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Published: March 11th 2007
Diane and the girls
Pastor Diane giving some of the Safe Passage kids food packages from Feed My Starving Children.It's about 10:30pm here in Guate, and most everyone is fast asleep from the day's adventures. As I lie awake in an attempt to update you all, the music from nearby parties combines with the traffic of chicken buses below and American fighter jets overhead. It's not quite your typical lullaby.
(As some of you may or may not know, President Bush is currently in the middle of a somewhat unwelcome tour of Latin America... and it seems as if the US is using these extremely loud fighter jets to remind people that they'd better not try anything. And this is supposed to be a "friendly" visit? We sure do have funny ways of showing it. Sorry... Politics. I'll move on.)
Well, our plane landed safely in Guatemala City early Saturday morning, and after piling our bags (and our men) into the back of an old rusty cattle truck, we all made our way to the hotel. The main item on our agenda for today was a visit to an organization called Safe Passage.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Safe Passage, it is an organization that provides the children from the Guatemala City Garbage Dump with
The Dump
If you would like more information about Safe Passage, visit http://www.safepassage.org
The Oscar-nominated documentary short called Recycled Life is also another great source of information. The DVD also includes a tribute to Safe Passage and the late Hanley Denning. an education... and more importantly, a future. This particular dump is Latin America's largest and most toxic landfill. People scavenge all day long for recyclables in an attempt to make the equivalent of a couple US dollars -- and this is what they must rely upon for the survival of their entire family. Most of the people working in the dump are women, and over 70% of the people living in the immediate area are under the age of 18. This cycle has been perpetuating itself for generations, and many of the people here know no other existence.
During our visit to the project today, our first stop was the city cemetery. We moved through the front portion near the gates where the graves were extravagant. These were for the wealthy... even in death. We then continued on as the graves became more modest and more dilapidated. Finally, as we neared the very edge of the cemetery, enormous vultures flew overhead. As we walked in between the tombs, all of a sudden the ground gave way to an enormous ravine that led directly to the dump. The trees here were dead, gnarled, and covered with black, looming vultures. The
birds covered the ground as well, and even more would approach us in swarms as they were displaced by the trucks and bulldozers inside the dump itself. As we looked on in silence at the vast mountains of garbage, we began to see movement everywhere. At first glance, one assumes that it is simply garbage being blown in the wind. In reality, that movement belonged to people. People who were chasing after trucks, and digging through mountains of toxic waste in search of food and survival. Many of us (even those who had been to the project before) had never seen the dump this close. It was a hard taste of reality that many of us are still trying to make sense of. Then again, things like these will likely never "make sense."
After we saw the garbage dump itself, our group spent the next few hours in the brand new building for the project’s preschool program. We had the opportunity to spend some time with the children of the project, and we all had Pollo Campero for lunch. (That's the Guatemalan version of KFC) We had a WONDERFUL time playing games with the kids, and some of us
were also lucky enough to spend time with our sponsor children as well. We had such a great time with these fun-loving kids, that it was almost easy to forget why they were here in the first place. The reality check came in to play when the kids had finished eating their chicken. Many of the children would only eat one piece of the two that they were given. The other was carefully wrapped in a napkin and placed snuggly in a pocket for safekeeping. At age 5 and even younger, these kids knew that they had siblings at home who might not be able to eat that day. Therefore, it was their responsibility to help provide for their family in whatever way they could. One example of this happened when two of the boys were having a conversation over their leftover chicken. One of the boys had a smaller piece than his friend. He was trying to convince his friend to swap leftovers with him because he had an older brother, and the boy with the larger chicken only had a young sister. It was more practical for the older brother to receive the larger piece of chicken than
La Guardería
Colleen playing with some of the kids it would be for a baby sister.
Reality. It's hard to process. What can we do? And can we ever do enough?
These were some of the questions we asked ourselves during devotions tonight. That said, I would like to leave you with some words from Archbishop Oscar Romero.
"It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts; it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection, and no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
That is what we are about.
We plant the seed that one day will grow.
We water the seeds already planted, knowing they hold promise.
We lay the foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning.
A step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders. Ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own."
~ Archbishop Oscar Romero
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Amy Warren
non-member comment
Thanks for the updates
I'm Colleen Bragg's aunt (and Godmother), and am enjoying keeping up with your trip through the blog. I'm so proud of Colleen and her choosing to help others during spring break.