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| ...At Chipuerta one wall of the chapel needs reinforcing
because the ground is next to a slope. The wall will take 90 sacks of cement and lots of
huge rocks, but they have rocks everywhere at that place. The women have been
carrying up sand in bowls on their heads from the nearby streams totaling an amount equal
to four pickup trucks worth of sand. But we had to buy the gravel. At Joya de
Ramos there are no rocks and no sand, so it will cost more money for the material for the
chapel, but we can't build any walls yet. First, it will take five big loads of rock and
five more of sand worth $1,500 U.S. just to put a base under the chapel. My newest project that will kick off soon is the sewing project. We have 20 machines loaned from the state, and we have fixed up a place for them in a very poor village near town called Pacux. This is where the refugees from the Rio Negro massacre live. We will have a course teaching sewing for 20 persons for 108 hours, at no charge. It has been a lot of work to get everything ready. The machines were left abandoned for nine months from the last project. The chairs were left exposed and some disappeared, so we had to fix them all and make eight new ones. Recently, the village has been divided over issues relating to the chapel and the church; hope-fully this sewing course will help rebuild the unity in the community. Also in Pacux we put in three wells with manual pumps, which the people dug themselves. The cost came to about $400 a well, plus extra costs of adding fences. Six families are now producing vegetable gardens and even selling their products in the villages. Donors helped with some latrines, so we have over 14 latrines that will produce very good fertilizer for the cornfields. Our area is like a desert and it is being deforested at a great rate. The government program of guarding the forests is mostly ineffective. It is tragic. All our pastoral work goes on as usual. We had First Communions for over 1,000 children in November and December plus confirmations in the villages for close to 600 youths. The bishop stayed here five days making journeys into the villages with us. In many ways the church is at the service of the whole community in many social projects, but we have no funding for helping our catechists and building chapels, etc. We need a good bookstore and scholarships for the catechists so they can study and have books. We need to recruit new young catechists. I live with two other Dominicans. The pastor is a 30-year-old priest, three years ordained, from El Salvador. He has an interest in being a professor of theology so he has taken on teaching a course in theology in the larger town of Salama, once a week, at an extension of the Jesuit University of Landivar. It is the first year for such a course. He is also training persons to teach the bible in our parish. He has his hands full. The other is a 52-year-old priest from Honduras, only two years ordained, who dedicates his time to the lay movements. Both of them are very active in the radio programs. Our radio station is still struggling to be self-supporting, but at least for the present we received a few generous donations, which have allowed a bit of breathing room. I have my once-a-week program for one hour. The struggle for human rights goes on. The situation in Guatemala has deteriorated in the last year. About four months ago Rabinal made the international papers regarding the digging up of the remains of the people massacred in the 1980's. Rigoberta Menchu, the 1992 winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, came here to accompany the families of the victims to the exhumation. In December, we had the funeral of one of our catechists. He was assassinated with nine shots at point blank range in his house, and his wife was wounded. It was not delinquency; it was a hired murder. They say that for $100 you can get someone killed. He was an outspoken defender of the church's teachings, so it appears he offended someone. It is almost unheard of to find the culprits in these cases. The political situation seems more tense each day. Our new U.S. Ambassador is John Hamilton. At his confirmation hearings, he was outspoken against the corruption, narco traffic of the military, and lack of human rights protection. Hope centers on the elections coming up this year. I have also taken up funding scholarships for young people in high school with the help of a group in the San Francisco Bay Area called LACA, Latin America Community Assistance Foundation. There are about 100 youths that we are helping, plus I have others who are sent to me who need help. We hope to aid these young people in the coming years onto careers in nursing, teaching, technology, etc. I do not do this work alone. I need someone who can interview the young people in Achi, their language. There is much more I could write. At least you know I am still here and still doing my little part. Thank you so much for your help on all these projects and much more. Yours in Christ, Triduum of Saint Martin de Porres How can you help? Find out how to support the Western Dominican Missions. |
