bridging

it still amazes me how much one food product can run an entire country, and yet (as you most likely know by now) a shortage of corn due to a lack of rains this year threatens to place many families without food for the coming months. i have been amazed already at the people that have come into the clinics saying that they haven't had food for a couple of days or telling us that they expect very little or no corn from their harvest this year.

and as equally as this, i have been amazed at the attitude that people have towards it. i had a family come into clinic a couple weeks ago and tell me in a very matter-of-fact manner that they could not take their one month child with a 103 degree fever (and no sites of infection that i could find to treat) into the hospital for further testing and monitoring because they had no money... when i asked about how their crops were this year, i got an equal matter-of-fact answer that they had no crops because it had not rained enough in their area; when i asked about their plan? they would buy corn until they couldn't anymore. very black and white, end of dicussion. and i got the same response out of the other couple of families that i asked that day about their crops.

as we later discussed the seeming sense of apathy towards the food problem this year by even those who will suffer from it, leslie reminded me that this attitude is very much inline with the responses we get from so many women when we ask how many living children they have and they will tell us about the deaths of four of them with the same tone they would use to recount what they ate for breakfast that morning, and that what i can so easily mistake for apathy, often comes from the general attitude of acceptance of what life brings their way. i have many times noticed that whether they actually profess to follow christ or not, there is a seeming foundational understanding among all that God holds the ins and outs, the comings and goings, and beginnings and endings of life. and while in its extreme form, this can cause an apathetic attitude and a hardness of heart towards life, in many ways i have a lot to learn from this principle myself...

as i touched on in my last post, i am also reminded during this time how much the guatemalan peoples' hands are tied which further contributes greatly to this attitude that i can often perceive as apathy. what are they going to do? get mad at God for not letting it rain this year? that will not put food on their table, and the other responses are not options. there are no mcdonalds to go work at, no social welfare system in place to get money from, no secure job in place to pay back any money they could borrow during this time, etc. it is times like these that it is so obvious to me the reason for the big influx of illegal immigrants to the states, the reason that men will leave their families for months at a time to work on a sugar cane plantation, and even the reason for the problem among the men with drinking and leaving their families. not at all that i am condoning these responses, but i can see how without christ, one is left without the hope and security that fuels a moving forward in life. and in its place can grow a desperation and a giving up.

i have felt more at peace in these past few months leading up to this time that we are here for a reason and a purpose than i ever have before in my time here. i often wonder, and probably will until the day i leave or die, what our role here is... how we use the gifts, blessings, and responsibilities that god has given us to invest in lives and relationships around us... to help the people without enabling them. as i have become more and more impressed with the fact that we will not ever be guatemalans and that we will never not be americans, i know that one of our biggest roles here is to work as a bridge between here and the states.

we have spent a lot of time talking about different ways to help the people through this drought and have been amazed as a few people from the states have written or called wondering how they can help. as craig and leslie have mentioned on their blogs, we are in the process of trying to set up a system for distribution of cheaply bought or donated corn that we can have brought down here on a container. while this is still in the works, we have felt compelled to continue on in this as we anticipate a rough year ahead for many, getting them through not only this dry season where they usually live off of the corn that they have harvested from the rainy season, but also through the rainy season where they are still planting and growing the corn for the next year. as we move forward in this, we also know that this is not something that "the americans" need to be seen as doing, so we have talked to friends of ours in san andres about partnering with them to distribute food, clothes and other necessities.

it is also a huge desire of our hearts to partner with the churches. in an area that already has so much lack of unity and discipleship among the churches, our prayer has always been (and especially more so in these past few months as we have spent mondays and wednesdays praying over canilla and san andres) for more unity and for eyes to be opened to the needs of their own people here. we are in prayer over a time that we can get together with all of them and together come up with some ways that we can unite to provide help during this time.

please continue to keep guatemala in your prayers at this time. as the people here struggle through knowing where their next meal will come from, and we desire to carry out our responsilibites here with integrity and within what God has called us to, the last part of 2 corinthians chapter 12 has run through my head...

"but he said to me, 'my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness...'
and that is why, for Christ's sake, i delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. for when i am weak, then i am strong."