April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
VOLUNTEERS
Warrensburg Catholics come home from Guatemala
Men, women and children routinely carry their body weight in wood for cooking on treks from town to villages. Hunger is chronic; water is accessible, but not clean.
Despite all of this, volunteers from St. Cecilia's parish in Warrensburg who visited the Central American country last month report that the joy, gratitude and faith in God of the Maya people they met is undeniable.
"They're so happy just to be alive," said Mark Semon, who spotted a woman sweeping the ground outside her house during the trip. "Everybody's human, and they have a certain amount of pride in what they have."
Mr. Semon and six others accompanied Rev. Richard Broderick, a retired priest of the Albany Diocese who oversees the diocesan Pueblo to People sister parish program, on a week-long mission trip in January. They sorted coffee beans, planted seedlings for a reforestation project and distributed about 60 solar flashlights purchased by St. Cecilia's parishioners.
Crossing borders
But the bulk of the trip didn't involve doing work: Their hosts, the San Lucas Mission (www.sanlucasmission.org), promote education, solidarity and cross-cultural exchange with the hope that visitors will affect sustainable changes back home.
In other words, said volunteer Heather Jones, it's about "walking with the people" and "learning from them. We don't want to come from North America and tell them that what they're doing is wrong, because they've been doing it this way for thousands of years."
The San Lucas Mission dates back to the 16th century as a Franciscan mission church. In the 1960s, an American diocese began a partnership with the mission, and programs were developed to address the needs for housing, health care, food security, education, land rights and work in the area.
To the Warrensburg visitors, the San Lucas people still live somewhat unthinkably; the Guatemalans own land "if they're lucky," Mrs. Jones said, and survive off corn, black beans and rice when they can afford them.
One family she met grew some vegetables and raised two chickens, a couple of rabbits and a pig. Two of the children split one egg for breakfast.
Mrs. Jones realized that a family could eat for a year using the money she spent on the trip: $600 for a round-trip plane ticket and $30 a day for room and board.
Seeing for herself
"I wanted to see for myself what was needed," she said, naming fuel-efficient stoves, financial aid for education and clean drinking water. She saw people substitute Coca-Cola and sugar cane for the potable water they needed.
The lesson for her was huge: "Their philosophy is [to] just live in the moment," she said. "They really have nothing, and they're the most happy, humble people. I want to show my children that if you want to change the world, it starts with yourself. There's life outside of this little town we live in."
Fellow traveler Barbara Orton signed up to minister to the homebound at St. Cecilia's when the group returned.
"I think you come away looking at people that are poor differently," Ms. Orton said. "We can do more for even people in our own country."
She does wish she could have done more to address extreme poverty and the income divide in Guatemala: "It's a little difficult for me, being a nurse. I want to go in and fix everything, but you can't."
Mr. Semon said he wants to sponsor a Guatemalan child's college education and go on longer trips after he retires in a few years. He fondly recalled purchasing fabric from a storeowner named Martha and giving away his hat to a man who seemed excited to own something from New York.
"Nobody can go there and turn the whole world around for these people," he said. "It's got to be done kind of on a one-to-one basis."
What's next
The St. Cecilia's group is already discussing how to get involved with San Lucas Mission on a longer-term basis - perhaps by returning, learning Spanish, selling the community's fair-trade coffee, developing a sister parish relationship or raising money for the stove project, said Sister Linda Hogan, CSJ, parish life director.
Parishioners are also thinking about developing an apostolate for the Spanish-speaking community that works around Warrensburg in the summer.
Sister Linda has done similar mission work in Namibia and Peru and served in Alaskan bush regions for seven years. The trip to Guatemala still held lessons for her.
"Around here, we kind of judge the poor," she explained. "We go to another country and see it through a different culture and appreciate that life can be a lot simpler. Because we have so much, we have a responsibility to share it."
Small world
She said St. Cecilia's participation in outreach efforts - the parish also sponsors the education of a Namibian girl named Cecilia, among other things - "makes this little church big. It's good to be a global citizen, to see that the world is really big, to really meet our brothers and sisters."
Several in the group said their favorite experiences in San Lucas revolved around visiting the shrine of a priest murdered in the 1980s and, especially, celebrating Mass daily in a tiny Panimaquip church. Worshippers usually pack the chapel and overflow out the door; they participated with an enthusiasm unlike anything the Americans had seen.
"To me, it was almost like being back in the [19]50s," Ms. Orton recalled. Now, "I feel like I need to be more responsible and participate more [at home]."
Mrs. Jones agreed: "If they can get there walking 20 miles, why can't we get [to church]?" she said. "They put God first and foremost in their lives."[[In-content Ad]]
250 X 250 AD
250 X 250 AD
Events
250 X 250 AD
Comments:
You must login to comment.