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.