AMERICA/PERU - A thousand-kilometre journey from the Amazon to National Youth Day: “I left the jungle without knowing what awaited me”

Tuesday, 4 August 2026 local churches youth world youth day amazon mission

Vicariato Apostolico de Iquitos

PERU

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by Laura Gómez Ruiz

Iquitos (Fides News Agency) – “I left the jungle without knowing what awaited me. I returned knowing that I belong to something much greater.”
These are the words of Franco, a member of the Youth Ministry of the Parish of Saint Martin de Porres in the Apostolic Vicariate of Iquitos, as he reflects on his experience at the Second National Youth Day in Peru, held in Chulucanas, in the Piura region, from July 30 to August 2, 2026, under the theme “Be courageous, Christ lives.”

The event, organized by the Episcopal Commission for Youth and Laity of the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference together with the Diocese of Chulucanas, brought together more than 4,000 young people from the country’s 46 ecclesiastical circumscriptions. Its aim was to strengthen communion, renew participants’ encounter with Christ, and encourage the missionary commitment of the younger generations.

The National Youth Day also forms part of the preparation for World Youth Day in Seoul in 2027.
Among those taking part was the delegation from the Apostolic Vicariate of Iquitos, which travelled from the Amazon region, one of Peru’s largest and most diverse areas. For Franco, the nearly 1,000-kilometre journey to Piura became an opportunity to overcome the sense of isolation that communities far from the country’s major urban centres sometimes experience, and to discover that they are part of a much larger Church.

“I already knew what a youth gathering was like. Even so, I left the jungle without knowing what awaited me,” he says. “In Chulucanas there were young people from ecclesiastical circumscriptions across Peru. Different climates, different food, different accents. But the same faith and the same desire to ensure that their parish remains alive.”

Speaking through the communication channels of the Apostolic Vicariate, the young man explains that one of the most meaningful aspects of the gathering was discovering that, despite cultural and geographical differences, many young people share the same questions and struggles.
“We all carry the same burden. Every young person I met carried the wounds of a painful past and the same desire to leave it behind. And all of us, without exception, were holding on to God with both hands,” he says.

The experience in Piura helped him realize that many of his personal wounds are also shared by an entire generation.
“You think your wound is unique until you discover that it is the wound of a whole generation that has chosen not to give up,” he adds.

For Franco, the journey began with a simple gesture: attending a Youth Ministry meeting without knowing exactly what he would find.
“Sometimes we think that great things happen somewhere else and to other people. That is not true. I am from here, just like you,” he says. “That small decision took me all the way to Piura and gave me a community that has now become my family.”

His testimony highlights one of the key challenges of youth ministry in the Amazon: accompanying young people so that they discover that they, too, can live the Church’s mission fully and intensely within their own communities. With its vast distances and unique characteristics, the Amazon is not a peripheral region on the margins of the Church, but a place where the faith is lived and proclaimed in the midst of everyday realities.

“You do not have to be the holiest or the best prepared,” Franco encourages. “You simply need the courage to take the first step. If you feel that something is missing, if you want to belong to something that truly matters, come to your parish and ask about the Youth Ministry.”
“We are the light that does not go out. And that light belongs to you as well,” concludes the young man from the Apostolic Vicariate of Iquitos, convinced that the national gathering in Chulucanas confirmed that young people from the Amazon are part of a Church that walks together, embracing even the distances that separate them.
(Fides News Agency, 4/8/2026)