Volunteer Missionary Movement - USA

11/18/2008

God Has A Dream

I've been reading Desmond Tutu's 2004 book God Has A Dream: A Vision
of Hope For Our Time. Here's a short passage for this week's reflection.

"Our God is a God who has a bias for the weak, and we who worship
this God, who have to reflect the character of this God, have no
option but to have a like special concern for those who are pushed to
the edges of society, for those who because they are different seem
to be without a voice. We must speak up on their behalf, on behalf of
the drug addicts and the down-and-outs, on behalf of the poor, the
hungry, the marginalized ones, on behalf of those who because they
are different dress differently, on behalf of those who because they
have different sexual orientations from our own tend to be pushed
away to the periphery. We must be where Jesus would be, this one who
was vilified for being the friend of sinners.

"When we look around, we see God's children suffering everywhere. The
poor are getting poorer, the hungry getting hungrier, and all over
the world you see many of God's children suffering oppression. You
see God's children often in prison for nothing. All over the world
you see God's children treated as if they were rubbish. You would not
be mistaken to call the situation between the haves and the have-
nots, between the powerful and the powerless, a form of global
apartheid." 

11/25/2008

Joy

The last four weekends I attended conferences that filled my head
with the world's apparently unsurmountable problems and left me with
a feeling of jet lag, flu and hangover all combined. It took one
story - the story of a Mayan campesino woman - to bring clarity and
lightness to my heavy head.

Ricardo Falla is a priest, anthropologist and writer - a Guatemalan
Jesuit who worked in Nicaragua and who, when the violence began in
Guatemala, in the later 70s, worked in Chiapas among the Guatemalan
refugees and then for many years with communities of internal
refugees on the run within Guatemala. His latest book is on young
people from a Quiche community who went to work in the US but
returned. One of the book's stories appeared in the English version
of Envio in October. Maria, a young mother of three, joined her
husband working as an "illegal" in Boston. She worked there for an
industrial cleaning agency for 12 to 16 hours a day. Two years later,
once the debt she wanted to pay was paid as well as the cost of the
"coyote" including the 5% monthly interest and her plane ticket back
to Guatemala, she decided to return to her three children. Falla
interviews her a year later.

"I'm hardly ever worried now. I'm living like a housewife now. A
housewife does her chores quickly [the "quickly" is a vestige of the
USA], cleans the house, looks after the children, feeds her animals,
eats calmly, without any worries at all. It's not like being there.
And although you're not getting paid by the hour, the way I see it
you're having a good time. That's what I've picked up from my
experience, being in your own house, feeding your hens, eating well.
Over there, on the other hand - oh my God! - eating on the run ...
because if you get there after work starts, they say you must not
need to work, that it'd be better if you left, that they'll look for
someone else who does need work... Here you've got your animals, you
go to the square to sell them, and you've got your little money. And
if you've got some crops, vegetables, and look after them, you can go
to the square and make a little more money ... And so we get by. I've
got two lime trees that give a lot of fruit. I planted them. And I've
got that furrow of sugar cane that I planted with my husband. And I
sowed that over there myself ... And I've planted my guava bush ...
We've also eaten guavas during the past season. And my avocado tree
there also produced avocados this year. So I'm always happy. I'm
hardly ever worried."

She's saved money for her two daughters' education. They can do
better. But she's hoping she won't lose her "investment" in their
education by their going to the USA and washing toilets. Her husband
is still in the USA and sends money but not much. She would like to
invest it in a bread oven or sewing blouses but her female
initiatives are met by male veto. She has to be careful not to make
him jealous. She is proud of what she's achieved. She unafraid of
racism and sexism - she does her own banking and she will walk by a
bunch of guys. "I'm not afraid, I'm not ashamed." Courage has been a
constant factor for her... "How far I've been! to the United States
and back." She tells her daughters, "be like me; don't be afraid."

Falla concludes Maria is one of those women whose life... helps
undermine the foundations of the patriarchy. These small experiences
and struggles nurture a fabric of women's voices on the planet that
form the basis of feminism in Third World countries.

Let us find this week what gives us joy. And let us thank God.

Cecily