Walking With the Poor - Notes From the Field

Staff Encuentro in Mexico, December 2005

Encuentro (Spanish term meaning gathering or meeting.): CFCA gathering of staff in a region where CFCA serves. Participants share stories, methods, ideas and hopes for the future of CFCA in the region.

A weekend in Guatemala before departure to Mexico

After our November journey to India and the Philippines, I was able to spend a weekend visiting the CFCA project in Ocotepeque, Honduras. In this project of 2,600 sponsored, it was a joy to witness the personal attention offered to children, youth and aging. The CFCA Center is a very welcoming place – built mainly by parent volunteers. Young people walk in from the surrounding mountains for special courses in sewing, cooking, crafts, study skills and life skills. What a joy to see the enthusiasm of 42 of these sponsored campesino (rural) young people as they graduated with degrees such as teaching and accounting. Many of them have been sponsored since kindergarten.

We also visited a fascinating project in the western highlands of Guatemala called Santa Lucia Utatlan. Seven men, all of them fathers of sponsored children, make up the small business of producing quality blue jeans. They began with encouragement, orientation and a start-up loan from CFCA which they have repaid. For almost two years this livelihood project has provided a living wage for these seven fathers. They are able to take home at least double the income they would earn as day laborers working for someone else. These seven artisans have offered to train other parents.

Tapachula, Chiapas – Mexico

On Monday, Dec. 5 we drove from cool San Lucas Toliman to warm Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico. This area was hit extremely hard by Hurricane Stan two months ago. We still were not able to cross into Mexico at our regular crossing, Tecun Uman because the international bridge here was destroyed. Forty kilometers upstream we cross at El Carmen. Public processions and devotions in honor of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec. 12) fill the evening air.

Impressive is the number of Central American immigrants heading north. My wife, Cristina, and I also will travel to the U.S. border with El Paso where we will encourage our team in Juarez as they inaugurate a new CFCA Center and strive to build a CFCA community of compassion in that hurting border town.

Project Juarez: “I will never forget you, my people”

Our new CFCA center is in the heart of western Juarez, a great location and accessible to the nearly 800 sponsored families in this area. A group of CFCA mothers (and one father) stopped by to see us. We had a good interchange about the realities in their neighborhoods. A frequently mentioned topic is the violence against women and girls. Most of these families have had to struggle to get water into their communities, many times digging the ditches and wells themselves. Often the only electricity is what they can clandestinely obtain from the main line.

We did some dreaming about training in sewing and the production of school uniforms for the CFCA children. We are currently renting the upper floor of a corner house, across the street from the local parish. I note that the first floor of this building would make a great work space for a livelihood center, a place for mothers to gather, a place for children to receive help with their studies. The parents and children are very appreciative of the nice-looking warm jackets the children are receiving for Christmas — complete with CFCA letters and logo. They are excited about preparing for the traditional Posadas (Christmas celebrations) planned for this Saturday… and of course, the tamales.

Sunset and tolvaderas (tumbleweeds)

It was after 4 p.m. when we headed south out of Juarez in a rented Chevy. Our destination for tonight will be Chihuahua. I learn that near Chihuahua, in a little place called Cuchillo Parado, Pancho Villa organized his northern army around 1910. Tomorrow we will continue our journey to visit sponsored families in the high Sierra of the Tarahumara. I consider it a great privilege to travel through this majestic high country with such a fine group of young Mexican CFCA co-workers. As we drive we learn a lot about Mexico, about CFCA, about the realities of life in these parts and about one another.

Today we will be visiting 51 sponsored children in the town of Madera, one of our subprojects in the Tarahumara mountain range. People living in this high country are usually very tan from the mountain sun and wind.

Madera

The sisters of Siervas del Sagrado Corazon y de los Pobres (Servants of the Sacred Heart and the Poor) have served in this community since 1945. Of the three sisters currently serving here, Sister Georgina is in charge of the CFCA project.

The mothers of sponsored children shared with us that many of them are heads of households and the sole provider. “If it were not for the CFCA sponsorship program, our children would not be able to attend this school.” This little school in the sierra has an enviable academic record. The fourth-graders and sixth-graders presented for us several regional dances. The afternoon chill was considerably reduced by the sun-kissed smiles of the children, my musical tour of the CFCA world and a hot meal of the area specialty, “Chile Colorado.” And now we head back through the mountains under a crescent moon to Chihuahua.

Last afternoon in Juarez

We will spend this afternoon in staff formation. I will be giving them an update on current trends and policies in the CFCA world. I feel very good about the time we have spent together in the subprojects. They are a very united group. I pray that their union will give them the strength they need to build a CFCA community in western Juarez. Very early tomorrow morning Cristina and I will fly to Mexico City and on to Tapachula. After where we have been the last few days, the heat will feel good.

CFCA families hard-hit by Hurricane Stan

We drive into the area ripped apart by Hurricane Stan. In the middle of it is Chapingo, with 153 children sponsored. The children and most of their parents had come through the mountains for this paseo (passage), as one dad called it. They had placed rough-hewn planks on trozos (tree trunks) in semi-circular form for our meeting. All of this takes place literally on top of one of the hundreds of major landslides. The destruction from the powerful waters is so extensive, I can compare it only to what I imagine a hydrogen bomb might do.

By nature, these humble campesino people are quite shy. With a few songs, religious and country, they seem to relax and grow in confidence. Twelve-year-old Maura gave a nice welcoming talk. Hernan, her dad, also expressed gratitude for the sponsorship program, mentioning that CFCA was the first group to help during and after the hurricane. Four-year-old Gloria gave a poem about a little worm that ate bread and cheese. Her flimsy house sits right on the edge of the river bed. This little home and the lives in it were saved by the trunk of an enormous tree that slammed into their doorstep and lodged there, protecting them from the raging waters and boulders.

Tortillas, beans and mole

We finished up our gathering by sharing tortillas, beans and mole, brought by the families. We drive to the simple and accessible CFCA office in Belisario Domingo for planning meeting with staff. It’s late; it’s hot; we are without electricity, but this will be our only chance to see this local staff, so we have a staff meeting anyway. A cup of coffee, a piece of bread and we are off in the night through the mountains, kicking up dust to Motozintla. The faith of the people in this mountain town, both men and women of all ages, fills the church on the vigil of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

We come upon a tremendous number of pilgrimages on the roads in honor of La Virgen Morena (Our Lady of Guadalupe). Many have been on the road for several days. We arrive in Comitan in the early afternoon and begin our staff gathering with a look back at 2005 and plans for 2006. We ask Maria, Patroness of the Americas, to watch over our sponsored families in Mexico and throughout the world.

Comitan to Chiapa de Corso — My own Pilgrimage of Faith route

It is slow going on the roads today because of the thousands of children, youth and adults following the antorchas Guadalupanas (torch-bearing pilgrimages) in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Many of them do their running barefoot. Runners of all sizes and shapes are backed-up by vehicles of all sizes and shapes, both colorfully adorned for this special day. I calculate that one-third of the population must be running; one-third waiting along the road cheering on the runners and one third gathering in the bathrooms of every gas station in the country.

Chiapa de Corso

We get to spend a couple of hours with the 63 families who make up this relatively new yet close knit group located in a very poor area on the edge of town. This humble, dusty neighborhood is poor in itself, but very rich in its view of the mountains. I was impressed by how much they want to learn about CFCA worldwide, and how much the children and families love the program. Most of these families are indigenous of the Tzotzil ethnic group, who fled the fighting in their area in 1994. Intelligent and outgoing children interacted with us and performed a few dances, highlighted by the deep colors of their native dress. There on the dirt floor and with greetings in the Totzil language, we share a snack at dusk with this very promising CFCA community of compassion.

Quite a gig in Pichucalco

We left Chiapa de Corso this morning, negotiating mountain curves most of the day. It’s fascinating and full of memories to travel the same roads I traversed on foot during the 1996 Pilgrimage of Faith. Passed the exact spot where Christina fell and shattered her knee. I remember even the tangerine tree, alongside the road, that nourished us. It’s still bearing fruit.

We arrived in Pichucalco just before 4 p.m. to 118 sponsored families waiting for us. Words of welcome, dances, smiles, excitement about the program and the participation of our Merida project team filled a two-hour program. Of course, I always enjoy the interaction and singing with the families, encouraging them to broaden their vision of and their commitment to the CFCA community of compassion. The sun has set, but we have a full moon to guide us through the banana plantations to Villahermosa, Tabasco.

Villahermosa, Nacajuca and Chicozapote

We took a combi (SUV-style public transportation) about an hour out to the rural area called Chicozapote, where we have 57 children sponsored and two boys on CFCA scholarships. Children and many parents came in for this special gathering. They are a very gentle people and obviously very poor. Most walked to the celebration. Some had to cross the Samaria River on small boats to get here. To the accompaniment of drums and flute, the children performed several regional dances. Two mothers spoke in appreciation of the program. It was a fine sharing, topped off by home-made tamales. Again the full moon guides us back to Nacajuca and Villahermosa.

Project Merida Encuentro

The best place to form CFCA staff is right in the middle of sponsored families, with their immense goodness and their challenging reality. Today, amidst the coastal heat and mosquitoes of these swampy lands, we have the great opportunity of doing exactly that. Tomorrow, we will make the long drive across the states of Tabasco and Chiapas to the Guatemalan border. On Dec. 17, we will cross into Guatemala at La Mesilla and continue the five-hour trek to San Lucas Toliman. We anxiously await a nice large group of CFCA sponsors on Dec. 26.

Feliz Navidad

Cristina and I want to thank you for traveling with us into the lives of our inspiring sponsored children, their families and our front-line CFCA co-workers working directly with them. We send heartfelt Christmas and New Year’s greetings to each of you. Please know of our love and thanks.

Bob Hentzen
Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico

Dec.15, 2005