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FROM THE DIRECTOR…Dear Fellow Missionaries: Fr. Tim Conlan reports this month on his projects and activities in Rabinal, Guatemala. The life and beauty of the people is preserved in their deep devotion and long-standing tradition of worship. Like many indigenous peoples it is difficult to maintain the customs and life of past generations when the political and economic times draw the youth away from the villages into the cities and many times up across the border into the United States. The work of our missionaries is to assist the people in building a future of their own choosing. Your generosity extends from the young woman learning how to use a sewing machine, to the elderly man listening to the Bible story in Achi. In March I plan to visit Fr. Tim and Bro. Raymond in Guatemala to see first hand the work they do and to meet the people with whom and to whom they minister. When you receive this issue in early February, I will be with the Friars and Sisters in Chiapas, Mexico. Please pray for a successful journey. I hope to meet many people and learn so much of God working among his people. I write my message having just completed a weekend appeal at our Dominican Newman Center, which serves the University of Arizona in Tucson. Welcome to you who are receiving Missionaries In Action for the first time. You join a community of missionaries who pray and preach. By word and deed our aim is to bring Jesus Christ to all people. Sincerely, Fr. Martin |
BUILDING A FUTURE IN GUATAMALABy Fr. Timothy Conlan, O.P. Right now my hands are full with the construction of three chapels in my mountain area. It is a dream that I have had for a few years. They are adobe chapels, but we are using concrete and steel columns and iron beams for the roof to save the few remaining large trees. The people are very excited about these projects. It is an ambitious project to build three chapels at once, but it is actually much more economical. The same salary for one technician for on chapel will actually cover all three because they are all up in the same area and all the chapels are the same general construction. We can buy material in larger quantities, get a better price and save on transportation. For four years, I have celebrated the Mass in open-air shacks hoping to one day find a way to help the people build an adobe chapel. The three villages are high up the mountain. Getting materials to the villages is costly and difficult. In each village there are more than 250 Catholics. It is amazing to see the amount of material that is needed for the base of just one chapel - 36 cubic meters of rock. It is like a mountain of rock 20 feet high. This is material that we ask the people to find and transport by mule or on their backs. The people must make 2,000 large adobes of 15 inches square, plus 7,000 small adobe bricks to cover the sides of the pillars and cement trusses. This is a huge amount of work. In the village there are 66 people organized into 11 groups of six. The fellow who is secretary of the committee has a notebook where he keeps record of how many days each works and how many hours, just so he can evaluate each team. The faster they work, the less money it costs for the bricklayer who directs the work in each chapel. The bricklayer makes roughly $10 a day, and he has to sleep at the job site because it is too far to come back to town each day.... |
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