Walking With the Poor - Notes From the Field

MISSION AWARENESS TRIP TO GUATEMALA
March 4 - 11, 2006

It is indeed a joy to be in touch with you during this Lenten Season, 2006. I take great inspiration from your testimony of commitment to growing in grace and walking with the poor. The concept of walking with the poor implies staying close to our sponsored families, and growing personally in this celebration of solidarity. CFCA appreciates the active and faithful participation of a growing number of God’s people, both as sponsors and sponsored. With God’s grace, we strive each day to earn the trust of both groups.

A developing solidarity

CFCA sponsors experience a developing solidarity with their sponsored friends. Those of us who accompany sponsors on mission awareness trips are privileged to witness this tremendously real, life-changing solidarity. We continue to be inspired and grateful for the way CFCA is growing.

On the March 2006 Mission Awareness Trip to Guatemala, we were fortunate to have sponsors and friends from many different states and countries: Japan, Honduras, Guatemala, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio, to name just a few. Each of these wonderful sponsors has his/her own story and journey. Parallel to the sponsor’s journey is the journey of the sponsored children, youth, aging friends, seminarians.

This morning at our little hotel, my brother Bud Hentzen was able to visit Ernesto, whom Bud’s family has been sponsoring for many years. Ernesto is taking some time off from seminary studies to earn some money working in Guatemala City. This mission awareness group also got to meet Karen, the sponsored girl who suffers from leukemia. Karen came this time with her grandmother, a dignified indigenous woman from the region of Quiche.

I’m happy to say that all sponsors visited their sponsored children, youth, aging friends, seminarians … and I might add quite a few family and village members as well.

CFCA sponsors are aware of the reality, gifts and potential of the poor

In the CFCA family, the poor help us in our ongoing conversion. Closeness to God’s poor can be a rare experience for people born, raised and living in the so-called developed world. When our sponsors begin to experience the injustice and harshness of the process of poverty, they are sometimes inclined to judge the situation by “back-home” standards. This can sometimes lead to frustration, but it can also become an opportunity offered by the poor for us to grow in gratitude, knowledge and grace.

CFCA endeavors to share with the sponsors not only the reality, but also the gifts and potential of the poor. Among our sponsored families, hope, prayer and work done in community become the order of the day.

Walking with the poor toward a culture of compassion

We know that this culture of compassion is of great need in Central America. Our society is rife with economic inequality. Malnutrition, poor housing and infant diseases are widespread. Chronic unemployment seems to contribute to an ever-present crime wave.

When we make a commitment to get close to the families, we discover that many of our sponsored children and youth are living in situations of alarming risk.

Ongoing conversion, understanding and kinship

CFCA sponsors are in a process of ongoing conversion, understanding and kinship with their sponsored friends.

The CFCA communities of compassion across the globe are graced to be able to position our sponsors close enough to God’s poor as to see up close their hope, their goodness, their potential. We strive to do this with delicacy and respect.

Respecting the dignity of the poor, we are privileged to work within the context of mutuality—sponsored and sponsors. By the grace of God, and years of experience of walking with the poor, we continue to opt for a majority of benefits in the form of services including, but not limited to, education, health, housing and training in the livelihood trades.

CFCA sponsors are invited to enter the world of the sponsored. Over the years, and in some places to this very day, this implies entering a conflictive world. Whether the differences are based upon politics, religion, race or anything else, CFCA strives to remain focused on direct benefits and services to our members and their families — making every effort to listen to their expressed, felt needs.

I will sign off for now, always with a prayer of thanks and gratitude. I’ll be in touch from on down the road in the CFCA projects. God’s blessings to each of you.

Bob Hentzen
On the Road for CFCA
March 10, 2006