August 5, 2006

It is the victories and triumphs of our life that make and establish who we are and what we are to become. Our goals lead us through dark alleys where we must maneuver our way up down and around the unseen hits and blows of what seems to be our enemies. Yet we tread on, fighting the fight, to overcome. Through this passage, we are reassured of our being, of who we are and what we stand for. Often we find or confirm what we live for our passion and our future. Memories ravel themselves with the rest of life, and in certain journeys, rights of passage are earned. For this, life continues to contradict itself and the war of two world’s wages on.

In Guatemala, I must celebrate one victory. It is the beginning of new life and new love, as it is also the end to dreams and fairytales. My visions and dreams of foreign land have been short lived. As a child and throughout my life, I only dreamed of the moments that I would make a home in a distant land. It was there that I knew I would feel truly at peace and alive, with a different people. It never mattered what I would be doing, as long as I was in some way helping in unity with the people in whatever the need was. The possibilities were endless of what I could see myself pursuing, but none of that mattered as long as found a place with the people, and my life was serving our Lord. Life in Guatemala is now real to me, I know their stories and they in tern know my own. My dreams are no longer far fetched; my visions are not only words but also substantive verbs.

Their lives have become reality, their struggle; beauty and celebration are real and alive in my mind. I have come to understand and to live, once unanswerable questions about their culture and lives I once learned and pondered. The people are no longer unfamiliar picture seen in books and films. They are people that have welcomed me into their lives, who I have spent days with passing by. People I have joined to both celebrate and to cry and faces that I have come to know and identify. The children have grabbed my heart and ripped it out; they have turned my life upside down. I join the children in the field to play, at the river to swim, in the street to ride bikes and ‘bailar trompos,’ and am often sought out for help with homework. I attend the church with the women, sing and clap to the same hymns and songs of praise. I often join them at the river to wash laundry by hand or to cook in the kitchen. Frequently I end up sitting outside by hammock delighting in the day’s beauty. I often join the men at the dinner table to chat, I sometimes serve drinks under the hot sun while they are hard at work, and have been known to pick of a shovel and mix cement. I can identify their struggle and celebration, as it one that I too have lived, if only for a short time.

In Machaquilá, I have come to understand many struggles within the home setting. I know the faces of fathers who rape their daughters; I sit next to them in church every Sunday. In fact, he dedicated his new baby girl in Church just two Sundays ago, and yes, the Pastors know. Praise God that his eldest daughter continues to not bear her father’s child, as does another on the outskirts of town. I know the eyes of a brother who rapes his sister. I know a woman who is secretly are unfaithful to their husbands, and prostitutes her body for a higher education. I know a woman who, while her husband was in the United States sending money back home from New York, was enjoying her newfound wealth with another man. Her kids left in the street while she hosted men in her home on fine dining, while her children ate scraps and uncooked food. It is not unfamiliar to find women whose children are by other men and not their husbands. I know a man who has other children by mistresses, and his wife suffers financially as he has begun to support them with their hard-earned money. Most children run around in the streets without the firm hand of their parents needing to know where they are. The family system is a difficult aspect to understand, there seems to be no real patterns within infidelity as unfaithfulness is as prevalent among men as it is among women.

Jobs in Machaquilá leave some families destitute while others are thriving. The fight and struggle for work is constant in this town, as in most of Guatemala. The history and discrimination found within land distribution, has left those working in agriculture to struggle. Farmers and lack of land have put a wedge within families, as it has forced landowners to travel to their land, men often leave home for the month or for the week to work their land. With men out of the house, this creates opportunity for infidelity for either one of the couple.

Lack of a good income further yet allows for the options of unlawful activities such as drug trafficking and robbery to thrive in communities. Murders and violence are especially frequent. Within just the last month, my friends and family here have suffered the lose of so many. Just yesterday both a little girl was hit by a car and died and a friend of the neighbors’ family died by lack of medical attention. The pain that the people experience, I experience with them. Within this last month, two of Miguel’s co-workers have been murdered, a woman in Dolores was severely beaten and left to die, and a man was shot out on the street while riding his Moto. My heartbreaks with them as I watch poverty and violence tear apart families.

Lack of education and good education has forced many to work fields, construction, transportation and education. The school system is made up of Kinder, Primeria, Basico and Diversificado that are very closely modeled after the educational system of the United States. It is Diversificado where a specialization is chosen such as Magisterio for teachers, Inginerio for engineers and so on. Most are trapped into Magisterio for financial and economic reasons, and this is where the cycle of bad education is perpetuated, for lack of passion and training. After nine years of basic education and three years of training as a teacher, they are sent out in the field on their own. Taught by teachers who often barely read at the sought out level of academic performance and care little about formal education the kids leave Basico with little more than the ability to read and write.

There are two types of Churchgoers in Guatemala, Evangelicals and Catholics.
There is a distinct line between the two types of people, if anyone chooses one church over the other, his character is then determined by his decision. The Catholic is almost never considered a Christian; many participate in the things of the world, including many Satanic Festivals. If an Evangelical were to enter the Catholic Church and take communion, it is considered blaspheme to God, along with the other acts of the Church. The Evangelical Church system in Guatemala thrives itself on the legalities of the Christian life. A Christian, more specifically referred to as an Evangelico, is defined by the life he follows and every action he takes is closely perceived and then judged for him. Parties, dancing, drinking, non-Christian music, any association with this type of lifestyle is strictly forbidden. Attendance at nearly every service is the unspoken mandatory for being perceived as a ‘good’ Christian.

I have accustomed myself to all of these things, and it is within this, that my victory is won. My heartaches and breaks with the people, as friendships have been built that will last a lifetime, for all their suffering and pain. I have lived, loved, cried and laughed with the people who have become my family. It is not that I agree with every action and every form of life, especially in my thoughts about the Church. In fact the Church’s legalism, has been my toughest trial, but I have endured the lifestyle. Paul writes in I Corinthians 9:20-21,
When I am with the Jews, I become one of them so that I can bring them to Christ. When I am with those who follow the Jewish laws, I do the same, even though I am not subject to the law, so that I can bring them to Christ. When I am with the Gentiles ho do not have the Jewish law, I fit in with them as much as I can. In this was I gain their confidence and bring them to Christ. But I do not discard the law of God; I obey the law of Christ. (NLT)

While I am not bound to the same laws as the Church, I too must conform myself to their standards as to not offend them. However, I will not change scripture or compromise the truth. His concern was to win them for God’s kingdom, nothing more or less than eternal life. It is here that I have found true peace in my suffering; I proceed on obeying the laws of the church, to bear witness to our Savior.
The war between two worlds, my greatest triumph upon my journey, is also my greatest anxiety and heartache. I truly have fallen in love with the beauty of both the people and the land. When I think about the day I have to leave this place and everyday in between, at the very thought my heartaches. My only sense of hope is thinking about the day that I have the chance to return. In the past three months Machaquilá has become apart of me, my home. I have developed deep relationships with the people, both as friends and family. While there have been struggles, there always will be, but the more I come to know these people the more I fell in love with them. My future lays in the hands of God, but until I know my heart will ache as it has been torn in two between a people where I feel I belong, and the other that I have always had my home. I pray my heart will be silenced by time.