How You Can Help - Letter From Guatemala

VIVA GUATEMALA

January 2005

Hello once again everyone. I hope each of you enjoyed the holiday season with your families.

October in Guatemala was a month full of celebrations. The school year ended in mid October and this began one week of fiestas in our village of San Lucas. The people call these days “la feria”. It is a week of parades, sports tournaments, fireworks (actually sticks of dynamite), dances, and late night family gatherings. Once October rolled around, the only thing that was talked about in the streets was this upcoming town festival. During this week, I had the opportunity to ride a mechanical bull as well. After I was thrown violently through the air from the high-powered spinning bull, I encouraged a friend of mine to hop on and give it a ride. All 100 pounds of her jerked forcefully forward as soon as the bull moved. She managed to crack her front tooth and get blood all over her white shirt. Luckily there was a volunteer dentist in town to check on her. Once the feria ended, the whole town needed a few weeks to rest and recuperate.

I realized during these past months how close I have grown to the family that I live with in San Lucas. They are a very social family and always go out of their way to make me feel comfortable and welcome in the home. Having conversations with the father, Angel, and with some of the children, I have learned much not only about the way of life in Guatemala, but also about the way of the Guatemalan people. One day, I had the chance to go to the coffee fields with Angel and pick coffee during the annual harvest. I know that I will miss this family greatly.

I have continued performing the same role with CFCA over these last months. I do a lot of translating from Spanish to English of personal profiles, letters, and various other documents. I also have talks with some of the mission groups that come down from the U.S. to spend a week here. I tell them about CFCA and help them to sponsor a child if they would like to.

Some friends of mine from Kansas City contacted me this Fall telling me of their desires to provide some money to help the children and families in need in Guatemala. I spoke to some people in a very poor community close to where I live in Guatemala asking them of their needs. They informed me that in their small Mayan village, the children had very little to do for recreation and fun. They told me that they would like to someday have a place for children to play games and spend time together. I contacted some of my friends and family and asked for their support for this project. A sizable amount of funds were donated in short order. Near the end of November we surprised the children of the village with two new foosball tables. We also purchased several pounds of candy, a couple piñatas and 85 plastic balls for the children of the community. All of these things were presented as a surprise to the children and people of the community during their annual festival.

I was lucky to be present for all of this and see the joy that this gift created for hundreds of children and for their families. From sunrise to sunset, the children are using the foosball tables. We had a little bit of money left over after this and purchased some games and toys for the children of another community. The last of the money was given to a single mother with four children who had no food or money. The day I visited with her and her children, they had not eaten and had no plan to eat that day. She was thrilled with this gift and was able to feed her children and herself. I am very thankful for the generosity of all who made this event possible.

Being in Guatemala this year, I have had the chance to observe and ponder the life of poverty and consider some of the reasons behind it. One of the things I see is a poor educational system in the country which results in an uneducated general public. Also, when given the chance to go to school, many of the children seem to receive very poor grades and in many instances fail grades or quit school. I used to attribute this to a lack of caring by the students and/or their parents. However, the truth is that most children in rural Guatemala go to school from about 7:30 am until noon each day. Upon arriving home, they go out to the fields to help their fathers (average daily wage is about $2.25) work the land or help their mothers by cutting and collecting firewood. In single parent households, the children actively help care for the younger siblings while the mother tries to earn whatever money she can to support the family. After a full day of school and working in the fields and in the home, the children do their homework. Many times this may come after having dinner where there is not adequate food to feed everyone.

The next morning, the children get up out of a bed (made of wood in many cases) that they may share with siblings to get ready for another day at school. When they leave to go to school, it is highly likely that it is on an empty stomach. When a child is sitting in school, hungry because he/she has not eaten and tired because he/she worked in the fields and did not get a good night sleep, it is hard to expect that this child will have any motivation to learn how to read and write or add and subtract. After having this explained to me, I understood much better the problems that these people have to confront on a daily basis. The point is that one must first feed, clothe, and give adequate shelter to a child before the child can be provided an education. The primary benefits provided by CFCA are food supplies, clothing, medicine, and educational supplies. I truly believe that CFCA is on the right track of giving so many sponsored children a chance to have better lives through the generosity of the CFCA sponsors and the distribution of the necessities of life.

So, why do severe situations like this exist in Guatemala and so many other countries in the world? Certainly part of it can be attributed to the corruption of some of the governments in these countries. The desire for money and power seem to be the leading cause of this corruption. There are many other theories and questions as to why poverty exists in our world. I don’t believe that we will ever understand it completely. One thing I do see when I look at poverty is an opportunity. An opportunity for us to take a small amount of the resources that God has given to us and share these with those who were not born into the same situation as we were. Why are we the lucky ones?

I returned to Kansas City from Guatemala 3 weeks ago. During this short time, I have realized how different our lives are here and how much we have to be grateful for. The feeling of a hot shower with good water pressure is quite a way to start my day. I could go on and on about other things to be grateful for, but each of you already know what these are.

This concludes the end of my mission in Guatemala. It was very bittersweet leaving my life in Guatemala to return home. I met so many wonderful people this past year and developed many new friendships along the way. I know I will always miss the peacefulness and magical feeling of San Lucas. For now, I am very happy to have returned home to be with family and friends, the two things that I missed the most while I was away. I do hope one day to have the opportunity to return to Guatemala and revisit some of the people and places that made this past year so unforgettable. I am not sure what this year or the future will bring for me. I can only hope that God puts in my path something else half as fulfilling as this past year was for me. I would like to thank you all once again for the extremely generous support and for all the prayers you have provided to me this past year. I will always be grateful to you for this. I wish each of you and your families a very prosperous new year full of many blessings.

Thank you and God bless.

John