“Use What You Have” by the 2015 Guatemala Pilgrims
July 26, 2015
The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
In Guatemala, we heard the same invitation from Ceci Dougherty, chair of the PAVA board, when she said to us at a reception in her home: “Our government institutions don’t work here, and so we need to do it ourselves.” She was talking about providing schools and libraries for the indigenous people, who had been denied the right to a primary education for so long. Rather than spending her energy on trying to reform the government, she and the other women on the PAVA board join one village at a time to accomplish what a local community wants most. Ceci was our celebrant, inviting us and thanking us for our help in making that happen.
Ceci’s remark reminded me of what we heard many years ago, from Fr. Greg Schaffer in San Lucas Toliman. He had come there as a young priest, more than fifty years ago. When he decided to stay, rather than going home to Minnesota, he said: “I didn’t know anything about development. I just knew we couldn’t wait for somebody else to do it for us. We had to start with what we had here – the people.”
As I begin to learn about Antigua, what is comforting to me? What is unsettling? (Teresa Ramsey)
We are staying in a relatively safe area, albeit noisy as the main road passes outside.
We had a Seekers style Sunday service with communion which was comforting and familiar.
Comforted that I am not alone here and others in the group know “the ropes.”
I find it difficult to haggle over price, particularly when the seller seems poor and disadvantaged.
How do I feel connected to God’s story? (Will Ramsey)
In the reading today, John 6:15
“When Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by himself alone.”
What do (did) I need to learn (again) from this experience? (Kevin Barwick)
This was my first pilgrimage to Guatemala. Although I’ve seen several other cultures, I’ve never experienced one like this one. What I mean is that I have been in other cultures before but never allowed myself to fully experience or immerse myself in the culture and people. In other words, to just listen and learn.
The prompt that I chose for today from our daily reflection journal was “What do (did) I need to learn (again) from this experience?” I chose this because as I journaled last week I remember writing that there were so many things that I needed to learn. I wrote, “Learn to be an open humble sponge.” Here are a few other things that I was beginning to learn or re-learned.
1. I need to learn what service to others has very little to do with what I accomplish, compared to how I hold my attitude toward others. If I come with a “move-over-I’m-here-to-help-you” attitude, that will reflect in arrogant authoritarian behaviors. One day we tried to break up this massive hunk of bedrock. The teens tied to pick ax it, then use chisels, to no avail. Later that day I had a space of time that I wasn’t laying cinder block. So I had a bright idea that I would give the pick ax a try. With all my might I swung down several times, resulting in a few small dents in the rock, and sore wrists and blistered fingers. Hugo, the foreman came up to me to see how I was doing. He looked a little bewildered that I was so tired and frustrated. I motioned that we needed a jack hammer. He smiled, rolled his eyes and said mucho quetzals (a lot of money). My first thought was to say, “Listen, I’ll pay for it. Let’s get it going. Don’t say you can’t do it.” But I said nothing, except, “ What’s next hefe?” He later came up with an ingenious way of using the rock as support for the footings of the library. My attitude in service was more important that what got accomplished.
2. I need to learn again that my belovedness, my sense of God’s loving presence for me, has nothing to do what with who I am, what I do or accomplish, or how I love others. It’s totally (and I’d add, completely incomprehensibly) based on the nature of God, as our Ephesians scripture reading reminded us. Sometimes I measure my worth on what I accomplish in life. Consequently, living in my “belovedness” often seems based on what I accomplish or do. This is an ongoing challenge for me.
3. I need to learn that people are far more important than progress. That is, staying open, watching and waiting for “sacred moments” to occur far outweighs the benefits of the outcome. One day my cinder block partner of a three days were joined by a 16 and 18 year old girls who just started laying block. As they watched me mud the blocks they began to cringe. When I asked them they said in a distaining tone that how I was doing it was not how Aaron told them to do it! I had to pause, check in with myself, and try to remember in a split second that my method of laying block was far less important than how I interacted with those girls. The moment was a sacred moment to which my ego was not invited.
These few days in Guatemala almost seem like a blur, had it not for my cuts and blisters still healing, and the pictures I took. They are reminders that my world is often too small, or that I am really just one little part of the body of Christ.
I very grateful for the opportunity to have gone.
(Glen Yakushiji)
Daily Schedule
10. meet and reflect on the day
Stories
Values
The question I am working with is about the values I saw in the villagers, and amongst the pilgrims. I found that both the villagers and the pilgrims shared similar values.
Patience to remove that hill of dirt a small shovelful at a time, or a rock at a time
Pride in our communities
Education, valued enough to spend time and energy to give this village a chance to provide it to their children.
Tolerance, Humor, Compassion, Curiosity, Enthusiasm, Perseverance, Trust, Hope
Making things level, Making things flush, Piling things up higher
Where do I see God at work in Guatemala? (Peter Bankson)
The short answer to this question is “All over the place.” For me, Guatemala is a place where it is easy for me to see God’s loving Spirit at work in the lives of so many people. Sometimes, though, when my expectations of efficiency and effectiveness get in the way it’s a bit harder to see. Those are times when I fall into the role of the worried disciples: “Where will we ever get enough …?”
When we visited the Catholic Church at San Lucas Toliman this year, I had a sense that the focus had shifted from a congregation with strong support from the United States (through Father Greg Schaffer who died about three years ago) to a local congregation that is thankful for “gringo” support, but is working to live into God’s call on their own. I wondered if they will be able to keep going on their own.
The Parish hall was empty, and although there were the names of some volunteers on a whiteboard by the door there the place seemed deserted. (Actually it felt like a lot of church buildings on a Saturday afternoon, but I was used to something different.)
We learned that Father Greg’s housekeeper had moved the store selling weaving by members of the parish to a store down the street from the church. Unfortunately for us, it was closed.
When we arrived at the reforestation project, the forester, our long-time friend Toribio Chajil, greeted us warmly. He told us how his work goes on, with students from the school next door rather than volunteers from overseas. He is still passionately following his call, reminding all of us of the importance of honoring the earth – as our Mother.
As we visited with Toribio we learned that the local congregation has had to cut off their support from the reforestation project. The future of Toribio’s project seems vulnerable. I want to help him continue his ministry!
But the deeper questions seem to be “”What does God want in this rich, complex and troubled land?” and “What is my part?”
Go to the people, live with them. Learn from them.
But with the best of leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, “We have done this ourselves.”
Lao Tzu (700 BC)
That was the guiding light for Father Greg. And it is also the Gospel message for this week. As Kayla McKlurg observed in today’s posting on “Inward/Outward:”
We can devote ourselves to striving after success and popularity, or we can notice the least likely to succeed parts of ourselves—What? All you have is one little boy with a few loaves and fish?—and imagine them new. Our child heart is open; it offers what it has, saying not a word about what it has not. What good will come from such a small offering? Yet ages since, we still ponder the outcome: “Gather up the fragments left over,” Jesus says, “so that nothing may be lost.” If we fall under the trance of success and popularity, we risk overlooking the power of crumbs. What is left over when we have nothing more to give is enough. Immense potential lives among the fragments.
I’d like to see the San Lucas Reforestation Project continue, with or without the support of the San Lucas church. Toribio’s challenge reminds me of a lot of the challenges faced by ministries of Church of the Saviour. At some point, all of these ministries need support beyond the Church.
Where do I see God at work in Guatemala? I see that divine intervention in the way people come together to meet community needs whether they get credit or not. There … Here … and Everywhere…
As I ponder the living story of the San Lucas reforestation project and the story of the feeding of the five thousand, the sign over Greg Schaffer’s bathroom door
Go to the people, live with them. Learn from them.
But with the best of leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, “We have done this ourselves.”
Thank you, Jesus.
Closing (Marjory Bankson)
Feeding the five thousand is a story about the kingdom of God, here and now. The love, generosity and cooperation symbolized by sharing food in a large crowd lies dormant in all of us. Sometimes, in a time of need, a celebrant steps forward, holds up what we have and gives thanks for that in such a way that we are moved to share, to be a body of Christ together. It’s what we hoped for the pilgrims, and what we hope for Seekers too.