Friends in Bolivia and Peru visited during Benigno's� travel in the ministry.

I am very grateful to the Friends in our Worship and Ministry Committee who asked me to put something in the Newsletter about by travels in the ministry.

Last November I spent two weeks among Andean Friends traveling in the company of Brian Drayton from Weare, NH Meeting. At one level we were on an errand for the Friends World Committee for Consultation, but more importantly, we were just going to meet distant Friends, to be met by them, and to witness that in these encounters we all come closer to presence of God in all our gatherings.

These visits to different branches of the Quaker family should continue to be conducted by Friends with a leading to �gather� the family from its dispersion, and to heal from the centuries of separation and evolving differences. It will continue to be useful for the travelers to have a tested calling to serve as bridges.

The� Evangelical Friends in Bolivia and Peru are eager to encounter more of the Quakerism of the first two centuries and to explore what of that may speak to their condition. They may be less receptive to those components that feel more akin to the �modernity� that has not always been kind to them. This open door was very much left open by all the yearly meetings in Per� and Bolivia, and not just the more connected with FWCC, nor just the more socially or theologically liberal.

We found a people gathered in the Spirit, and they refer to the Spirit primarily as Christ Jesus who teaches them directly, and we found a lively devotional, scriptural, pastoral religious culture with much reliance of the Spirit to move them.� There is some familiarity and much evangelical and socially conservative re-framing of Fox's teachings; the names of Barclay, Fell and Penn are recognized, but mostly as names. A few of their scholars have run across Nayler and Penington, but no one in the largest conference public remembered hearing of John or Juan Woolman. The little of his prophetic example that we presented was immediately accepted as good news with an air of forgotten kinship just recovered.

All yearly meetings visited vote in the conduct of church business, and many speak with regret about the electioneering patterns in the selection of their leadership. Every time we talked about seeking the will of God as revealed to the united gathering, or through the sense of the meeting many expressed a lively interest in learning about that possibility. No one could remember whether their voting practice was handed down by the Quaker missionaries or developed more in line with their national cultures of institutional governance.

They spoke to us quite openly about the real pain among the grown ups who feel obligated to uphold the rigor of the church's calls to sanctity and obedience, and then see their children bolting from the gathering. Ministry rose about this issue in many contexts. The starkest came as an answer to the question of what to do with a returning young person who had sinned. This was one of the many moments in which I did feel fully taken up by the force of the message as I was moved to advise the church to receive the child, to celebrate the return, to wash his or her feet, and to humbly beg for forgiveness for anything the church may have done to drive her or him away.

A somewhat related set of teachings had emerged earlier during the Young Friends conference in Ilave. Per�. The planners had asked for a discussion of �sexual sin,� but the travelers brought a consideration of Christian marriage, with the help of early Friends' marriage proposal letters,� general advice about early Friends' marriage, and documentation about Fox and Penington's attempts to establish early Friends matrimonial practices. The brunt of the presentation called the established married couple of the meeting to stand as patterns and examples. It was suggested that if they put on their sandals and spread the goods news of consecrated, sweet, long-lasting, fruitful,� juicy and joyful marriages, then the young Friends would grow to desire that for themselves, and the world and its ways would have no dominion. The lesson included reminders that not all young people have available good models at home, and that one blessed couple may have to be very active and visible for such young Friends as may need extra access to the good motivating example.

These are just a few of the many opportunities that rose for deep conversation and tender fellowship. Throughout the whole experience the discipline of traveling in pairs felt particularly blessed. It is just that much easier to be� truthful and loving when accompanied, just as it maybe easier to be judicious and stay in good health and energized for the work. But most of all with a steady and established Friend by my side, it was ever so easy and right to feel the Spirit carrying one and the other, and it was easier still to let the image of the accompanying Friend stand for the reality of my whole monthly meeting and my whole yearly meeting walking together with us in God's loving and ever inner companionship.

Benigno