The participants were a wonderful group: religious, peasants and indigenous leaders, teachers and animators of Good living, university students of different fields -laws, social communication, tropical forestry engineer-, pastoral workers, members of Justice and Peace Commission from different parishes, human, land, and water rights defenders. They identified their commitment in some striking way: “I am an eager defender of life; land and water are not to be sold, I advocate for them with my life; I am earth, she is my origin; I love teaching on the creation protection; I need to be free to live in peace; I cultivate to feed life”.

The training proved to be a response to Pope Francis’ call in his Lenten message: "One of the most urgent challenges” nowadays “is precisely the globalization of indifference”. "Indifference to our neighbor and to God represents a real temptation for us Christians.” Thus “we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience”: "God is not indifferent to our world".

Although organized and planned many months before, the training 25 modules followed the three guidelines of Pope’ message, but not in the same order.

"Where is your brother?" we asked ourselves, "What have we done with him," with the peasant and indigenous that God has created in his image? Where have we relegated the small farmer who gives us food every day? What about our Sister Water: in 1950 each person had of her available 17,000 m3, today only 7.000m3: our future is at risk. And what of mother earth that nourishes and sustains us? We've reduced her to a common market good: 217 million hectares have but sold and bought, grabbed and leased in the last 10 years. And Brother Climate that gives us the seasons, the rhythm of the rain and sun? We are destabilizing him through monocultures, carbon dioxide, agro-fuel, destruction of biodiversity.  How can we –taking the Pope words- be so indifferent "to the risk of with drawing in ourselves" and walking towards death for some gold bars, for increasing our account in the bank, for the prestige of having, and having and having more and more? We neither eat nor drink gold, we repeated with the indigenous leaders who fight against Yanacocha in Cajamarca and with Huaraz defenders of Parón lagoon already half diminished by hydroelectric schemes: Water yes, gold no.

Only "when we are in power of our food, can we break the chain that tied us to our present condition" we were reminded by Alexandra Spieldoch. And by Pope Francisco: do not "take refuge in a universal love that would embrace the whole world, while failing to see the Lazarus sitting before our closed doors." "Every Christian community is called to go out of itself and to be engaged in the life of the greater society of which it is a part, especially with the poor and those who are far away”. The “mission is to bring to all a love which cannot remain silent".

“If one member suffers, all suffer together”, recalls the Pope quoting St. Paul and challenges us: "Do we have experience of being part of one body? A body which receives and shares what God wishes to give? A body which acknowledges and cares for its weakest, poorest, and most insignificant members?"

We watched Power Point presentations, we drew wisdom from the cultural sources of indigenous peoples, we shared experiences and we realized that this unity through diversity makes us ONE in the only ONE God and part of the UNIQUE creation: this is not only a spiritual and psychological dimension of life, but also physical and of everyday. We breathe what the tree expires and the tree breathes what we in turn expire: how would we not recognize a common destiny and a radical reciprocity between all parts of creation? We then analyzed some documents of the United Nations, a few Business Codes, several international conventions, development plans, the FAO voluntary Guidelines, the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment: we discovered that each meeting and decision yearns for unity, respect and reciprocity. With two real problems: they remain dead words but they guarantee the abuse of the wealthy over the weak. In a fair degree the Pope recalls that "Christians are those who let God clothe them with goodness and mercy, with Christ, so as to become, like Christ, servants of God and others." Modern society seeks to build dignity, equity structures, co-responsibility all without God and fails at every step because only "The love of God breaks through that fatal withdrawal into ourselves which is indifference."

“Make your hearts firm!” "Flooded with news reports and troubling images of human suffering, we often feel our complete inability to help. What can we do to avoid being caught up in this spiral of distress and powerlessness?" asks the Pope, and answers: "A merciful heart does not mean a weak heart. Anyone who wishes to be merciful must have a strong and steadfast heart, closed to the tempter but open to God."

It has been with audacity, steeped in humility and wisdom that participants made, at the conclusion of the training, their proposals, their requests, their commitments which fill two pages, dense with energy bursting open to interesting operational horizons.

The proposals talk about organizing a national network, training leaders and peasants, giving workshops on environment and environmental impact in schools, colleges and parishes, and becoming more involved with the local authorities.

Among the requests what stands out is the desire that such seminars have multiplier effects; the need of a national committee for the dissemination and support of the struggle in the regions affected by land, water, natural resources grabbing; the need to prepare Christian communities on legal aspects and their participation in common activities on the issue of land tenure; the request that the Andean worldview and culture is included in the educational curriculum. Some explicit requests were directed to CONFER (National Conference of Religious) like to organize workshops on land grabbing in Peru and set up a monitoring team; to assign more people to the activities of JPIC and to network more to shorten time and join forces.

Finally personal commitments: they rang from sharing with the people the teachings received, to coordinating activities in defense of land with authorities and organizations already committed to this issue; from management and reforestation campaigns to developing productive projects alternative to mining; from recycling solid waste to studying more laws and documents. Some pledged to coordinate workshops on land grabbing, others to share the workshop topics with their relatives or with members of other congregations and to include this issue in the Bible courses. The most positive commitment was to self-training on the training topics, to contact the environmental equipment of public institutions, to form groups in different universities for the dissemination of land grabbing issues, and to form an integrated network among laity, religious, and members of the episcopal conference.

These requests, proposals and commitments, someone said during the concluding Eucharist, require that the powerful Spirit gives us, as Pope Francis expresses it, "a heart which is firm and merciful, attentive and generous, a heart which is not closed, indifferent or prey to the globalization of indifference." Only a fearless, wise and peaceful heart can go out nowadays to challenge land grabbing that carries the grabbing of water and mineral resources, that is one of the causes of climate change and mass migration, and that favors the traffic in people and many other forms of modern slavery.