So How Was Your Trip?
Como Park Lutheran’s Visit to San Jose Lutheran Church in Santa Amelia, Guatemala June 2012
More Photos are available at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.404749776238045.90856.316630815049942&type=1
Jeff Kragness, Ruth Pechauer, Matthew Franz, my children, Siri and Peder and I are all recently returned from Guatemala and it’s time to share some impressions before they fade from memory. Everyone asks, “What was the trip like?” In answering for myself, I have to say it was hot, humid, busy, buggy at times, inspiring, exhausting, uplifting, frustrating, remarkable, challenging and totally worth while.
In arriving in Guatemala City at the airport, you step into a modern first-world city with wireless communications, air conditioning, mass transit and modern plumbing, even if you don’t flush the toilet paper. The city sits at about 5000 feet and is near the equator, so you have warmish days and warm to cool nights pretty much year-round. The Lutheran Center where we spent the first and last nights has very comfortable bunkbed, church-camp style accommodations in a hostel-style setting, about six or eight to a room.
In leaving the city, there are no straight roads. Everything is a downhill series of switchbacks for miles and miles on end. In leaving, you catch glimpses of the crowded barrios stacked on hillsides or rising in walk-up tenements and you begin to realize that poverty in this modern city is both pervasive and normal. It’s our experiences of wealth and privilege in the world that are not. The “third world” encompasses two-thirds of the worlds population, and we live within the wealthiest five percent of all the worlds people.
The community of Santa Amelia is made up of roughly 150 families, maybe 800 people in all. Santa Amelia is a day and a half’s drive north of Guatemala City, the last two hours on gravel. By the time you arrive, you’ve given up any sense of altitude. The land is flat and low, and as we were there in the rainy season, wet and muddy. This is land that was given to the Mayan indigenous people for resettlement after the war. As such, it’s not the most desirable land in the country, and those who live here farm their small family holdings or leases to raise enough corn to feed their families. The homes are small 16×24 or 24×24 foot buildings of wooden boards and tin or thatch roofs, with either one or two rooms, and no plumbing or bath. The community has recently run a water tap to each lot in the community, and each home receives water every other day. Half or more of the homes have some electricity from small solar panels and batteries, typically wired to one or two light bulbs inside the home. Many people have cell phones, but far from all.
The greatest health need in this community is related to hygiene. There’s no septic or sewer system in town and in-ground latrines – where they exist – simply fill and overflow when it rains. Animals and people relieve themselves upon the ground, and the rains make of it a kind of goo. Bacterial, fungal and parasite infections are common. Cement floors in a person’s home are said to reduce these infections by 70%, but these floors are expensive and rare. Above ground latrines that provide waste for composting and fertilizer are another solution, one that is being pursued. Como Park Lutheran Church and ILAG have committed to providing materials for one latrine for every household in the church there, a total of 17 latrines, to improve health and hygiene.
The largest church in the community is Roman Catholic, with perhaps 40 families. The Pentecostal church and the Lutheran church are smaller, with approximately 25 and 16 families respectively. Relationships between the churches are acrimonious, in part because of competition for members, but also in part because of the roles each church’s leadership played in the civil war that ravaged the country between 1960 and 1996, Terrible atrocities were committed against the indigenous peoples by the Roman Catholic backed military, especially between 1980 and 1985. These resentments linger.
San Jose Lutheran Church is a dirt floored, wood planked building slightly less than 14 x 20 meters long, with walls 4 meters high and a tin roof overhead. The pews are rough wooden benches set on poles dug into the dirt floor. The pulpit is also a single post, dug into the earth with a board nailed into the top to serve as a lectern. Even though the congregation is small, they have a PA system that they use for music and preaching, making these things loud. There are a number of guitars and an electric keyboard. Como Park Lutheran Church has provided $1,000 for a cement floor for this building, and the congregational leadership there will move toward having that installed. Outside the church there are several tables with benches that sit under a tin awning. This space provides a place for community meals, projects and meetings. Our delegation members suggested to Padre Horacio that if a cement floor was being poured in the bulding, this area would be a nice addition for that pour.
The conversation about development projects ties directly to the congregation’s single greatest need, which is strong leadership development. The pastors from ILAG visit Santa Amelia infrequently, and had not been there for more than 12 months before our visit. There has been some dislocation in parish leadership as leaders have come and gone and come again, eroding a sense of continuity and trust. If Como Park Lutheran Church can do just one thing for San Jose, the thing that will make the biggest difference over time is the continued support for leadership development. Without this their worship and participation suffer, they lack clear vision, and the ability to follow through on projects is severely compromised. They need to develop strong leaders for community life, worship and mission.
As it is, Como Park Lutheran Church currently has several commitments to the people of San Jose Lutheran Church.
• First, we have promised to walk with them and pray for them in their journey to establish and grow their community of faith. That we go there to meet them and learn their needs and their names matters profoundly to them.
• Secondly, as part of our partnership agreement with ILAG, we are asked to contribute $2,000 per year toward missionary support for the work of Pastor Amanda Olson Castillo. Amanda is married to Padre Horacio Jr. and this missionary support from different congregations is their sole means of support. Como Park has just recently begun to contribute $1,000 per year to their ongoing ministry.
• In addition, we recognize that San Jose’s greatest need is for strong pastoral leadership. Toward that end, we have been contributing $600 per year to assist ILAG in bringing people from Santa Amelia to the Lutheran Center for training. This happens every other month for pastoral leaders, four times a year for women’s group leaders, once a year for youth leaders and several times a year for health and hygiene leaders.
• And finally, we have committed ourselves to parish development funds, with the goal of providing $1,000 per year to congregational projects. We are currently committed to two projects and considering a third. These projects include:
o A cement floor for the present church building – currently funded with $1,000.
o 17 Latrines, one for each home in the congregation and one for the church at a cost of $380.00/each. 8 of these are already funded.
o A proposed new church building of cinderblock construction, with a potential cost of $15,000.
The first two parish development projects above have our approval and support. The new church building requires more conversation. San Jose will provide us with a plan for parish development that recognizes our current forms of support and invites us to step out toward a new venture, particularly as regards the church building. Their plan will go through the Castillos at ILAG for preliminary approval, and we will receive it with their recommendations.
Following our visit to Santa Amelia, the group traveled to the beautiful lakeside town of Flores, where we found air conditioning, showers and rooms without wildlife. Flores is built into a hillside with cobblestone streets, beautiful shops and old world charm.
From there we traveled to Tikal, the jungle site of ancient Mayan ruins and temples. The sites here are amazing, with many sites restored and others still uncovered. Our guide was wonderfully well informed and he spoke very good English. One highlight for some was a brief stop outside the entrance to the reserve that holds Tikal, where a treetop zip line course gives you a birds eye view of the jungle canopy, placing you among the howler monkeys and spider monkeys of that place.
From Tikal we traveled south again to Poptun, staying at the guesthouse there, and returning to Guatemala City the next day. The water-pump on our little bus’s engine did give out some distance north of Guatemala City. We were, however, able to get five seats on a coach bus for the last two and a half hours of the drive. We were met at the bus terminal by Horacio’s sister Carmen and her son, who guided us to a restaurant for a late dinner and then back to the Lutheran Center for the night.
We are grateful to Bishop Horacio, Padre Horacio and Irving who traveled with us, translating and making arrangements as they were needed. We want to thank the people of San Jose for their warm hospitality and gracious care while we were with them. And we need to express our gratitude to Amanda and the ILAG staff who work tirelessly not just for us but for all the ministries in our partner congregations. They remain in our prayers each day.
For any and all who would consider participating on our next trip there, I can promise an enriching and rewarding experience. The climate and travel do present some physical challenges. I would not describe the trip as easy, but those who are willing to exert themselves and extend their comfort zones will encounter a people and experience that will touch their hearts and expand their imagination around what God is doing in this amazing place.
We are pleased and proud to walk hand in hand, shoulder by shoulder, with the people of San Jose Lutheran Church in Santa Amelia Guatemala, and to join with them in God’s mission. We pray for their continued health and growth, for the development of strong lay and pastoral leaders, for the completion of a strategic plan that we can join in with, and for the projects now underway. May God bless and sustain us in our ministries together. Amen.
-Pastor Martin R. Ericson
June 29, 2012