Guatemala Reflection: Part 2 - We are a Family

By Barbara Thomson

This is part two of Barbara’s reflection on the youth pilgrimage to Guatemala this July, on which she was one of the three adult leaders. If you missed it, you can read part one, "Witness", here.

My family grew as I attended this year’s visit to Guatemala. Being a St. Martin’s member has already grown my family to include the other adults and St. Martin’s youth. This year it grew to include the Guatemalan families that our group of 11 (plus 3 - our driver, guide, and interpreter) met as we plowed through the Highlands from churches to homes and missions in our packed red van.  

Our wonderful translator, Melvin. Photo by the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

It takes a leap of faith to be an adult leader on these youth trips – especially one who gets on board at the last minute! I have chaperoned twice to South Dakota, but I was asked just a few weeks before this trip to join and didn’t fully realize all of what I’d be getting in to! We know before we leave where we’re going and what we’ll be doing, and we trust that we will get along while we’re there. As soon as we go through security, the magic of being in a family – my new family –  kicked in. We were not the traditional household of parents and children, but rather a group of people with certain roles who watch out for, take care of, and love each other during our time together and thereafter. 

Photo of the youth at the chocolate factory. From Clare's camera.

Our group started every day with breakfast, piled into the van, took on a new experience, sat down for lunch, took on another experience, sat down for dinner, and ended with compline. We quickly knew who positioned for the window seat, who carried the soccer balls, and who loved fancy coffee and pink drinks. At the end of the day, we all asked God to “Keep watch with those who work or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep…”

Compline by flashlight. Photo by the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel.

Ground transportation in San Lucas. Photo by the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel.

Kate balancing a tub. Photo by Gavin.

While our youth group became a family as we walked through security at the airport, we met our extended St. Martin’s family as we walked into their churches and homes, and then played soccer. (We found that our St. Martin’s kids were better prepared for their cold showers after a hot and sweaty soccer workout.) With each new family we met, each new story we heard, these people became family to us. We were welcomed into homes and churches where they fed us, taught us, and shared time and company. 

Guatemalan church family. Photo by Gavin.

Youth with a Guatemalan family. Photo by Clare.

Hospitality. Photo by Clare.

Playing fútbol. Photo by Clare.

At the end of the day, we would talk about and try to understand what we saw, felt, and learned that day. Every day someone talked about how he or she was touched by the children’s love for learning, communicating despite language gaps, how welcome they felt at the homes and churches we visited, the care from our guide, driver, and interpreter, and the gap in wealth. We also spent time thanking our St. Martin’s kids for showing so much appreciation and respect to the families they met. We were proud of them and appreciate their individual contributions.

Home visit near Chichicastenango in Sepela. Photo by the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel.

Dinner with the Bishop of Guatemala. Photo by the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel.

Within our own group, we took care of each other. There were moments of concern as some were overwhelmed with emotion and some had digestive issues. When asked to help get the sick ones packed up so we could get the group to Antigua, they helped out without flinching and the sick ones were given preferential treatment for the 2 hour ride. When we arrived back in Miami, the first ones at baggage claim collected all the bags and had them waiting for the rest of us as we made our way through Customs. 

Kate holding a baby. Photo by Clare.

The St. Martin’s folks and the Guatemalan folks became a group of people with certain roles who watched out for, took care of, and loved each other during our time together. I’ve also found that the love doesn’t end. We may not see each other regularly but our care for one another lives on so that when we see someone, like Leslie who we recognize from a story from years past, we make sure she gets her new glasses. We are connected. We are a family.

We're on a boat! Photo by Gavin.

The family returns home. Photo by the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel.

Guatemala Reflection: Part 1 - Witness

By Barbara Thomson

This is part one of Barbara’s reflection on the youth pilgrimage to Guatemala this July, on which she was one of the three adult leaders.

Rooftops, Mountain, Sky in Guatemala. Photo by Gavin.

Honestly, I was not totally prepared for what we experienced in Guatemala. 

As we traveled to different places, such as Xela to Pachoj or ChiChi or San Lucas Toliman, we shared what we were going to see, who we were going to meet, and what we were going to do. Just as you prepare yourself and/or your children for new experiences, the adults tried to prepare the youths for the people and environment they were going to encounter. It was often head-spinning to hear:

They will be living in a place that looks like a shack to us. The whole family lives in one room. There is no indoor running water. There is no bathroom. There are no windows. They use wood to cook in their stoves and heat their homes.

Kids typically leave school around 6th grade so they can work and earn money for the family. One family recently got a solar panel and has electricity that allows them to work later into the night to embroider their piece-work garments. There’s no school bus. The families can’t afford school supplies such as notebooks and uniforms without our help. The families depend on us at St. Martin’s to send their kids to school.

For those over 18, you will meet women in the prison and see many children. Their children live there with them until they are 4 years old. The women cook for themselves in the prison kitchen. Their families and Father Roberto bring them food. They wash their clothes by hand.  

The Mission started out with Father Greg who saw malnourished children over 50 years ago and it has grown to a thriving school, coffee coop, women’s center, and hospital. 

Father Stan Rother was an American martyr who was killed at his church during the 30-year Civil War.

I especially related to the education and medical issues. As a mother and wife, these are my primary concerns for my family. I could feel how hard and what a hardship it was for children to go to school. Many of the families can’t help their children with their schoolwork because the families don’t speak, read or write in Spanish. They speak K’iche’, their native Mayan language that is mostly spoken. The parents may not be able to read or write because they didn’t go to school. Education is not an expectation for everybody. It is only for those who can afford it. 

This is true for healthcare, too. There is no government assisted healthcare. Emergency rooms exist for those who can pay for them. And when someone has no money, it means no ibuprofen, no antibiotics, no allergy or asthma medicine, no well visits, no eyeglasses, no high blood pressure medicine, no chemotherapy, no x-rays, no anesthesia for delivering babies, and no dialysis. Simple afflictions that we take care of with doctor visits or trips to our medicine cabinets in our bathrooms, could potentially be life threatening.  If you need special surgery, you wait until a group of surgeons comes to the mission hospital and hope you get operated on during the week they’re in town that year. Birth control is not discussed although many girls have babies in their teens and it is not uncommon for someone to have 10 children. 

We arrived at their churches, missions, and homes and we were welcomed with open hearts, food to eat, and gifts. They all made us a special meal. The women taught us to make tortillas. We heard about the difference St. Martin’s has made in their lives. We heard from the young adults who were children a few years ago talking about getting jobs in schools and teaching the next generation or becoming bookkeepers and earning more money for their families. One scholarship student is now at the University and wants to be the President of Guatemala. We met the young boys who are being raised by their grandparents because their parents abandoned them to work in Guatemala City but were not heard from again. We heard from a family living with HIV and luckily receiving medicine because of St. Martin’s support. 

Making Tortillas. Photo by Clare.

We met the women who run the chocolate coop. We were told that we were visiting a chocolate factory. Upon arrival we learned that the chocolate factory consisted of a room with a wood burning stove and a small table. The women make the chocolate at home and sell it door to door or in the market. They divide up the money at their meetings and each person receives her share of the money in a Ziploc bag with her name on it. In these better homes, they have stoves with flues, which helps to minimize the smoke from the wood they burn. Otherwise, they cook over open fires.

As we traveled over mountains, around hairpin turns, over Lake Atitlan and between cities, and walked through the cornfields to their homes, we learned about our long-standing relationships with the people we couldn’t necessarily identify before our trip. We met Leslie and her family. Leslie was the recipient of an eye exam and eyeglasses in 2014 because some St. Martin’s youths discovered her condition kept her from going to school. She was wearing her glasses when we met her we recognized it is time for a check-up. Unfortunately, Leslie still does not attend school because she was so far behind when she got her glasses, but we are providing for new glasses and some books to help her learn to read. Leslie speaks some Spanish but is most comfortable speaking K’iche’. We are also sending various inexpensive over the counter reading glasses to the women who work late into the night on their piecework.

Over and over we heard the families explain the huge impact St. Martin’s has made on their lives. The children love to go to school and the parents appreciate it. The older ones are now working in professions thanks to their scholarships. And after we all talked, the American and Guatemalan kids would play soccer together. They’d divide into teams, run after the ball, make some goals, laugh and cheer, cry foul sometimes, and keep going until they got the nod from the adults that it is time to go to our next thing.  

My family grew as I attended this year’s visit to Guatemala. Being a St. Martin’s member has already grown my family to include the other adults and St. Martin’s youth. This year it grew to include the Guatemalan families that our group met as we plowed through the Highlands from churches to homes and missions in our packed red van. 

Watch next week for part two of Barbara’s reflection on Guatemala, "We are a Family".

A Peek into the March Vestry Retreat

On Saturday, March 16 your vestry gathered for our annual vestry retreat. The focus of the retreat was advancing our Becoming Beloved Community strategic framework through reflection, conversation, clarification, and delegation. By following this link you can view the full notes generated at the retreat in a format that follows the major headings of the Becoming Beloved Community strategic framework:
1. Institution: Leadership and Practice

• Training/orienting parish leaders with lens of racial healing
• Process for recruiting, hiring, and retaining persons of color to senior staff positions

2. Education: Many Points of Entry

• BBC conversation starter
• BBC basic workshop in fall 2019

3. Public Witness: Rapid, appropriate response informed by and in partnership with people of color.

• Community Engagement creates racial justice/witness process
• Add rapid response/witness to ongoing work with POWER

In the morning, we worked with a wonderful consultant named Anthony Moore who helped our leadership reflect on the meaning of diversity of inclusion for St. Martin’s. We emerged from that session with a strong sense that difference enriches our community and requires a commitment to education and growth to allow differences to feel welcomed and to flourish in the church.

A repeated theme was that we need to welcome, respect, and attend to the experience of each person simply because that experience or perspective is their own. We also need to encourage an atmosphere of mutual support and learning so we can try, fail, and succeed together and endure in community through the inevitable mistakes that come with growth. As Barb Ballenger often reminds me, having set off on the path of racial healing we will be all the more accountable and more acutely aware when we fall short. Prayer, mutual support, forgiveness, and endurance will be crucial to the path forward.
In the afternoon, our agenda focused on points 1 and 3 of the strategic framework. First we established clear definitions of racism, bigotry, and implicit bias. Then we created a list of qualities and skills to guide a future training program for parish leaders. We brainstormed factors we should consider in designing a process to recruit, hire, and retain people of color in senior staff positions at the church. We reflected deeply on authority and trust and how racism disrupts and distorts relationships by spreading distrust and diminishing authority. I reflected on how much unearned authority and trust I receive simply because I am white, straight, and male and how different it would be for a person of color in my position.

We finished a very productive day by delegating work on point three, public witness, to the community engagement committee. The vestry laid down broad-brush recommendations and the committee will design a public witness policy and procedure to present to the vestry at a later date. This work will dovetail nicely with the work we did in parish forum last Sunday. We will bring the results of this committee work to the parish for conversation and endorsement, hopefully by annual meeting on Sunday, June 9.

I could not be more proud of our vestry for such sincere, brave, and open engagement with a challenging and promising agenda that will shape the future of this parish. The vestry and all of our members have the power to shape the environment of this place toward the flourishing of each member in his or her blessed uniqueness! St. Martin’s has made an intentional choice to face our legacy of racism and to turn toward God’s path of racial justice, cultural humility, and racial healing. May God bless us on this journey.

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

Here's that link again for our retreat full minutes.