Hanging my hat in Santo Domingo de Guzman

So after several months of searching on foot and within my heart, I have finally discovered where I am meant to be. It is a small, country town in the Western end of El Salvador called Santo Domingo de Guzman. I have visited there a few times in the past month and will be moving there permanently at the end of this week. Temporarily I will be living with a family who have an extra room while I look for a small house of my own. This family is made up of a German man (Hans Piter), his Salvadoran wife (Maria Rodriguez Piter) and their son, who I have yet to meet. Hans lived in the States for 30 years, so I will have someone to chat with in English when my head starts hurting from speaking Spanish all day every day!!! They seem like a very welcoming family, but I probably won't stay their for long because one of the girls I have befriended there has already located a small house that is for rent. While living with a family would provide some company, I am looking forward to having my own space.

In being introduced by the priest (Fr. Juan Jose Ausencio) to the family I will be living with, I felt further confirmed in my decision to stay in Santo Domingo. He mentioned that I was a missioner and that I have helped him see a different side to being a missioner than what they normally envision. Typically when they think of a missioner, it is someone who goes door to door with a Bible and just preaches to people. However, he has seen that I am approaching mission with an attitude of wanting to get close to the community, learn from them, and find a way to support them (and not just giving out resources). I wanted to give him a big hug for having come to this realization about me. I will be excited to work in a team with him (I will be collaborating at the church, probably in helping organize a social ministry because he has not yet formed one).

While helping promote the social doctrine of the Church is something that I can offer from my own education, Fr. Juan Jose was right when he said that I definitely am here to learn a lot. One of the things I want to learn more about is the artisan craft developed by the women of the community. They have, for many years, earned a living (although a very minimal amount) through making products out of clay. They are very skilled in this work, and several have offered to teach me the process! I am just so excited to visit with the women in their homes and see how they work because at the moment they each work pretty much on their own. Without being organized, they are struggling to find a way to commercialize their product. I am hoping that in getting to know them more and their passion for this delicate hand-craft, I will find ways to bring them more together and discover openings with them in the market. Unfortunately marketing was not my specialty in college, so I inscribed in a university class on Gender and Economy, sponsored by a local women's organization, because with more education on this topic, I will be able to serve these women to the best of my ability.

Something, however, that is not offered as a university course that this community is very knowledgeable in is Nahuat, the indigenous Pipil language. While this language is almost completely lost, there are some elderly people in the community who can speak it. One of these hablantes de Nahuat is Don Genaro, the director of the Casa de la Cultura (the cultural center). He has written a book of phrases in Nahuat, translated into Spanish, and is working on a book on the history of Santo Domingo de Guzman (previously called Huitzapan = river of thorns). He is just a wealth of wisdom, and I cannot wait to learn a lot from him. It seems that in general it is the adult population that wants to advance the indigenous culture and not hide their identity anymore (there has been a lot of discrimination of the indigenous population in the past and still continues today but to a lesser extent, which has led many to ignore that identity). Those that seem particularly adverse to embracing this identity are the youth, who are more interested in learning English and how to use computers (which are practical for them in socio-economic advancement). What would be great would be to find a way to bridge the two realities together - connect their past to their future. Their is so much richness to this community, and I cannot wait to discover more as I continue in mission.

Shallow roots

I just finished reading a book called Consider This Senora, which is about a group of foreigners who for different reasons find themselves living in a small village in central Mexico. In the end, they all move away, and one of the men of the village comments, "Their roots are shallow from frequent transplanting."

This quote really struck me because I too have been transplanted a lot. I grew up in Louisville, Ky, went to college in Boston, lived for a year in the Dominican Republic, moved back to Louisville for a year, and now I am in El Salvador. Do I have too shallow of roots to be nourished? I look at some of my cousins who all live close to one another, who have started families of their own, who have kids who play together, and I feel a little envious. I am physically far from my family and can only talk to them once and a while on skype or by email. I chose to be a missioner to become more connected to people, to reality, but am I actually becoming more disconnected by transplanting myself too often?

On top of that, I am thrown into a foreign culture, with different traditions/customs, a different spirituality, different sense of time, with food that, while tasty, can cause me to become ill, where I don't always understand what people are saying, where people stare because I look different, etc... I don't really feel like I fit in. Do I belong here? Where do I belong?

When I ask myself these questions, which happens often, I can begin to feel lost and alone, but then I have to remind myself of what one of my teachers, Sr. Peggy, told our class on liberation theology. She said that rather than asking ourselves where we belong, we should ask, "To whom do I belong?/ Whose am I?" Roots are developed in people, not just in places. Of course, it is going to take a while to develop roots in a community here. I may never belong in El Salvador, but I hope I can find a community of people to belong to.

My sense of hope comes from the ginkgo tree. Apparently, it is unknown whether or not the gingko tree (which Larry Lewis, MM, references in his book The Misfit), has a native population anywhere in the world. Whether or not it actually has a home, they are grown in many different places/environments. They are known to have a preference for disturbed sites, like rocky slopes and cliff edges, and can adapt to the harsh, urban environment with pollution and limited growing space. They are so resilient that they were among the few living things that survived the atomic blast at Hiroshima. This tree has been transplanted to many different environments, and while it may never fully naturalize itself in all of them (like in the US), it finds the nourishment it needs to thrive. Like the gingko, I am drawn also to and nourished by more disturbed environments. I just hope I have its adaptability and resilience (but not its foul odor ;)! I am ready to find my next home and plant my "gingko roots."

Semana Santa

As we are in the middle of Semana Santa (Holy Week), I am reminded of the suffering that Christ endured because of the kind of life he was proclaiming with his words and actions. He stood next to those that others ignored and gave strength and hope to those that the powerful wanted to remain weak. He invited all to his table. Do I do this? I often find myself judging others by their words and actions, rather than looking for God's presence within that person. And yet I find myself in a country where people don't think twice to invite me into their home and offer me something to eat and drink. Without doing anything to deserve it, I am brought to the table.

I am feeling so overwhelmed to find a ministry and find out what I have to offer, that I forget what being in mission is all about: becoming part of a community that breaths life. This is why the following statement from my Lenten reflection book really spoke to me: "We believe with the apostle John that Jesus is 'the Word of Life' and that where there is life, there God reveals himself. Where the poor begin to live, where the poor begin to liberate themselves, where men and women are able to sit down aoround a common table and share, there is the God of life." This is what I strife for.


A great reminder for me of this hope is a mural of the Last Supper that is painted inside a building in Perquin, El Salvador. It is a table filled with people who have given their lives in the pursuit of justice, most from El Salvador but among the few foreigners present is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Can you imagine being invited to eat at that table?

Searching for a Ministry

Today is my first day out of language school, so I have begun to scope out different ministry options. I had an appointment this morning with a human rights organization in San Salvador, called CODEFAM. I met with the directora (Madre Lupe) at the office, and we talked about two different projects that interest me. One is located in Paisnal and is focused on informing youth about human rights. The woman who runs this project gives workshops to the youth at a central location (because the youth come from surrounding communities) but also visits each of their communities as well. La Madre Lupe has promised to arrange a meeting where the three of us can get together to discuss the possibility of me visiting this project and getting involved. The second project is located in Zacatecoluca and involves working with the families of victims of the war through a committee dedicated to preserving the memory of this tragic history. I´m not sure exactly what my position would be, but la Madre Lupe has also promised to set up a meeting with one of the committee members. Hopefully something will turn out!

Another avenue that I am looking into is working in the small, indigenous town of Panchimalco. I have visited there several times, and I have fallen in love with the effort being made to revive the indigenous culture, which has for the most part been non-existent since the massacre of thousands of indigenous people in 1932. I have been going there each week to take weaving classes with a woman at the cultural center, Doña Claudia (pictured above). This art form, called el tejido de cintura, is practiced only by a few people now, primarily in her family. Leave it up to the gringa to want to continue it!! I have to start with a more basic material before I can make the beautifully colored cloth that I am holding in the picture. We shall see how that goes! I am interested, though, in learning more about the effort to revive the indigenous culture, so I am going back to Panchimalco on Saturday. I will be accompanied by one of the workers at Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad (where I studied Spanish). She knows a married couple who runs a school there, which is connected to a cultural center that offers activities for youth and adults. I would be very excited to see if there is a possibilty for me to support their work.

For now, these are the two that interest me the most. Of course I have plenty more time to keep looking, so who knows what my camino will be!

Cutumay Camones

I arrived in El Salvador almost a month ago. I have been busy at language school and just getting settled into the culture here. I have been attending services with a faith commuity in San Ramon, a neighborhood in San Salvador. They are very participatory in their services and they find ways to link their faith with the reality of the Salvadoran people. One of the ways they do this is honoring the the victims of the massacres that occurred during the Civil War here in the 80s. One of these happened in Cutumay Camones. I think about 95 people were killed. I was invited to join the community in travelling out to this rural town just last Sunday. It was very powerful to listen to the various testimonies, although of course I didnt catch it all.

In the picture above, I am sure you can tell I was not the only gringa there. The other young girl, Annie, studied abroad with me in El Salvador when we were in college. After graduating, she returned and has been here for over 2 years. It has been great to reunite with her here. The other two gringos are her parents who were visiting at the time. They were generous to offer me a ride to this site. The woman to the far left is one of the leaders of the faith community in San Ramon. The woman next to her was a part of the ¨pequena comunidad¨ which included Archbishop Oscar Romero and Hermana Silvia (who was killed at this massacre at Cutumay Camones). The other two Salvadorans work with Annie in Nueva Amanecer.

The other picture is the little monument they have erected to honor the victims. It is decorated here by the group I came with. The people here are dedicated to never forgetting what has happened in their past. The victims are still very much present in their hearts and give them the strength and hope needed in the continuous struggle for justice.

Prayer and Zeal

In one of our recent classes, I learned that the two patron saints of mission are St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Francis Xavier. Its hard to imagine that these two would be the patron saints of the same thing because they lived such opposite lives. St. Therese lived in the same convent in France from the time she joined at age 16 until she died at 24. She dreamed of joining the missions, but since she had poor health, her involvement in mission was in prayer. St. Francis Xavier travelled to Asia and proadly claimed to have baptized thousands of souls. After serving in Japan for a while, he had a desire to go to China. As he was waiting on the shore for a boat to take him to China, he realized that he was dying and that he wouldn't be able to make the trip. So, being the dramatic guy he was, he got a piece of driftwood to lie down on, making sure he was facing in the direction of China. He wanted to make sure that when he met God in heaven that God would know of his desire to go to China. While Vatican II changed the idea of mission from converting souls to living out the Gospel call to justice, these two people clearly show two very important components of mission: prayer and zeal.

I am so glad that this past week, we had a whole day to spend in Rockefeller Park to pray in nature, which is where I often feel closest to God (the pictures are from the park). This intentionality of prayer is so important to me because sometimes I can become so passionate/fired up about issues and a desire to be an agent of change (the zeal of St. Francis) that I can lose focus on what mission is all about: connecting with people. Prayer brings me back to this reality, that I am called to love, and as Henri Nouwen so relevantly puts it in his book Gracias, "We cannot love issues, but we can love people, and the love of people reveals to us the way to deal with issues." Jesus' love for each of us is unique; he is the shepherd that calls each of us by name (apparently this notion comes from the fact that shepherds have a unique call/whistle for each of their sheep - who knew?). So, likewise, we are to reach out with compassion to each individual according to his/her unique situation. This is my hope!

"We are not political persons;

we do not put our trust in merely human powers.

We are, above all, Christians, and we know

that if the Lord does not build our civilizaton

all labor in vain who build it.

We know that our power comes from prayer

and from our turning toward God."

-Archbishop Oscar Romero

Celebrating Gandhi's 140th Birthday!

Welcome to my blog! This is my very first post, yay. I am currently in Ossining, NY at orientation with the Maryknoll Lay Missioners in preparation to serve for the next 3 1/2 years in El Salvador. The title of my blog is Profeta Salvadoreno in honor of Archbishop Oscar Romero who was one of the greatest prophets of the 20th century and whose spirit is still so alive in the Salvadoran people.

Another great prophet of our time was Mahatma Gandhi, who would celebrate his 140th birthday tomorrow. In his honor, I would like to offer up a prayer for peace:

God of peace and love,
Help us to be peacemakers,
Open our eyes, hearts and minds
to your wisdeom, spoken from many different voices
and to your will, performed in many different ways.
As we attempt to fulfill your mission on earth,
purify our hearts of the desires for success and the need for praise and recognition.
Anchor us in you
so that we dod not judge others
but see people of different cultures, races, and creeds
as fellow human beings
that need to be listened to, noticed, and comforted by your love.
Free us from the sense that we control our lives
so that we can better experience your love
and thus speak and act more fearlessly for peace.
AMEN