Jim's Sharing #5
Warm greetings, friends,
I just returned from seven days with our sister community Valle Nuevo in El Salvador. This visit included visiting with friends of many years, and also seeing signs of new growth.
One of the most significant things was to find out about the big change in their internal relationships. It seems for years now they have been having trouble with bickering amongst themselves about how to proceed with titling the 265 acres of land we helped them buy. The bickering had made any progress almost impossible. Seems an act of God that they have been able to draw together the many factions of their leadership and come to agreement on major decisions like the land titling process. Many confirmed this new direction. At this point there have not been any concrete decisions, though things look more hopeful than they have in a long time.
A major surprise to me was their concern about the war in Iraq,
even though it doesn't directly affect them. Many, many people went out of their way to explain why it is of such a grave concern to them, and then ask us how we felt. They held a march of 2-400 persons and then gathered to pray for peace afterward. Their main reasoning was that, "we know the suffering of war, and the pain of every one involved. The poor are usually on the receiving end, and there is nothing good about it." Andy Horst, one of our youth on the trip said it well, " I've been against war all my life, but now I know why and why I need to do something about it now."
One activity that we took part in was assisting Valle Nuevo youth with their reforestation project. As a part of their tenth grade studies, Valle Nuevo students have a seminar class, in which the students decide a problem in their community that they would like to study and work on. They chose reforestation. Every morning a group of the students work on preparing the acre they are going to plant trees in, and we were able to help them one morning.
I had many good visits with our many friends: Erlinda, Pedro (who now has a new 1 ½ year old girl, his ninth child) Bachio, Tomasa, Reina, and Juana( mother of Claudia who has a baby and is living in LA.). Juana’s husband is part of the 45 households doing an intense experimentation using organic farming methods, a project which looks very promising. Pedro now owns a truck with his brother, which he plans to use to make money by hauling things. David and I spend a hot afternoon loading and unloading 200 adobe bricks. It felt good to help him and in a small way pay him back for the work on the farm here he did for us several years ago.
We were international observers for their election. The farmer’s party FMLN lost by 120 votes; they claim there was fraud and are contesting the election. They held a march to show the support they had for contesting the election, and several thousand participated. They claim that 2- 400 of them were denied the right to vote unfairly, and that the opposition has a history of cheating.
For the 1st time we visited Los Hernandez, Honduras, a community of 500 who took in 5000 El Salvadoran refugees, including Valle Nuevo folks, in 1981. We heard the stories of how the refugees escaped a "search and destroy” mission of the El Salvadoran military, and arrived hungry and many without shirts on their backs. We also heard about the way these very poor Hondurans organized and shared their little to meet their needs, despite the Honduran military having a gun in their face at the same time. It was very moving. The Hondurans also prayed and shared their concern for the war in Iraq.
The last day we had a meaningful time with 46 10th graders from Valle Nuevo in San Salvador, visiting the University where the six priests were killed, and the chapel where Oscar Romero was killed. There we were challenged by a priest and a nun in very good ways to commit ourselves to follow Jesus, the way these martyrs did in working for peace and justice.
I want to say thanks to those of you who contributed financially to enable me to go on this trip. The cost was less than expected, so I was able to give $ 182.00 to the Youth Group toward pipe for the irrigation system for their soccer field.
I would like to close with a story from the good-bye gathering that they had for us. One of the young schoolteachers, Victor, who is an excellent guitarist and songwriter, announced he was going to sing a song. And just then Margarita, a lady in her 70's, said she would like to sing a song that she just wrote about their war history. He immediately deferred to her, and figured how he could accompany her with his guitar. Margarita sang her dozen or so verses in her singsong manner and Victor did an excellent accompaniment. Then everyone applauded stronger than any other time of the evening. Seeing the honor they gave to Margarita was a wonderful impression to come home with.
Join the prayers for peace every day,
Jim
Warm greetings, friends,
I just returned from seven days with our sister community Valle Nuevo in El Salvador. This visit included visiting with friends of many years, and also seeing signs of new growth.
One of the most significant things was to find out about the big change in their internal relationships. It seems for years now they have been having trouble with bickering amongst themselves about how to proceed with titling the 265 acres of land we helped them buy. The bickering had made any progress almost impossible. Seems an act of God that they have been able to draw together the many factions of their leadership and come to agreement on major decisions like the land titling process. Many confirmed this new direction. At this point there have not been any concrete decisions, though things look more hopeful than they have in a long time.
A major surprise to me was their concern about the war in Iraq,
even though it doesn't directly affect them. Many, many people went out of their way to explain why it is of such a grave concern to them, and then ask us how we felt. They held a march of 2-400 persons and then gathered to pray for peace afterward. Their main reasoning was that, "we know the suffering of war, and the pain of every one involved. The poor are usually on the receiving end, and there is nothing good about it." Andy Horst, one of our youth on the trip said it well, " I've been against war all my life, but now I know why and why I need to do something about it now."
One activity that we took part in was assisting Valle Nuevo youth with their reforestation project. As a part of their tenth grade studies, Valle Nuevo students have a seminar class, in which the students decide a problem in their community that they would like to study and work on. They chose reforestation. Every morning a group of the students work on preparing the acre they are going to plant trees in, and we were able to help them one morning.
I had many good visits with our many friends: Erlinda, Pedro (who now has a new 1 ½ year old girl, his ninth child) Bachio, Tomasa, Reina, and Juana( mother of Claudia who has a baby and is living in LA.). Juana’s husband is part of the 45 households doing an intense experimentation using organic farming methods, a project which looks very promising. Pedro now owns a truck with his brother, which he plans to use to make money by hauling things. David and I spend a hot afternoon loading and unloading 200 adobe bricks. It felt good to help him and in a small way pay him back for the work on the farm here he did for us several years ago.
We were international observers for their election. The farmer’s party FMLN lost by 120 votes; they claim there was fraud and are contesting the election. They held a march to show the support they had for contesting the election, and several thousand participated. They claim that 2- 400 of them were denied the right to vote unfairly, and that the opposition has a history of cheating.
For the 1st time we visited Los Hernandez, Honduras, a community of 500 who took in 5000 El Salvadoran refugees, including Valle Nuevo folks, in 1981. We heard the stories of how the refugees escaped a "search and destroy” mission of the El Salvadoran military, and arrived hungry and many without shirts on their backs. We also heard about the way these very poor Hondurans organized and shared their little to meet their needs, despite the Honduran military having a gun in their face at the same time. It was very moving. The Hondurans also prayed and shared their concern for the war in Iraq.
The last day we had a meaningful time with 46 10th graders from Valle Nuevo in San Salvador, visiting the University where the six priests were killed, and the chapel where Oscar Romero was killed. There we were challenged by a priest and a nun in very good ways to commit ourselves to follow Jesus, the way these martyrs did in working for peace and justice.
I want to say thanks to those of you who contributed financially to enable me to go on this trip. The cost was less than expected, so I was able to give $ 182.00 to the Youth Group toward pipe for the irrigation system for their soccer field.
I would like to close with a story from the good-bye gathering that they had for us. One of the young schoolteachers, Victor, who is an excellent guitarist and songwriter, announced he was going to sing a song. And just then Margarita, a lady in her 70's, said she would like to sing a song that she just wrote about their war history. He immediately deferred to her, and figured how he could accompany her with his guitar. Margarita sang her dozen or so verses in her singsong manner and Victor did an excellent accompaniment. Then everyone applauded stronger than any other time of the evening. Seeing the honor they gave to Margarita was a wonderful impression to come home with.
Join the prayers for peace every day,
Jim
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