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"You will know them by their fruits”

TORONTO, ON—As I wait for Hernan Astudillo, pastor of Toronto’s San Lorenzo Anglican Church, I find more questions than answers—and not just because the elderly Latin American man who is showing me around can’t speak English.

Through a mixture of handgestures and guesses, George shows me the plain, all-purpose room where the Spanish-speaking church holds Sunday school classes and community events. In the sanctuary, dog-eared photocopies serve as service books and simple signs read: "Por sus futus los concereis… Mateo 7:16” ("You will know them by their fruits”).

It is hard to imagine that this small church in west Toronto has sent more than $3 million of aid to Latin America. Newspaper clippings on the wall tell of Astudillo’s work with the poor. Above them hangs a mural of martyred South American Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, flanked by Jesus on the cross and men bound by soldiers.

It is even harder to believe that someone has threatened to murder Astudillo, Canada’s first Latin American Anglican priest.

Astudillo arrives an hour late explaining that he does not own a car and the one he borrowed from a friend has broken down. Rather than living in the rectory beside the church, with its hand-painted, multi-colour mural, he chooses to live elsewhere in a parishioner’s house.

The rectory "is too big for me because I am single father,” he explains. "There’s just my daughter and me.” Instead, the rectory is home to "people who do not have money to put food in their mouths. People who were on the streets.”

Inside the church, Astudillo runs his hands over the gnarled wood of a 300-year-old tree-trunk that serves as an altar, explaining that in his home country of Ecuador a bishop taught him to "work with the symbols of the people.”

He pulls back the altar cloth to show words, carved in Spanish, which translated say "Without faith in God we cannot have peace, faith, hope, solidarity, friendship.” Astudillo says he is looking for an artist to create a new crucifix for the front of the church, so he can replace the church’s Victorian-style crucifix with one that shows "the immigrant Jesus Christ.”

The church has also been collecting egg cartons to soundproof the rectory’s basement and turn it into a radio station. Astudillo recently gained a broadcast license to create Toronto’s first Hispanic community radio station.

Vocational calling

Astudillo knew he wanted to be a priest since he was a young boy living in Ecuador—a decision that upset his financially comfortable family.

"They said to me, ‘Why are you choosing that profession? Why are you not like your brothers? There are too many priests in the family.’

"I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be a priest like your relatives. I want to be a priest by vocation, not a priest by profession.’”

As a young man, Astudillo trained as a priest under a bishop who had a deep commitment to helping the country’s poor aboriginals. During his training he was in charge of 24 communities. Military and other groups put severe pressure on churches to stop their work among the marginalized, and Astudillo started to receive death threats.

"I remember I took some of the letters and I showed them to the bishop. The bishop hugged me…and he said, ‘It’s okay; it’s okay. Keep going. Don’t stop.’

"This holy man said to me: ‘Hernan, never be afraid to be persecuted.’ And I was persecuted in my country. One of my friends was killed. Two of my friends were captured, tortured, almost killed and imprisoned for five years.”

Leaving his young daughter in the care of her grandmother, Astudillo sought refuge in Canada.

"I came on my own. I knew nobody here,” he says. "I was alone, and alone, and alone and sometimes crying.” He relied on social services and the charity of others. He taught himself English and played pan flutes on the street corner in Toronto’s downtown Bloor Street area. At a drop-in centre, someone gave him a guitar and he started to play for the homeless and tell them about Jesus.

Using the money he made from busking, Astudillo started his theological training again, graduated from the University of Toronto and was ordained six years ago.

A bishop offered him a dying parish in a strong immigrant community. At the time only two people attended the church’s morning service. So Astudillo says he "started calling and inviting everybody in the community.”

Now the small church is so full on Sundays that people have to stand at the back and around the outside. Some parishioners travel over an hour by bus from neighbouring towns.

Generous spirit

"I cannot say to you that I have a rich people in my parish,” says Astudillo. "The highest professional I have here in my church is an [English as a Second Language] teacher. I don’t have lawyers. I don’t have architects. I don’t have nurses.

"I have people who work in the factories making seven dollars an hour, who hold two jobs to pay the rent, to eat and send some money to their relatives. I have really, really poor people economically, but I have millionaire people spiritually.”

That generous spirit was especially evident in 2001 when major earthquakes in El Salvador killed thousands of people and left millions homeless.

Astudillo and the San Lorenzo parish organized the Caravan of Hope, using retired school buses to drive food, clothing, medical supplies, building materials and other aid to the impoverished country. So far they have taken 22 yellow buses to El Salvador, leaving the vehicles behind for the people.

With the help of other Anglican churches, more than $3 million in aid has made the journey so far. Astudillo made his fourth caravan trip in August. In El Salvador a new town, built from the church’s supplies, has been named San Lorenzo after the parish. The high street is called Padre Hernan Astudillo.

"Everybody thinks I drive the bus,” Astudillo says, "but they don’t let me drive because I have to keep the peace among the drivers. It’s more difficult to drive a group of people than to drive a bus.

"I believe who drives me is the Holy Spirit. I have faith in the Holy Spirit. When I started this work I said: ‘Lord, I am nothing.’ I put my life in Jesus’ arms and I believe the Holy Spirit is there, giving me support.”

Caravan of Hope operates with virtually no overhead costs. But has Astudillo ever considered keeping a small percentage of the money raised for the upkeep of San Lorenzo church (which is after all the Caravan’s headquarters), or perhaps encourage the people to donate to the local church one year, instead of donating overseas?

Astudillo looks surprised at the question. "Why I don’t thief my people? I cannot touch the good things that people give me for the poor. If I receive $100, $20, $10 in my hand and they say ‘Father, this is a donation for El Salvador,’ I can’t take even the smallest donation and put it towards the parish. I cannot do that because I am working for Jesus Christ.”

Besides, Astudillo says, church improvements are happening "step by step. We can do both. We have [tithes] for the church, but we have the donations for the poor people.”

He adds, "I cannot see in my people, in each face, the picture of dollars… I live to share with them…I am feeling again like I’m in my country. The poor people, the seniors, the children, the political exiles, they are teaching me and inspiring me to continue cultivating my vocation.”

Faith that is alive

Recently Astudillo has started receiving death threats again, from someone who threatens he will be martyred like Archbishop Romero. Astudillo threw the first three letters in the garbage before his secretary saw one and insisted he go to the police.

Astudillo says receiving death threats in Canada "surprised” him. "But that’s not new to me. In Ecuador I was treated the same way. The people who do not like this style of pastoring do not like the commitment to the historical Jesus Christ.”

When Astudillo returned from his third caravan, he received a threatening phone call from another priest who said he had "doubts” about Astudillo’s faith.

"I said to him ‘Did you read the book of Acts? Do you remember when Paul said that faith without acts, without commitment, was a dead faith? I just got back at three o’clock this morning from El Salvador leaving the bus, and you are calling me to wake me up and scare me.’”

Astudillo says his congregation is not scared because their security comes from Jesus and not from money.

"I am trying to understand the crazy spirituality of the historical Jesus Christ, in this millennium, and make it a reality,” he says. "The one who was walking and living about 2004 years ago and reached out to the blind, those with leprosy…This Christ full of passion, full of love, full of hope…

"Why [do I call Him] ‘crazy?’ Because the church is ‘normal.’ Now we have ‘normal’ institutions. We cannot continue building beautiful buildings when in the door…there is a homeless man, shaking an old cup for a penny.

"We need to re-evangelize people about the crazy, historical Jesus Christ. If the church does not re-evangelize with compassion it will die.”

While listening to Astudillo I suddenly remembered seeing him on the streets of downtown Toronto. Countless street kids, buskers, street walkers and homeless were part of the normal fabric of my day and I’d talked to a few, shared food, made a point of making eye contact and smiling, considering myself open minded.

But once I had walked by Hernan Astudillo, with his wild flowing hair, black beard and pan flutes, and stopped to look down at his pictures of Jesus and the hand-written sign claiming he knew Him.

"Could he really know Jesus," I’d wondered. I had talked to him a few times but always tried to keep a safe distance away, and although I gave him change once I wondered if he’d spend it on alcohol and drugs. So because I felt challenged, I changed my route to avoid him.

Now I knew he was once a well-off man who fled for his life for the sake of the gospel, and would, 10 years later, pastor an over-flowing church, pioneer a radio station and send millions in aid to South America.

And I knew he would be praying for me.