands of their own or from outsiders but they continue to find ways of working together to resolve their problems.
The Quechua people of the Andean highlands are a joyous people whose lives are imbued with celebration.
Article written by Fr Peter Woodruff.
Fr Peter Woodruff SSC first went to Peru in1968 and is now based in Australia at the Columban Mission Centre in Essendon, Victoria.
Fr Don Hornsey SSC has been working in Peru since 1999.
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