April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
PUEBLO TO PEOPLE
St. Mary's, Crescent, gets new sister parish
Over the course of the long-standing relationship, St. Mary's funded the San Pedro area's first phone line, parish vehicles and statues for Holy Week processions, helped rebuild a church and medical clinic affected by decades of civil war violence and built a parish center for catechist training. Committee members also sponsored schoolchildren when they passed the sixth-grade cutoff point of public education.
St. Mary's parishioners traveled to visit their Guatemalan friends at least every other year; three different pastors from Guatemala visited St. Mary's frequently in return.
"It's made a huge impact on me," said Santa Orlando, committee co-chair. "The connections that are made are very personal and deep. Their faith is tremendous. You don't come back the same person. You can't."
New partnership
Now, Building Bridges members feel their help can be best used elsewhere. Last fall, after about nine months of research and video chatting with Guatemalan Catholics, they homed in on San Gaspar parish in the village of Chajul, about 60 miles north of San Pedro and within the same region of Quiche.
The new village is even more remote than those of St. Mary's first sister parishes, and still feels the effects of the civil war.
The pastor visited St. Mary's in October and showed his new American friends 700 photos of youth rallies and processions at his parish. The needs are not yet clear, but the committee intends to be just as hands-off as they had been in the past with the money St. Mary's raises with collections, events and fair-trade coffee sales.
"The way this was set up was, 'You don't need Americans to come down and help you,'" Ms. Orlando said. "The money could be used to hire the locals and give them ownership. This way, you've now empowered them to do this and they show you what they've done and they have pride. We've never tried to tell them what to do with the money. They know their country."
Ms. Orlando said the goals with San Gaspar parish "are the same as in any [sister parish] relationship: to increase solidarity and communication with the people, to increase awareness through pictures [and] stories, to celebrate what we have in common as a faith community.
"Their faith is so strong and it has to be because of what they've had to endure," she continued. "We all celebrate and desire the same things: good health, family ties, friendship, to relate to the global family. We're all made in the image and likeness of God and we're all one."
Keeping in touch
Technology has made communication between St. Mary's and its Guatemalan counterparts much easier. Building Bridges committee members remember when phone calls and visits were the only way to connect; now, San Gaspar's pastor is able to email pictures and keep in touch online.
Many Building Bridges members have learned some Spanish. Language barriers do persist, though, because of the many dialects spoken in rural parts of Guatemala. This and other issues like sending funds abroad safely are often discussed in biannual meetings of Pueblo to People, the diocesan global sister parish project.
Committee members also get support through the Albany Maryknoll chapter and through Maryknoll missionary sisters they've met in Guatemala.
There will eventually be more trips, which always makes the sister parish experience richer, Ms. Orlando said.
"It's not just a story you read about," she said. "These are real people. You're putting yourself in a vulnerable position. A great deal of trust needs to be put in the other and to put yourself in their shoes."[[In-content Ad]]
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