We Love Canadians

Rockway Mennonite Collegiate is located in Ontario, Canada and decided for the first time this year to send a group of students to Guatemala to work with MCC. The "test group" :) was here from March 14-28 and spent time visiting communities in Santiago Atitlan, San Marcos, and in Nebaj. We were excited about the opportunity to take a group to Nebaj since we had not done so in a number of years. Rockway worked with the MCC partner organization Q'anil, which works with youth on a variety of issues such as health education focused on HIV/AIDS prevention, cultural preservation, care for the environment, etc. The experience was very positive and we feel good about having made this new connection with Rockway. It is always encouraging to hear feedback from groups once they have returned home and even more so from a group that comes down here for the first time. The following are excerpts taken from a debriefing the group had with Rockway's principal upon their return.

"this is one of the most significant and life changing 15 days we have ever experienced"
"relationships, community, poverty, faith, joy, violence, welcome, beauty, care, questions"
"being surprised by joy in the midst of poverty"
"understanding the benefit and downside of global connections"
"the reality of violence in peoples' lives"
"we were pushed and stretched to do things we could not have imagined beforehand"
"relationships with families, peers, and kids"

Amanda Snyder was one of the participants in the group (pictured above on left). She is to thank for a few of these photos as well as the following thoughtful reflection that she shared with her church upon her return to Canada.

I want to keep remembering every moment in Guatemala. I want to remember the cold showers and the candlelight and the outhouses and even the beans and tortillas. I want to remember the children’s smiling faces and the hugs from my host family and the words of welcome from so many people. To do this I keep telling stories and showing pictures because I don’t want to forget this, I can’t forget this. But I can never seem to explain it right to anyone who has never been there. I can’t explain the laughter as we tickled the kids and how it didn’t matter that the only words we could say to them was hello and to ask their name. All that mattered to them was that we were there and that we cared enough to come and play soccer with them or sing songs for them or do crafts with them. I want to explain how it felt to be hugged and kissed by almost every member of a church community during the “passing the peace of Christ” section in the service. I want to explain the looks on the faces of the families as they told us of the deaths they had witnesses and the losses they will always carry with them. I want to explain how it felt to climb a mountain for three hours and then stand at the top looking over a village and then to be suddenly immersed in a cloud where you could hardly see anything around you. I want to explain how it felt to hike an active volcano and then roast marshmallows on the hot lava. I want to explain how it felt to work together with Guatemalan youth on various service projects. I want to explain how it felt hearing stories of youth our own age who had witnessed so much violence and feel unsafe in their own neighborhood. I want to explain the looks on their faces as they told us this. Yet somehow it never comes out right and it will never put the proper picture in their head because it is something you have to experience on your own. Something you need to see with your own eyes and feel with your own heart to understand or at least to begin to understand because I know that I still only understand a tiny bit of how they live. So my advice is go and do and see in order to experience lives so unlike our own. It is easy to sit on our couches at home and watch it on the news or in movies but sometimes the easy way isn’t the best way. I think that this is something everyone should do, in order to begin to realize how lucky we are here and to appreciate what we have. I’m going to leave you with a quick story and quote from our trip. We had just hiked the volcano and were in the process of hiking back to where our vehicle was parked. We were on the top of a mountain overlooking the volcano we had just been on top of. And we were sitting on the grass looking out at the most beautiful site. A man we had met while on the trip who had come along on the hike told us all to sit down and breathe and experience the peacefulness fully. He said, “let God open your eyes and see the beauty in the ugliness”. So I challenge you to see the beauty in the ugliness but don’t try to do this alone. Let God and let your family and friends help you on this journey called life.

Thanks Rockway! It's true, we do love Canadians :)

for what it's worth

i am eating macaroni and cheese for dinner and it's not just any mac and cheese. it's the real deal. the real kraft macaroni and cheese - the thing that all of the canadians i’ve met and worked with in the past year call kraft dinner (we don’t do that in the united states, do we? call it "kraft dinner"? i didn't think so). funny thing about kraft dinner is that it was a topic of many a disucssion with the last group that was here. in fact, the topic of food, and food we actually like and have cravings for, has been something i have spent a good amount of time thinking and talking about with these groups. i have been continually reminded and surprised by how extremely important the basic human necessity of food consumption can become when one is placed in new and unfamiliar settings....when one is served black beans and tortillas for breakfast, lunch, and most likely, dinner, when all you really want and are used to is a big ol' bowl of kraft dinner. the connection between our need and desire to eat and how that makes us feel, both physically and emotionally is intriguing. this basic human need and fulfilling it, seems to contribute in a large part to making one feel comfortable and at home, familiar and safe.

like food and the need to eat, a sense of security, be that emotional or physical, is another basic human need that i have spent a lot of time thinking about here. maybe i've been thinking about it because of the high homicide rate in guatemala, i find myself living in one of the most violent countries in the region. maybe i've been thinking about it because the registered mortality rate in the first two months of 2009 was 69%, up from 38% in 2008....maybe it's because there are 200 registered (and not all, by any means, are registered) assaults on public buses daily in the city and 33 bus drivers of these public buses were murdered between january and march of this year.....maybe it's becuase i really can't walk on the steet, be it day or night, alone or with a group, without feeling on edge because within just one block of my house i have experienced two robbery attempts and one success........maybe it's because this issue of violence and insecurity is something that we repeatadly talk about amongst ourselves here but also with the groups that visit.....maybe it's because this is the reality of life in guatemala today, but also the reality and context of violence and pain that guatemala has lived for years - the reality that places like my country, our country, the united states, have often played a strong role in shaping....maybe it's because this last week thanks to holy week festivities, myself and a couple of other hundreds or maybe even thousands of guatemalans, were able to stay out in the streets past dark and actually do so in peace....maybe it's because i had almost forgotten how good that can feel, how normal that should be for everyone, and how sadly, that is not normal here.

but maybe, i have been thinking about this because even in the midst of all that is and has been the reality in guatemala, life has been continuing and continues to continue. life in the form of so many beautiful traditions and stories and people and landscapes....life in the beautiful and naturally artistic holy week "carpets" that i saw on the streets this past week and the vigor in which so many worked at preserving this years-old tradition....life in hiking over a mountain from nebaj to a small community on the other side and feeling like i was walking through the swiss alps....life in the group of young people i met in that community, full of joy and laughter and energy....life in hearing the story of one of these young men, the son of indigenous parents who joined the guerrilla movement during the civil war out of fear for their lives, who birthed this young man, himself now a father of three beautiful dauthgers, in a tree in the mountains while their own governmnet carried out genocide against their people.....life in the meek yet joyful way his daughter and i practiced our second language together while the sun set behind the rolling hills....life in talking for hours in spanish yet feeling like no time has passed at all....life in three little brothers i see at the university trying to sell small packages of nuts and asking if you'd like your shoes shined....life in the way the older one puts his arm around the younger ones as they walk from building to building....life in feeling connected here and knowing that after a year in guatemala, i am excited to be staying for another, even in the midst of all this life that can be ugly and complicated and dangerous and scary and hurtful but that can also be so very vibrant and interesting and beautfiul and rewarding....if only we are able to step outside of what is comfortable and famililar, like that big ol' box of kraft dinner that i regretfully polished off. all by myself. haha.

friends, i hope that you are experiencing life in new and vibrant ways this spring season, even if it takes passing through some ugly and uncomfortable places first.

What's Happening in Altaverapaz

In January, the Work and Learn Team from Bethesda Mennonite Church spent time working with both Bezaleel and Saraxoch Schools in Altaverapaz. Additionally, the group from RJC spent time sharing with the students at Bezaleel in February. Below are two stories that explain more about the work that is happening in this region, and more specifically at Saraxoch Mennonite School.
Submitted by Antony and Irma Sanchez Solano

Saraxoch Menonite School Classrooms as Pedogogical Laboratories

Every Saturday 73 students from different villages from around San Pedro Carcha meet together in the Saraxoch Mennonite Educational Center to receive educational courses. The classes are part of an ongoing initiative sponsored by MCC’s Global Family program and facilitated by Fundameno, the social arm of an association of Kekchi Mennonite Churches.

The majority of students are young non-professional workers who desire to transform themselves and their communities. Through education they believe they can become more capable citizens and ultimately agents of transformation. The Saraxoch Menonite School provides the students with an opportunity to continue their middle school level studies on the weekends while maintaining their normal work schedule during the week.

Though an opportunity, in one way or another, for all the students, participating in the program is a considerable commitment. Besides the 2 hour-long bus rides, their unaccommodating schedules and $1 fares that slowly add up, one of the major challenges for those attending classes is that of being workers and students at the same time. Most students are either day-workers on farms or street vendors for small merchants, and unfortunately their education is not given priority by their supervisors. Thus obtaining permission can sometimes be an obstacle. Similarly, due to the limitations of time, classes are condensed into one Saturday session beginning at 8am and finishing at 4:30pm. This makes for a long and intense day of interaction that is ideally spread out across five days.

Taking into account the challenge of maintaining the motivation of students and the quality of education they receive, the school has adopted the methodology of converting its classrooms into “pedagogical laboratories for learning”. The focus is on changing assumptions about how students, teachers and classrooms relate to one another—instead of professors looking to students for the development of their classrooms, students look to professors and classrooms for the development of the respective subjects. In other words, students come before the classrooms and professors, and not the contrary.

For this reason the classrooms have been redesigned to fit the specific subjects offered, such as mathematics, social studies, sciences, etc. In this way each classroom is equipped with materials relevant to the respective subject. For example, in the room designated for the science, students will find the necessary materials and environment for the study of science. The same goes for the rest of the subjects that make up the curriculum. In addition, the students are invited to make connections between their work and their studies.

For the director of the school, Professor Victor Cifuentes, the idea is founded in interactive education where which students are given more responsibility. This consists of students taking on tasks such as research and teaching their peers, while teachers are encouraged to act as facilitators and not the traditional “sources of knowledge”. As the school social studies teacher Carlos XXXX said, “the responsibility to learn is given to the students.”

Students have been pleased with this new type of methodology. Pedro for example, an 8th grade student who works on a goat breeding farm, has had the opportunity to share his work experience as part of his natural science and biology classes. As part of the classes’ studies of mammals and their relationship to human beings, multiple times Pedro has been called on to share his extensive knowledge.

Luis and Alberto are two students that work in a bakery and their dream is to one day own their own bakery store as partners. Similar to Pedro, they have been called on to share their experiences to illustrate lessons in mathematics and social studies, especially in how to development a “life-plan”.

As mentioned, the response from students to this new learning methodology has been very positive. In general, students have voiced their appreciation of being empowered to learn.

Currently this pedagogical methodology is in its experimentation stage. Nevertheless, the impact and improvement of education offered at the Saraxoch School is slowly being recognized for its innovation amongst the indigenous communities of Guatemala.

Q’eqchi’ Pastors on the Path of Education Towards Development

Literacy is a big need for most of the indigenous communities in Guatemala. It is estimated, that more than 48% of adult men and 67% of adult women in indigenous communities are illiterate.

There are more than 110 different Q’eqchi’ Mennonite churches, totaling more than 100 thousand members in Alta Verapaz Region, most of them located in remote places and which share a common characteristic: Lack of education and literacy.

Global family has continuously supported Fundameno (the social agency of Q’eqchi’ Mennonite Churches) in their initiative for adult education in remote villages of Alta Verapaz during the last 8 years.

The literacy program is composed of 7 groups located in different villages of San Pedro Carcha municipality. More than 123 people are enrolled in the program this year.

One of these groups gathers in the head offices of Fundameno every Saturday. This group is composed of pastors and leaders from different Q’eqchi’ Mennonite churches, totaling 19 people in all, who come every Saturday in the morning in order to receive classes on reading, writing and basic arithmetic operations.

“Jesus invites us to be the light of the world; our commitment in following Jesus is to bring this light to the people who are members and believers in our communities”. But, “how we can bring the light if we are in darkness? We are not able to bring light if we are not trained and educated”, says Pastor Pedro Pop from the Mennonite church from Raxulha.

In words of brother Roberto Caal, one of the difficulties that local churches are facing, has to do with the low presence of the youth in the worship services. The youth from our communities are being impacted by social violence, drugs and alcoholism, some of them are now part of the juvenile gangs. “Most of the time we are unable to give accompany them or to teach the values of the gospel clearly, because we do not know how to write and read. We need to approach better skills to talk and counseling the youth. Youth have better access to education and are more knowledgeable than us and sometimes we feel embarrassed because we are unable to read and write” said Caal.

“Participating in this program is like opening our eyes to a new reality, to have access to better our skills, to keep ourselves connected to our country, to be able to do our tasks as pastors in a better way. So in educating ourselves, we are able to educate our children better and be able to support families in our congregations that are in need”, said Catarina Mes, a leader from Siquixchi.

Indigenous communities in Guatemala are suffering discrimination, not just because they are indigenous, but also because they speak another language besides the official one, which is Spanish. Alphabetization program open opportunities to people to communicate better in both languages, the mother language that in this case is Q’eqchi’ and in Spanish.

Being part of this educational program we have been able to understand the importance of education in the process of development of our communities, now we are inviting families in the congregation to educate themselves and to allow their children to be educated, so that all of us will be able to accomplish the mission of the church.

Carlos Coc, coordinator of the program and general secretary of the boar of directors of the Q’eqchi’ Mennonite church speaks out about the vision of the church in supporting their pastors and making elementary education for adults in all of the communities where the church is present, accessible. We would like for all of pastors and leaders be able to read and write and in this way make it possible for all of them to participate in different programs that the church has for pastoral training. It has taken us three years in order to start a literacy program with pastors Coc said.

Until now, education has not been a priority for most of the indigenous communities, but things are changing. This literacy program was started in six different communities this year. We are hearing how education is changing the lives of families in the communities, like the community of Santa Cecilia, Chacalte, where one student was hired as accountant of a coffee farm and another is working as a literacy promoter of a new group in her own community.

We feel that through this program we are contributing to the development of our churches and communities, as well as Guatemala as a whole, said another pastor.