August 2008

The steps heading down into El Tuerto towards the ILA “La Resurreccion” were not laid with any regulation in mind or with the promise of an inspection. They were simply placed by the church years ago so that people could reach their homes and their church when coming down the ravine. In the past months a second set of stairs is being put in on the other side of the church. These are a gift from the mayor of Guatemala City and even though they are supposed to reach every home and building on that part of the ravine, they have stopped short of the church. The material has disappeared and the workers want to erect a wall in front of the churches second entrance so that when the mayor comes to inspect he will not notice that they did not bring the steps down to all the homes and buildings. Our church is growing in El Tuerto and nearly half of our members now come in that back door. Currently, because of where the construction stopped, they have to walk across a plank that Don Ramiro puts up every Sunday over the 6 foot drop. We have the right to appeal to the mayor for justice or even appeal to the law for restriction of our right of movement, however that would simply cause more tension between our church and our non-Lutheran neighbors. So we will build a platform, fix the drainage problem ourselves and save the workers the need to put a wall up blocking our church.

During a recent ILAG retreat in which we brought representatives in for training, we withdrew one invitation two weeks before the event. When Padre called to confirm that one of the women was coming, she said yes but only if he came (only about 8 hours of driving one way) or at least sent a car to pick her up. She believed that if she was going to have this particular commission in her church that she deserved special treatment. For our events, leaders travel up to two days to arrive—walking, traveling in the back of pick up trucks, vans and the last leg in bus; it is simply the reality of living in rural Guatemala. We did not want to begin an important holistic ministry of the ILAG with someone who was not feeling called to serve.

One of our rural churches is having a conflict with a former leader of their church. The leader had asked for a break as leader, not expecting that the church would accept his request. When the new president was elected, the old became angry and began speaking poorly of the church in the community. When that did not bring enough attention, he demanded all the wood planks nearly all the walls of the church) that he donated for the construction of the church back.

In contrast a five year old in one of our churches just became a big brother for the first time. When we asked him how his sister was doing, he responded without pause “Good, thanks to God.” This little boy has a spirit of love and service to God that is clear at his young age. During the worship service, his little voice can be heard when he sings the liturgy, and he is in charge of collecting the offering.

Many people want to be served in the church. They come in order to receive a position, so that people will listen to them, so that they can have control of the offering or even have control of the keys of the church. Others come humbly to serve as they can, to be part of the community and work together in love and faith.

When Padre Horacio was a young boy a missionary came to his home church. The missionary talked about churches around the world that needed prayer and support in order to share the gospel with their neighbors. The missionary asked for an offering to support this important mission. Padre Horacio came forward and took the wooden offering plate off the altar, set it on the floor and stepped into it. He asked the missionary to send him to serve the Lord and the church. The missionary got down on one knee and told Padre Horacio that he would be sent, but he needed to be prepared first.

In the ILAG we have the call to teach our brothers and sisters what it means to serve out of love, what it means to be community, what it means to be children of God. We have the call to teach about giving to a people who lack many of the basic needs in life and the training and tools to use the resources that they do have but who have many blessings that they are blind to because they simply want to receive without any effort on their part. They, along with all of us, have already received in abundance and are now responding out of that abundance.

Forgiveness as gift

They have tried to kill us in their sin
They have hurt us, defamed us, put nails in our car wheels, fought with us.
In their sin they have cried out in the only way they know—sinfully.

We have fought their sin
Yet as forgiveness is given realization comes.
Their sin kills us—achieves this goal.
Yet in Christ that death,
Which we suffer in our call to serve and to pronounce forgiveness
To those killing us along with themselves,
Is life.

Dying to sin, Christ gives us his forgiveness
Gives us life as we live death and suffering.

Suddenly to look out upon the church
To speak, to give the absolution,
Is that moment of death in me—the pastor—of sin, my sin
Erasing my knowledge of their sin and the reality of my own.

As I pronounce in Christ’s name the absolution
Their attempts to put the words I am called to proclaim
To death are defeated
And the gift of forgiveness brings new life through Christ.

While I remember the fear, the pain, the death that they,
The people who God sent me to serve and love and forgive in his name,
Have given to me…

Through Christ’s forgiveness
I can continue
And they will continue
To try to kill me as they reject the forgiveness
That is already theirs

And Christ will continue to lift me up
When I am beaten down and bring me life in him
And in him alone
So that I can continue to give the absolution in the name of Christ.

The gift of forgiveness.

Snap Shots

The rain has started. Just in time for two rural community visits with two delegations. The first delegation traveled through two tropical storms to Cimiento la Esperanza. They got stuck four or five times on the way their first day of travel outside of Guatemala City, but they managed to arrive the following day… muddy and unshowered but they arrived. The community welcomed them into their church and homes as honored guests, giving their guests their best. The delegation slept in the kitchen together and the community had Padre Horacio sleep in the church with several men sleeping inside the church and on the ground by every entrance to the church to protect Padre. While Cimiento is a new ILAG church, Padre has walked with them for a long time. During the war when Padre was on the death lists, the communities would arrange themselves in a similar way at the entrances to whatever building he was in to protect him. Even though we now live peacefully and the protection is not needed, they still give him that respect.

Sunday morning in El Tuerto, Horacio and I normally have to compete with neighbors trying to drown out the worship with some music selection, we are used to that challenge. Last Sunday, the neighbor down the ravine decided to remodel their house during our worship hour. The two tropical storms that had come through that week, and unfinished drainage pipes from the new steps had left their home flooded. They needed to take down the back wall of rusty, recycled sheet metal and make their home smaller.

As we were leaving after worship, Sunday school and confirmation, we slowly climbed out of the ravine up the irregular steps, which are getting harder to navigate as my pregnant belly grows and especially now that it is raining. When we were to the last push to the top, Marcelina, the leader of the church in El Tuerto, called to us. A member of the neighborhood, not of the church, was requesting prayers. Their mother had died the day before and no one had come to pray before the burial since they did not attend a church. We turned around and headed back down the ravine, this time via a slippery, slimy ramp down to a dirt path and finally into the home. The home resembled what I would imagine a wolves den looks like from the inside. It had two rooms under walls and a roof of scrap boards, metal and cardboard. The floor was carved out of the dirt just level enough for a cabinet, a few chairs and a refrigerator before emptying down into a hovel where plastic chairs filled with mourning family lined the wall and an extremely small lacquered casket came out of the corner of dirt. The family had found some candles and a cross to place around the casket as they held vigil. A simple wallet size black and white photo of the deceased was the only picture in the home. Knowing that the family would bury their mother and grandmother without the presence of clergy, Horacio and I prayed and gave the promise of Christ’s mercy and grace to a family we found out later was thought to be intertwined in gang activity. As we finished, a granddaughter had us sit down in the kitchen and gave us a cup of coffee and a piece of bread. We are a church of the widows and orphans… of the forgotten, of outcasts, and of the broken. The harvest is plentiful.

We left climbing once again out of the ravine with two worship services awaiting us still that day, one in El Porvenir and the other in El Mirador.

The next day, 12 women arrived in Guatemala City from their villages for the first women’s leadership retreat of the year in the ILAG. Among the 12 came 6 children who had traveled with their mothers up to two days to arrive… one as young as 4 months old. Other villages had planned to send women as well but out of fear of coming to Guatemala City had called over the weekend to decline the invitation. The delegation from Southeastern synod were getting settled in as well as we installed the women in the guest house, we took time to teach the women how to use the sheets, toilet and how to respect the facilities. The women of the office, except for Esther who was in Georgia with Padre Horacio for the Southeastern Synod Assembly, held classes. I was in charge of six hours of classes the first day. The women were forthcoming with sharing their life experiences and challenges and how they impacted their faith and roles as mothers. During my class we talked about Mark 14-15 and the cross. None of the women could explain what forgiveness was, they simply knew it was important. As we wrapped up the day, I handed a piece of paper to everyone—the women and the delegation—and had them either write down or if they couldn’t write simply think of a sin. We went outside under a canopy that shielded us from the rain and I lead the brief order of confession and absolution after which had everyone burn their sin with a small candle on the ground in the middle of all of us. In many of the indigenous cultures, they use incense to send their prayers to God and as they saw the smoke go up and their papers with their sins written on them consumed, you could see in their faces that they understood what forgiveness was.

As they returned to their homes… some left for the buses at 7pm on Wednesday and the remainder were brought to their buses at 3am by Horacio… they left charged with teaching others what they had learned in their days together. We pray that God gives them the strength and courage to share and encourage others.

As they left the Southeastern Synod headed up to Nueva Guatemala with Horacio and Beatriz, I stayed home to cover the Guatemala City churches since I cannot travel to the rural areas for a few months now. They left not knowing if the roads would be good enough for them to enter but knowing that it was important to try because there were many waiting eagerly for the delegation visit and for the worship service. We see windows into the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ, but thankfully it is the Holy Spirit, who intimately knows our brothers and sisters here in Guatemala and those who visit us from the ELCA, that is guiding us in our proclamation and ministry.

Snap shots from less than a week of our life here in Guatemala. Thank you for your prayers, thank you for your love, thank you for remembering us. We may be a church of widows, orphans, outcasts and the broken… but isn’t every church in its own way. The love of Christ for us is what keeps us going and puts us all to work in service to our neighbor.

A change in worlds… May 2008

Last Sunday as we arrived to worship in el Porvenir, a truck and two pick-ups of soldiers were in the village square—no police presence with them. The church coordinator explained that they come every day at 5am and are in the mountains as well patrolling because the violence has gotten so bad. The church was hot as incense filled the sanctuary and the neighbor’s chickens and ducks pattered on the tin roof above us. A teamsters strike began that day as well… there in no gasoline or food entering Guatemala City because the teamsters want to be allowed to enter the City at any hour without restrictions for rush hours. The standstill has left gas stations and grocery stores empty.
The following day I arrived in Minnesota… which is so green even after a long endless winter but there are trees and grass and living things not just concrete and more concrete… and no soldiers on the street corners. 35 is still under construction and food prices as rising here as they are in Guatemala… some common problems.
Our daily life enters into our life as church very clearly this Sunday as we celebrate Pentecost on Sunday; it is a day, a season, of the church year that I have new appreciation for now that I live in Guatemala and worship, preach and administer the sacraments in Spanish.
This April for the National Council Meeting and classes several of the newer ILAG churches sent representatives. They had been catechists in their former churches and were given one or two classes and told to teach the faith. As the five days passed, they received classes on the organization of the church, working in community, the Lord’s Prayer etc. Several came to Padre Horacio, fearfully and asked in the form of a confession if they had sinned all these years as they prepared people for baptism, first communion, and confirmation without understanding what they were teaching. I have rarely seen grown men so fearful, with so much weight on their shoulders.
Padre responded to each that no they had not sinned—they had taught with what they were given. That if someone was at fault it was those who had failed to prepare them. Now they have the opportunity to learn and teach in good faith and continue to seek more education.
My piece of the National Council Meetings and classes is to teach the catechism. In my class on the Lord’s Prayer we ended up getting only through the first three petitions because the leaders were so interested in learning and applying to their lives and churches what they were learning. I have realized recently that the catechism has become more familiar to me in Spanish than in English, yet to hear the words of forgiveness, of blessing in English still humbles me with the love of Christ who sent us an Advocate—to sigh for us, guide us, illuminate us. One Spirit working through the Word for one people made one in Christ. I don’t feel so far away from the peace I so often have to hope for rather than see in Guatemala.
This lesson I learned had me change my teaching and have the leaders read the passages of the bible that I presented in both Spanish and Q’quechi so that they would understand much deeper the lesson. It is not only me who clings to my mother tongue as the language of my faith… yet like them my faith is becoming by-lingual out of necessity.
We prayed each day before our meals in a different language… I believe we managed to have 5 or 6 different languages represented. After my first day of classes on the Lord’s Prayer, I asked the Q’quechi leaders how to say Amen in their language. Five of them got together and worked on writing in on the white board, correcting each other so that the spelling was perfect. The finished product: jo’kan taxaq. They grasped onto the new understanding of Amen with such faith and wonder that they could finish the prayer with such hope and assurance that it will be as they pray, that they are listened and cared for by their Lord.
These men and women between 16 and 85 returned to their homes content and thirsty for more. They were honest about the challenges of shepherding a church but trusted in the presence of our Lord in their lives and ministry and the guidance of the Holy Spirit… as we hear in 1 Corinthians 12:3 “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit has hold of these leaders and it is all of our prayer that they will be guided to be church rooted in Christ… the Spirit of Pentecost where we live our faith daily were God calls us to be… and in many many languages.

Faithfulness in Ministry Cross Award Response

The Beatitudes speak of the blessing or happiness in the face of suffering, hunger, persecution, for through hardships and pain all that remains is the sure foundation and hope that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is indeed a blessing to have everything that we build up around us striped away to reveal to us the center of our faith and life. This hope is the joy we have in the Iglesia Luterana Agustina de Guatemala. Our members, and sometimes we as their pastors, have lived through threats on their lives, hunger and even persecution for being indigenous, for organizing and empowering the marginalized or for simply being Lutheran. We can call ourselves blessed because we have security in the promise of the Gospel for us.
In the ILAG, I have the privilege of living through the Reformation in modern times. The catechists who join our church do not know the 10 commandments, Lord’s Prayer, Creed, or the Bible until we begin to teach them. Communities come who have had the sacraments or prayer held from them by other churches because they cannot pay the price being asked for God’s gifts of grace to us. They have been raised to believe that the Bible is an impenetrable mystery. The learning curve has been steep, learning how to preach and teach in a multi-lingual, multi-cultural country of people who are only 12 years from a signed peace accord.
The joy is to proclaim God’s word and to have people who are suffering hear God’s word for them and see in their eyes that they have peace and hope. Hope not just for the future but hope for the present and God’s presence in their lives now.
I was surprised to be called to serve in Guatemala—a call that took awhile to be answered publically. Many people took part in the affirmation and realization of my call in the process leading up to my ordination. I was surprised that I was ordained in Spanish rather than English and into the ILAG rather than the ELCA. When I arrived in Guatemala, I expected to learn some Spanish, begin to learn about Latino ministry and return to the States after a year to be a pastor. From my first visit to an ILAG community, I understood this church and its call and to my surprise I wanted to be part of it. A church that accompanies the marginalized, the broken, the war torn with Christ always at our center, always as our true hope and from that center teaches our churches how to work together, how to plan and how to holistically improve their lives.
My advice… be patient, do not compromise on what is truly important—the Gospel-- but be willing to work with others when it does not mean losing your integrity. It is worth the wait to be called where you can be put to use, even if the wait is painful. In your call you will give all of yourself but remember that you are not called just to be a pastor, you also have other vocations to fulfill. For me, I am a pastor but I am also a wife and a mother and those vocations are part of who I am as a pastor.
Luther Seminary, most helpful/ meaningful:
Professors such as Jim Nestigen, Steven Paulson, Rolf Jacobson, Craig Koester, David Lose and Michael Rogness who taught us how to preach while we teach and how to convey the love we have of Christ and His word to others. The professors who helped us prepare because they were willing to talk about the real challenges of parish life, to struggle with the text with us or wrestle with the impact of current events on the church. They taught us how to confess our faith and to not confuse ourselves with the message we are called to deliver.
Hopes for the church in the 21st century:
The church has hope when it is being church—preaching the Word and administering the sacraments. Often churches forget what it means to be church. We need to not apologize for being Christians, for being sinners in need of forgiveness and salvation or for being Lutheran. What man builds can be destroyed—buildings, programs, church organizations can be closed or ended—but the church in which Christ is the head will continue. We need to have trust in our Lord to be true and to have the faith to speak Christ and him crucified because it is tempting to speak an easier word or water down the gospel. The Word kills and the Spirit gives life. I see many churches trying to downplay the offense of the gospel. After serving in Guatemala, I have learned again and again that when everything else is stripped away, and it will be, that what remains is the heart of why the church has a future, because of Christ not because of anything we have done or will do. In this respect, we have an easier call in Guatemala.

I have often said that walking with the ILAG is to encounter the early church in Acts. This fall, I decided to teach the leaders the journeys of Paul hoping that they would see what I was seeing and learn from Paul how to faithfully approach what they were living in their communities.
During the first journey of Paul, I began to draw the parallels between Acts and the ILAG, but when we reached the Council in Jerusalem the leaders began asking questions and the dialogue began. One of the leaders centered in not on the issue of circumcision but on drinking of blood. In his community, but not in his church, people drink animal blood and he wanted to know if it was a condemned act. We ended up having a very interesting discussion about why people drink the blood, if it is to receive some sort of strength or power (some people believe that here in Guatemala), in order to be out of control, for health reasons or if they simply liked the taste. I brought in Paul’s discussion in Corinthians about eating meat sacrificed to idols – if it causes your brother to fall--which opened up yet another avenue in the conversation. It turns out that there is a ritual in some rural churches—another Christian denomination allows—in which images of saints are placed on the altar and a bowl of food (usually soup of chicken or beef with tamal) is placed before each image. The elders come forward to place the food as a sacrifice and then to drink the broth. We had a great discussion about the line between tradition and giving thanks to God and idol worship as well as sacrament vs. sacrifice.
This was not the first time this year these issues have faced our leaders. Earlier this year one of our ILAG churches had their anniversary and invited members of other neighboring communities in order to have a bigger celebration and share the joy of the church with others. The problem was that by bringing the marimba or band from another community to play that the guests, in turn, wanted to have part of the service to lead. Horacio, my husband, arrived for the anniversary. The guests wanted to sacrifice a chicken by the altar in the church in order to make an offering the following day. Horacio did not allow them to do that stating that there was one sacrifice for all time on the cross. He reprimanded the leader for selling their faith in order to have more guests and louder music at the anniversary instead of making it a time to proudly teach the Lutheran confession.
The ILAG allows many of the indigenous rituals but modified. For instance bowls of chicken soup, corn and other elements of the harvest and their daily life are often placed on the credence table on the day of their anniversary. This is done in order to thank God for providing for His children all that they need and to bless the coming planting or harvest. We also allow incense rituals both in the church and in the jungle – since the ceremony is begun in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and finished with the Lord’s prayer. In the ritual, the elders lead the congregation in prayer for the crops, for the health of their families, for their church, etc. It is a very meaningful ceremony—and not done in place of the word and sacrament.
It was that spirit of thought that our conversation centered on in our conversation at the last retreat. As we went through the other journeys of Paul many parallels to our ministry here came up in our conversations. Our leaders are facing many of the issues that the early church needed to address and thankfully they can look to scripture to find guidance. They want to lead faithfully and share with their neighbors the gospel using local tradition when it aids in the preaching of the Word of God and teaching those they are called to lead when culture or tradition cannot co-exist with the gospel. Many opportunities to proclaim the gospel within the culture exist if you are willing to listen and to take a stand when needed.

March Newsletter 2008

For the past four years at ten in the evening, I have kept the vigil with El Mirador on the Eve of the Resurrection. The streets are quiet as we gather in the darkness outside the church building. Inside the church the altar is stripped and all lights and candles are out. Outside Victor and Ishmael light a bon-fire and I ask once again, like every year, for the Christ candle to be brought out of hiding. Gathered around the fire the vigil begins with an explanation of the light of the world as we bless the Christ candle, placed in its recycled chicken consume container, for a new year and each of us in turn light our own candles.

Following the light of Christ we enter the church and listen to the promises of our Lord from Genesis forward… weaving our way through the Words of our Lord for us on the night in which we await the moment in which every promise has its yes. Between lessons we sing our faith and pray. It is a time to simply be the people of God nothing more, nothing less. As midnight arrives we sing a tired but no less joyful Alleluia out into the slumbering streets of El Mirador and read from one of the Synoptic Gospels the accounting of the tomb that early morning when the women visited. After preaching, Horacio and I distribute communion and by one in the morning we are heading home for a few hours of sleep. The Easter procession begins a mere four hours later followed by another service in which Horacio and I serve as pastors.

This year I was struck by the presence of a white, dirty, mangy dog that entered the church with us during the vigil and sat in the middle of the aisle completely still the entire three hours. The next morning, the same dog was in the church, under a pew for most of the service. Throughout the vigil, I kept recalling Matthew 15:21-28 in which the Canaanite woman asks Christ for help only to be compared to a dog… yet the woman’s response is uncomfortably honest, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” The moments in which we grasp who we are in sin and what Christ freed us from—in other words what Easter means-- at once draws me to the table to not just receive crumbs but to receive all of Christ but also frustrates and saddens me since many do not commune in Guatemala precisely because they only see their sin and at some point in their life were told they cannot receive while in sin. They see themselves as the dirty mangy dog but never as a beloved child of God.

In short, we are called to preach… to preach freedom to those held captive… and to receive the life that our Lord gives us.

As Monday arrived, Horacio and I headed to the airport to pick up the delegation from St. Paul Area Synod to share a week together in our common call.

He is Risen Indeed!

Blessings in Christ,

Amanda Olson de Castillo
Missionary and Pastor
Iglesia Luterana Agustina de Guatemala

Lent 2008

Every Friday in Lent our churches gather after work and lift Christ upon their shoulders, processing through the neighborhood singing, praying and reading the passion story. Families who are not Lutheran contact us months ahead asking if we can bring the procession, bring Christ to their home too. On Easter morning, the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in El Tuerto will process in and out of two different ravines singing Alleluia. Our humble litters carried by four people can arrive to the homes of many that the larger Roman Catholic litters carried by 120 men will not even cast a shadow upon.

Our members are located almost entirely on the margins of society where it is far to easy to be forgotten or misunderstood. Frequently prey to “well intencioned Christians” who visit seeking to save the forsaken Lutherans from their incorrect path—our members respond with faith and listen to their visitors and confess to them in return their faith. To be a Lutheran in Guatemala one needs to know their identity, need to know the word to which we cling.

Our relationship as the ILAG with our two Companion Synods has been a great blessing. While in Southeastern Synod in January, Horacio and I realized our similarities of geographic distance between congregations, frequent misunderstanding of what a Lutheran is exactly and maintaining the critical balance between delivering Christ through Word and Sacrament and a holistic ministry of social justice—of loving and caring for our neighbor.

St. Paul Area Synod gifts us with the knowledge that there are many Lutherans in the world and the diversity within the Lutheran Confession as we proclaim to new generations who are not automatically Lutheran and the real struggle of outreach in which we are called to support the community without expectation of new members yet all the while sharing the gospel and inviting all to come without condition.

As our second delegation of 2008 left last week, we were once again left strengthened to continue our work of bearing Christ to all creation. Our members in El Mirador, El Tuerto and Israel all have been reminded that they are not alone in this call we share with Christ English and Shepherd of the Hills—and all of you.

We all share this call—it may be literally carrying the good news to the doorsteps of our neighbors or as Don Rosendo in Santa Elena is doing at nearly 80—taking the bible story coloring sheets he received at the National Council Meeting in January and calling all the children in his village to gather and learn about their Lord. No matter what form it takes we are called to confess who Christ is and who we are through Christ.

Blessed Lent to you all,

Amanda Olson de Castillo
Missionary and Pastor
Iglesia Luterana Agustina de Guatemala

Absence of God

Two weeks ago I went with a delegation to a mountain town in Guatemala called Chichicastenango. It is supposed to be the best place to see a market in Guatemala. It is also a place known for Maximon-- another saint/ God that can curse or bless people upon asking. On the way up the steps of the Catholic church in the town there is an altar to make sacrifices on (incense/ candles), on the top of the steps two elders have incense and speak power words at the entrance. (It felt as if they were cursing us.) Inside the church are altars all along the floor where you can leave flowers, candles or liquor as offerings. The altar area and all once Christian art is covered in black soot and I had to search to find any representation of Christ or even a cross-- the altar did not have a cross. The church was hallow-- vacant. Even the delegation left saying that it was an evil place. I have felt this before in Guatemala but never in a "Christian church"... the guidebook says that the services are only marginally Catholic. If one needed proof that Syncretism (sp) can go too far, they just need to visit here. I left feeling dirty and accosted. While I know that I am Christ's child, I left that church and crossed myself, I prayed as we returned to Guatemala City and I clung to Christ ever so tightly.

Please pray for peace, perspective and I don't know what else...

Lately we have had to deal with a lot of Americans with a Savior complex. They want to come down and help the poor Guatemalans-- bringing stuff, but not willing to be in relationship. They want to come down and see the gratitude towards themselves on the people's faces. Some come to take pictures using their cameras as a barrier of protection-- as if they were at the zoo (or on safari) and observing the species in its natural habitat. Really while they want to sing the praises of themselves, show their benevolence, their good-- they are breaking the first commandment but they are also trying to pay for their own guilt, by being able to prove their goodness and ability to create a better life.

Few are able to trully be in relationship-- creature to creature, as brothers and sisters in Christ.. to arrive there things need to change, ways of being need to end. Humility needs to be gifted. This is true for the guatemalan half of the relationship as well who wants to make gods out of the visitors (and of us... we arrive and all their prayers are answered... then when we preach Christ the reaction is anger).

Visitors want to be received with joy upon their return visits, showering gifts on the community.

What they don't understand is that by giving through the church not individually and getting to know the members of the community (building up the body) they will still be received graciously upon return for who they are not for who they pretend to be and this way (working through the church) they will not leave problems and broken communities in the wake of their generosity.

So meanwhile we are in the middle... witness to the violence done to the people in the name of God and being called to witness those who cause the pain as well. We are tired.

Baptism

The church in El Tuerto is struggling in general because the Dominicans have an elementary school in the neighborhood-only good school there. They demand that all students have their first communion there. They are telling all the Lutherans that their baptisms are not valid because they were free and in order to have their first communion, and pass the school year, they have to be re-baptized correctly. The irony is that the Dominicans will not do the baptism and send the families to the San Jose Catholic church. This second church asks, correctly, if the baptism was with water and in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yes, well then it is a baptism. So now the Dominicans are saying that San Jose is not a church either (for not wanting to commit heresy I guess).

To answer the call or not

When is it right to fight for the 10 righteous that remain and when is it better to shake the dust off your feel and move on?

La Isla (first ILAG church and source on continued legal battles over ownership of the land)—the cause of so much pain and invested energy. They send out the hornets then call us to protect and save them while they hide. Masters of manipulation, they “repent” right when we (Padre Horacio and Esther) begin to think about skaking off the dust. Padre Horacio and Esther say the last thing to die is hope. In Genesis when Lot’s wife turned back—perhaps in lament, or in hope that all was really not lost— she became a pillar of salt, receiving the same end as the sinners within. Out of stubbornness will we too feel the results of sin in our own flesh—we already are. Every time Padre enters into La Isla it is Horacio, my husband and Padre's son, who gets phone calls threatening his life. Padre and Esther don’t like to hear the consequences—instead they defend those harming us. For me, for at least two years, I have believed that we cannot be their pastors, they cannot/ will not hear the word of our Lord from our lips. If we shake off the dust, our Lord will send them a preacher.
This community is currently calling Horacio and I to enter to be their pastors every Sunday but for me it is a call from the old Adam not from God.

Raising the Roof

As we continue to walk together, we can rejoice with the ILAG church “La Resurreccion” in the neighborhood of El Tuerto in Guatemala City. On July 15th they will celebrate their 15th anniversary of being a church. It is a church of women leaders including a Minster of the Word who is a woman.

This church has had a challenging 15 years. For the first years they had to reach their church grasping onto roots and weeds in order not to fall down the ravine where their church is located. Slowly they began to build the walls one layer of brick at a time as they could afford it or someone volunteered the skilled labor. Five years ago they had to abandon their building because they did not have a roof and the heavy rains were too much to withstand. They worshipped in garages and patios of members and neighbors for four years and last year returned to their church building under a temporary roof which covered half of their building.

For three years now the women of the church have been working to raise the permanent roof of their church building. They have held raffles, bake sales, and hosted community projects in order to raise the funds needed. The worry was that with one more heavy rainy season the foundation of the church would be washed away and the church with it.

The women said that they would do it… and they achieved it, surprising us one Sunday when we arrived and worshipped in a church with a roof! And a roof that extended over the entire building, built by a fellow Lutheran from the Northern Department (State) of Guatemala. They still need windows and doors. They still have only a dirt floor and don’t have electricity or running water. But they have faith in abundance and the will to work hard together to achieve.

Ordination

9 years since I felt called
3 years since I was sent
and mere days since I was given peace.

Processing in with 25 pastors dressed in white and yoked in red there to support the proclamation of the church—that faith comes by hearing, eating and drinking—that God has chosen to be revealed as for us in these ways and that the church has ordained pastors to be servants who deliver the hope we have in Him alone—that the church has the responsibility to yoke those who are called to serve in this way.

The church is part of the earthly kingdom, led by men, led by sinners—the dominance of protocol, the pain of “its not personal” and the frustration of the old Adam. On June 1st, in my ordination I saw and experienced the kingdom of our Lord. Surrounded by pastors and our brothers and sisters in Christ, I felt the community of saints celebrating my humble call that the Holy Spirit through the people of God have called me to.

As I kneeled before Padre Horacio, Bishop Rogness and Bishop Mdgella and my fellow pastors in between the font and the table, I promised with the help of God to confess. An ordination by pastors of three countries, three languages but the same Word.

As the pastors surrounded me placing their hands upon me—I felt the weight of the call through them and received the blessing all at once.

On my left were the pastors, on my right my family and friend and surrounding us the people of God… many with tears forgiving the years of waiting and thanking God for our vocation to serve God and neighbor.

The cacophony of discord that had threatened for years roared into the same Alleluia that I heard when I called my Synod to start candidacy—pure joy. As I turned to be greeted by our church—I had a smile and tears of joy, relief... of the deepest peace I have felt in my life.

Being ordained by a church that is not my own—not the part of the Body of Christ that taught me the 10 commandments, the Apostle’s Creed and the Lord’s Prayer… not in the language of my heart but the church where I was sent to serve and thanks to God a call that extends back to another part of the Body of Christ—back home to the ELCA and the only church I ever knew. When will I be back? The beauty is that I have not left—we are one body. We just have to get on an airplane to see one another face to face.

Thank you all for your prayers, your support, your patience and impatience in these years of waiting. Thank you for walking with me—strengthening me when I began to doubt and for rejoicing with me when I became one of your pastors.

Communion of Saints

Each Sunday we confess in the Creed that we believe in the Communion of Saints.

After Horacio and I lost our unborn child, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the delegation that was with the ILAG during those days. But I decided after getting out of the hospital to join them for a meal. It was painful to share my pain simply by sharing my presence with them, but I also received consolation from my brothers and sisters in Christ and as the days have past many have entrusted their pain to Horacio and me, sent their shared sorrow through an email or phone call. Our pain is still real, still deep, but the church—the community of saints—is whispering the gospel into our ears. They are giving us Christ who suffers for us and with us. Our brothers and sisters answer their call to reach out and remind us that we are not alone, we are not forgotten, and we are loved.

The community of saints sometimes says the wrong things and sometimes does not know what to say but always brings us back to the cross that formed us into one body with a call to console and to give Christ to one another.

What happened (is happening) to us happens to many… too many more than one realizes. Each loss is as painful as another but no loss is suffered alone for our dear Lord grieves with us.

Keep on sharing the hope we have in Christ to us and to one another, after all you are part of the Community of Saints. Thanks be to God!

Continuation of well story

Water: Guatemala is a country, like many in the world, in which we cannot safely drink the water. It has been contaminated by companies, livestock and of course people. We as a church use water in baptism since water is necessary for life and with God’s Word claims us as children of God—cleansing us of our sin. Like bread and wine it is something from our lives, something physical to hold onto in our faith.
As I wrote last month, Nueva Guatemala has a water crisis. Their supply has been poisoned by the Palm Plantation surrounding them. Upon receiving news that Our Saviors had donated money so that they could receive the gift of water, they started working. Their well story became a story of unity and breaking down barriers.
A local plantation owner helped them find a water source which they found quickly near the common area and near a road. As they began to dig, they invited the whole community to participate since it would be water for everyone. The Roman Catholic families helped until their family members who had gone to the US to work told them that they should not be associating with the Lutherans. The church members put in 70 days of labor between all the workers—4am to 5pm—in order to dig the well. They found water at 7 meters (about 21 feet) and with the help of a pump lent to them by the same palm plantation that poisoned their water were able to pump out the water in order to dig another 2 meters (about 6 feet).
On the journey from the nearest town to the village one of the nine culverts broke—but at $50 each they community could not buy another. The trucks that pass through the village daily helped Nueva Guatemala lower the eight remaining culverts into the dug out well, leaving the last just below ground level. It was a concern that to leave the well at ground level would be dangerous since an animal could fall into the well and contaminate the well or worse a child could fall. Thankfully a neighboring plantation owner had an extra culvert equal to what the community needed and donated it to Nueva Guatemala.
They bought rope and buckets and now have water that is drinkable. The well—in dry season—was already half full of water which means that rain or no rain they will have life and life brought by a community and its neighbors coming together.
Our role as a church now is that of grace. The only sad note in this story is that the Roman Catholics stopped digging, deciding that no water was better than working with the Lutherans. Our call in Nueva Guatemala is to invite the Roman Catholics to the well. This water, this life, is the gift of our heavenly Father; it is a gift for all.
Keep praying that all will come to the well.

Side note: At the beginning of this week in Venezuela the National Guard began to open fire on University Students who were not in agreement with some of the reforms happening—closing down all radio stations not controlled by the government, restricting some health and hygiene practices of women among others. The soldiers could not enter the University so they stood at the door and fired into the University grounds. Pray that justice will return to Venezuela along with basic rights and pray for Guatemala as elections approach in September. We have candidates that are sympathetic to Chavez and pray that a just and honest candidate will be elected President of Guatemala.

Another Well Story

Blessings to you in the name of our Risen Lord.

Many bible stories begin at a well. A wife is found, a parched throat is given relief, healing is received. In Nueva Guatemala, a well story is unfolding as the faithful put their trust in the Lord and in the Lord alone.

The 14 families that form the Lutheran Church in Nueva Guatemala are humble but are people with a deep trust in the Lord and commitment to their church. In the years since they returned from Mexico and settled in the small plantation only 3 km from Mexico, they have repeatedly overcome hardship.

Isolated by distance and by lack of services, the community fell prey to a former President of Guatemala’s threat that their land would be flooded. Many decided to sell off their land that they had received as part of the Peace process at prices so low that they were practically giving it away. The leaders of the church were among those who abandoned the community along with those who could play musical instruments.

Two men stepped up to lead those who remained and together the church has begun to grow once again.

The flooding never arrived but a new threat has in the form of a palm plantation. Nueva Guatemala is now an island of green surrounded by the charred fields of the palm plantation that has been burned as far as one can see. The plantation was burned and heavy chemical fertilizers have saturated the ground.

Now a community who consciously decided not to use chemical fertilizers on their fields for the health of their families and the future of their land are already suffering from health problems from the actions of the palm plantation. In addition, by shear force the palm plantation has entered the land of the community, cutting large channels through the jungle to divert the water. The threat now is that there will be no water and what water remains will not be safe.

This month, thanks to their partner church Our Savior’s in Circle Pines, MN, they will start to dig a common well. We hope to encounter water deep enough to be clean but not to deep to be beyond our physical and financial capability to reach. We have a month, until the rains make it impossible to dig for another 9 months. A month to provide what is needed to live and with the help of our Lord and the sweat of the members of Nueva Guatemala, it is our prayer that they will receive the answer to their prayers by the side of this well.

Please keep the Augustinian Lutheran Church “San Isidro Labrador” in Nueva Guatemala in your prayers this May.

Take Eat

Blessings to you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil my cup overflows” Psalm 23:5.

As we approach the cross this Lenten season, our sin and brokenness is exposed. Called to repent, we receive our inheritance in the meal that our Lord instituted on the night in which He was betrayed. In Guatemala many do to receive the Lord’s Supper because they were told before they became Lutherans that one with sin was not welcome at the table. Dona Odilia was one of these people.

Somehow Dona Odilia found a way to dress her two girls and the neighbor she mothers in beautiful identical white dresses, veils, and matching gloves. The day of their first communion had arrived. While the white candle each girl held was bent from the warmth of their nervous and excited little hands, the day could not have been more perfect. As they each recited the passages, prayers and creed that they had learned over the previous year, the congregation sat on the edges of their seats taking pictures with antique cameras (at least by US standards).

When it was time to receive their First Communion, the girls formed a line in front of Padre and opened their mouths to accept the host dipped in the wine. Then I received a welcome surprise, Dona Odilia herself went forward to receive communion.

She had not come forward for at least 10 years to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord. She had not come forward because in her mind her sin made her unacceptable. She had married the father of her oldest child but after he died she got together with the father of her two daughters and they never married. Now he has left them, but for Dona Odilia the sin remained.

As her pastors, we asked her to confess and we used the office of the keys to pronounce forgiveness upon her. We asked her to come forward and receive the forgiveness of her Lord in the Body and Blood. At the church council meeting before she came forward to receive, Padre Horacio announced to the rest of the church that she would be receiving communion. They reacted not with joy… rather with anger. They did not want her to receive communion because in their minds she did not deserve.

She went forward on the day her daughters received their first communion and received the promises herself. She was willing to face the scorn of the other members because she trusted her pastors and the word that they had given that our Lord was calling her to His table. My surprise came from the fact that she chose the day of her daughters’ first communion to have hers.

After the worship service, Horacio, Esther and I went to her house… one room in the back of someone’s garage… and had a feast at the card table they had set up in the garage with the permission of the landlord. The other members of the church did not accept the invitation but the table was still full.

“Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” Matthew 26:27-28.

May your cup overflow with the forgiveness that is yours in Christ.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Lamentations

“Enemies have stretched out their hands over all her precious things; she has even seen the nations invade her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation” Lamentations 1:10.

The women were gathered in the church singing as the rest of the community prepared for the celebration outside. The joy was interrupted by screams, gunfire and death as the army entered the church killing the women in a spray of bullets. Those that did not die by fire arm were piled on top of those already dead inside the church and set on fire. Everyone in the church that day in 1982 died.

“The young and the old are lying on the ground in the streets; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; in the day of your anger you have killed them, slaughtering without mercy” Lamentations 2:21.

Outside the church the army placed people inside the kettles of boiling water which had been set up to prepare food for the anniversary celebration.

“You invited my enemies from all around as if for a day of festival; and on the day of the anger of the LORD no one escaped or survived; those whom I bore and reared my enemy has destroyed” Lamentations 2:22.

They rounded up all the young women and girls and shut them inside the school. For two weeks the girls were raped. At the end of the two weeks, the last soldier walked out, locked the door and set fire to the school.

“My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until the LORD from heaven looks down and sees. My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the young women in my city” Lamentations 3:49-51.

It was market day and the women and children were cautiously buying some food for their families. They were assured that the army was far away, that it was safe to buy today. The bartering of the women was interrupted by gun fire. Many were killed falling with their babies strapped to their backs. Several women were taken and tied up to be kicked and beaten. “Where are the rest? Where are the rest? In the cardamom fields? Tell us!” Eventually they too lost their lives. At least one child was taken, alive, by the army. Twenty five years later he has returned to be reunited with his family, now strangers.

“Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place” Lamentations 1:3.

Fleeing for their lives into the mountains, many died of starvation and disease. The dead were left behind. Crossing a river into Mexico, one young boy got caught under water too long and though alive never reached adulthood. In Mexico more died of starvation and disease in poor refugee camp conditions.

“They cry to their mothers, ‘Where is bread and wine?’ as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom” Lamentations 2:12.

Transfiguration

“The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:” Lamentations 3:19-21.

The Augustinian Lutheran Church “St. John the Baptist” on the day of the Transfiguration of our Lord presented a play they had put together about the massacre that they had lived through in their own flesh for the delegation from Easter Lutheran Church.

The women still knew how to run for their lives when faced with gunfire. They still knew how to fall at full speed in order to try to protect the babies on their backs. They still knew how the soldiers piled up the bodies in the church… and even set some paper on fire in the church to make it a little more real. They knew how to tie people up and how to kidnap a child. The babies cried, frightened and not knowing that it was only a recreation.

God has truly transfigured the pain of these people. It has not been erased. The scars are still visible and some wounds are still open. However, in the midst of hearing about what they had suffered in the flesh and seeing the depth of the pain in eyes blank with grief… a word of hope was spoken.

“We have found the place where we will die”.

They were the first to return to Guatemala in the murmurings of peace but the last to receive a place to resettle. The land they received was far from their land of origin. It was not good farmland, and especially not good for the farming they had practiced before the exile. It was for cattle, but they had none. The land had hardly any trees or water. Their community had slowly been meshed with others until they had to speak Spanish instead of their native language in order to communicate with their new neighbors-- with whom they would either make life or not. The promised land was not as wonderful as they had dreamed it would be all those years in exile. They could not even afford to get themselves to the land a few hours away. Struggle continued to keep fresh the bitter taste in their mouths.

Padre Horacio paid for four trucks to bring them to the land promised them. Somehow they found the will to continue to struggle and to apply for government loans for cattle so that they could make a life waiting years to receive any sort of answer.

As we celebrated the Transfiguration of our Lord in February 2007, we were gathered in the newly built church. Every family had gathered sticks to put up the walls so that the cattle would not loll in the church any more… for Christmas the nativity manger could very well have been in their lowly shelter. Now the church had walls and a hand made door, altar, and church benches. The ceiling was decorated with plastic streamers and the walls with Sunday school lessons.

The church benches were filled with the families of the church… and the people filled with the hope in Christ that they are home. With the help of our Lord, and His abundant promises they will die here… this will be the home of the generations to come. God willing.

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him” Lamentations 3:22-24.

Coal to my lips

“For these things I weep; my eyes flow with tears” Lamentations 1:16.

Personally… in Zaculeu this February, as I translated at least an hour of stories of the massacres that these beautiful people had suffered in their own flesh… something happened. I have heard many stories of massacres here in Guatemala since I have arrived. That day as I translated, I became the means for them to lament to God and neighbor. Their words and pain came into me so that as I translated it the pain and suffering could be shared.

One after another the members of the church stood up and added their sufferings to the others. The horror was indescribable and my call was to share that suffering in my mother tongue to the brothers and sisters who had come to be in solidarity with the church.

Is this what the writer of Lamentations felt when they put to words the suffering, the cry of the people? Is this what Isaiah felt when his lips were burned with the coal of the seraphs? I did not suffer what these people suffered but by translating it I was forced to take it, in a small way, into myself and then give it away so that it could be heard and healed. Is this what we do as pastors in confession… take it in and give it to God to receive His forgiveness?

There are things that only God can receive… and He too cries upon receiving them. For these reasons, He went to the cross so that this suffering is not the end. Rather it meets its end in the cross. Death… so that their might be life.

Violence Personally Delivered

Sunday we arrived at Porvenir with a delegation and were met with a nearly empty church. It turns out that late the night before a young man, whose family and extended family attended the church, had been killed. The family was all present at the home to begin to mourn. As the family gathered, they received a phone call from the gang. The gang member told the family not to make a big deal out of it and then apologized for killing the young man. They had thought he was someone else and killed him by mistake. Such a phone call cannot bring comfort.

In a neighborhood in Guatemala City al the homes and businesses received a piece of paper. On the paper was listed how many family members each house had or employees of each business, the hours they came and went and on the bottom the price that family or business owned the gang monthly. An address of the gang’s office was listed where payments could be made. Audacious… an office to receive extortion payments… no need to hide from the “legal” authorities.