"This whole story begins in 1982. I have always been fascinated by Latin America. At that time, there was a special promotion with Avianca to Colombia, and I decided to spend my vacation there". This is how the Catholic priest Peter Walters begins the story of Long live the children!, a foundation that helps street children in Colombia, which was born out of an almost movie-like experience.
On that '82 vacation, "I went to Bogota and Cartagena," Walters recalls, "everything was going very well until I discovered there was a problem with my return ticket: it was undated. When I tried to arrange my return to the UK I discovered that I had the lowest possible priority, in high season, so I had to stay there longer than I had budgeted for." This setback led to extreme thriftiness and he ate only one meal every two days.
It was on one of those "forced fasting" days that changed his life. "I met some beggar children. They saw me as a stranger and approached me to ask for alms. When I was able to make them understand that I didn't have any, they thought it was very strange. They had never met a poor tourist before. Then something completely strange happened: these children decided to 'adopt' me. They shared their food with me and their humanity touched me very much". In the days that followed, Father Peter continued to see these children, "We became friends and I was concerned to see how they lived. I, as an Anglican, thought then 'where is the Catholic Church on the street?'"
A question that was not just a mere formulation: "I went to look for the local archbishop to give him a good 'slap on the wrist'. Fortunately, I found Monsignor Rubén Isaza Restrepo, then Archbishop of Cartagena, with whom I had several meetings. He told me 'son, the Catholic Church is very committed to the street population. But I also believe that the Lord is calling you to do something.
That answer took him by surprise, and when he returned to the UK, Peter Walters couldn't forget those words, or those children. "Someone told me, then, that I had gone to Colombia for a vacation and came back with a vocation, and I did," he recalls emotionally.
A new stage
From then on, Walters returned again and again to Colombia for vacations. Although he was still an Anglican, he worked with Catholic Church institutions in this area.
In those years, Monsignor Isaza retired and retired to Manizales and went there: "In the morning he worked in a battery factory to earn some 'platica' and took care of these children in the afternoon and evening," Walters continues. While in Manizales he was told that in Medellín there were many children in this situation and he decided to go. Those were the hard years of Pablo Escobar.
Violence was a constant in Colombia, and especially in Medellín. As he recalls, "in those years many of the children I knew were killed. They called them 'the disposable ones' and indeed, they were discarded".
Walters' heart was still torn between England and Colombia. He found it increasingly difficult to return to the safety of his home without knowing what was going to happen to the children.
In those years, Peter Walters was ordained as an Anglican priest and "I ended up working at the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham". Walsingham is a place of intense Marian devotion. Our Lady appeared there in 1061 and asked for a house to be built, like the house at Nazareth. Today, three Marian shrines converge there: one Anglican, one Catholic and a third Orthodox: "It's a very Marian place, and almost all my predecessors at the Anglican shrine had ended up converting to Catholicism," Walters recalls. "I followed that path and had the awareness that the Lord was asking me to make a commitment. That commitment involved going to Colombia, asking for admission into the Catholic Church and eventually, ordination as a Catholic priest."
The Archbishop of Medellin accepted and, in 1994, Walters moved permanently to Colombia, was received into the Catholic Church and ordained a Catholic priest in 1995.
He then began a new path in his vocational life and dedication to street children. While in Walsingham, Walters had started a foundation for the through which he raised funds for the Catholic Church's work with street children in Colombia. Once in Colombia, he obtained the legal status to start up a Colombian foundation and also founded in the United States with the aim of raising funds there. These three foundations continue today. Those in England and the United States are dedicated to fundraising and the one in Colombia also serves children.
Long live the children!
As of today, Long live the children! is headquartered in a house in Medellín that hosts this facility thanks to St. Joseph. "We were looking for a location and couldn't find a suitable one at an affordable price," says Walters. A priest friend advised him to pray a novena to St. Joseph. He did so and, "on the ninth day, the house we have now appeared, which was suitable for renting. That's how they started.
"After a few years, the owners wanted to sell the house, but we had 'no money'. We made another novena to St. Joseph and again, on the ninth day, a foundation called from England offering to lend us the money, interest free for ten years. The following year, when I paid them the first installment, they returned the receipt saying it was a gift. We have the house thanks to St. Joseph," concludes Father Walters with conviction.
Walsingham House is not a residence as such because the children do not stay there overnight "except once a year when we do the 40 hours to the Blessed Sacrament. The boys are on all-night vigil and, the following night, the girls."
At the Walsingham House we serve several groups: "street children, children who work on the street and also girls who become pregnant. We take care of them and their babies, before and after childbirth, offering these girls the possibility of studying so that they can continue training and have a more dignified future". "We also work with children who have special educational needs", in schools generally the teachers cannot give them the individualized attention these children need and they fall into the hands of the more than "400 illegal armed groups that are always looking to capture these minors to introduce them into drug trafficking, delinquency or prostitution. And then we have refugee children, especially from Venezuela". All this, thanks to a team of psychologists, social educators, catechist teachers who carry out this work.
In addition to all this, the foundation has created a choir "to give a voice to our children. They sing in English, Latin and Spanish. Folk songs, liturgical and even Gregorian".
The fruits have also been coming: "Some of our children are already professionals. We have a boy who used to work on the street, his family recycles garbage, and now he is a doctor; another boy is a lawyer; a girl is a psychologist; another girl is an industrial engineer and several nurses... Most of our children do not go to university, but if we manage to ensure that a child who has been abused or abandoned is not an adult who abandons and abuses his or her children, we have achieved something important".
Need for donations
In these 30 years thousands of children have been helped by Father Walters, although, as he acknowledges, "the foundation has decreased due to lack of resources. In 2007 we attended 900 children and today we have less than 200. After COVID, donors do not have the same donation capacity they had before". This situation has had a direct influence on the foundation's ability to provide care, which does not want public aid that could influence its Catholic principles.
The foundation is funded by donations. "I live to beg for alms for my children," concludes Father Walters. Children who number in the thousands and whose unknown stories are part of the legacy of this priest with a British accent and a Colombian soul.
