I decided to attend the 2005 Guatemala Pilgrimage with the
vague notion that I would like to do something good for people who need help. I
had never been involved in a multi-day work project before partly because
‘making a difference’ in the world seemed so overwhelming. Imagine my surprise
when I returned from the pilgrimage and I discovered that the world was a better
place because I had changed.
Before our pilgrimage there were four meetings in Takoma to get to know one another and to learn something about life in Guatemala. At one of the meetings I picked up the book Love in a Fearful Place, by Henri Nouwen. It is a story about Father Rother who was assassinated in the church’s rectory in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.
In our pre-pilgrimage meetings we learned that in 1954 the CIA recruited mercenaries to overthrow the elected government of Guatemala and from then until 1996 Guatemala was torn apart with civil war. Father Rother was just one of the hundreds of thousands who were killed or ‘disappeared.’
I barely knew anyone when I started and I knew no Spanish other than, ‘Si.’ I felt like a sojourner when we drove into a space cleared from a patch of corn, drove up to a group of Mayans whose native language was one of the Mayan languages and not Spanish. ‘Okay, God, what now?’ I thought as the bus drove into this clearing with the incredible notion that I was going to help this group of God’s people build a school.
We were greeted with exploding firecrackers and hugs. We were greeted with smiles and shy children peeking around their mother’s skirts. We were greeted with curious and cautious men.
We were treated with a few speeches by the teacher, the mayor of the district, and a few others. After the speeches the children took over with a show that consisted of a mock rock band with cardboard guitars, drums, and painted-on mustaches, a native dance, a hula-hoop demo by a little boy about 7 years old. This was followed by the ceremonial foundation stone laying. Then they served us lunch which consisted of black beans, rice, a local squash, unsalted tortillas because salt is a luxury that most cannot afford, and a few pieces of chicken.
During the week we dug the trench for the new school’s foundation and we tied rebar. But more meaningful to me, we laughed and worked and played with the children. I shared in the smiles and the giggles when we showed the children pictures of themselves, when we watched them blow soap bubbles, when they played with the new soccer balls we gave them, and when we tossed tennis balls out of the bus to children along the road. I was deeply touched at being served lunch with a couple of the Mayan families. These people, who had no running water, lived in homes, many with dirt floors and cornstalk walls so the smoke could drift out, shared their food and themselves with us.
We visited the church and the rectory where Father Rother was assassinated. We visited the peace memorial where the Guatemala army fired on a group of civilians in 1990. In the Mayan community there is a noticeable absence of men about my age and children about the age of my children because almost a whole generation vanished because of the civil war. Most Mayans live as share croppers on land owned by an absent owner.
I had to step out of what was comfortable and what was familiar to gain a greater understanding of what Jesus meant when he read from Isaiah, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he had anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ He then announced that the reading is fulfilled in your hearing. (Lk. 4:18-21)
When Jesus was asked, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ He did not reply with a litany of theological statements, he replied by saying, ‘Go tell John what you hear and see; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news brought to them.’ We are called to be God’s good news.
In Guatemala I saw the face of people disenfranchised by a society and a government that excluded them from all promise of a better future, but they welcomed our group with songs, dances, and fireworks. I learned the names of children who consider it a good day when they have enough to eat, but who still laugh when they saw me trying to bend rebar. I ate with families who are so busy staying alive that they have very little time for anything else, but they make time to build a school out of cinder blocks so that their children might have a brighter future.
Change does not come easily for me, but I have been changed. God used Guatemala to open my heart a little wider. I know that for me to be faithful I must continue to step out beyond the boundaries of what is comfortable and familiar and be open to service wherever God may lead me. In Guatemala I learned that to the extent that I can do this God uses me and changes me for the better.
Charles Helsabeck writes from Silver Spring MD and participated in the 2005 Guatemala Pilgrimage.