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.