Late last year, Yolanda got a call from Sr. Lili, a Colombian Daughter of Our Lady of Mercy. They had met in Costa Rica three years ago when Yolanda and Roberto and some of our other parishioners had gone there to bring some simple aid after a hurricane. Sr. Lili is now in Guatemala working as a pharmacist at the parish in Livingston. She and Sr. Blanca and Sr. Rosa are the backbones of the parish outreach programs. That area of Guatemala is on the coast with a very mixed population of mestizos, Garifunas, and Quechi-i indigenous people. Would St. Mary’s Parish in Fontana, California, be able to give them some help?
Yolanda and Roberto approached me about it. Yes, I think we can do something. So, we asked our parishioners if they would help, not knowing much about Livingston. We had some fundraisers selling enchiladas, tacos, etc., getting donations for some children’s blankets, using our Catholic Charities Rice Bowls, and finally asking at all the Masses for donations on the way out the door. The response was overwhelming. We collected over $15,000 in a month. They connected with a store owner and ordered $12,000 worth of rice, beans, sugar, flour, cooking oil, powdered milk, etc. Paying our own travel expenses, we flew from Los Angeles on Sunday night, drove eight hours to the coast, made final arrangements to have it all delivered to the church, met the Sisters, then slept. It was about 90 degrees and 90% humidity.
The next day at the church, the seven of us from St. Mary’s had a lot of volunteers recruited by the Sisters to help us, both women and children. We had to fill 800 bags with food to feed 400 families at four different locations. It was a lot of very sweaty work until three in the afternoon.
Early Wednesday morning, we went back to the church and lined up 360 bags outside where hundreds of grandmothers and grandfathers and women with children were waiting. They were enrolled in Sr. Blanca’s various programs of education and hygiene.
I celebrated Mass with Fr. Rudy, the pastor. He has over 30 Quechi-i villages to care for with no roads in or out of the area. Everyone came into the church for Mass. The choir was Garifuna. These are the descendants of African slaves who formed communities along the Caribbean coast in the 1600s and speak the language of their ancestors mixed with local languages. It was very lively with drums and African harmony. Many of the others were indigenous people who don’t speak Spanish. After Mass, we went out and distributed food to those who needed help.
Then we loaded a small boat and crossed the bay to a dock where some local folks were waiting for us. We unloaded our food and many from that village carried it about a mile through the forest to their village. We met them, talked a while, distributed our food, ate a special soup made with rooster and tortillas from corn they grow, all from “slash and burn” agriculture—small scale, corn stalks widely spaced.
The next day, we loaded our boat again and crossed the bay, and went up a small river to a place to land. Again, we were met by friends of the Sisters who helped carry our supplies to the village. We explained that we were from St. Mary’s in Fontana, and we know they don’t really need what we bring, but we recognize that all of us are members of the same family, one body in Jesus Christ, and we didn’t want to come empty-handed. After singing a song, we again ate rooster soup, a very tasty broth with some tough legs. In the afternoon, we visited our fourth village up a river. There we had more soup and a walk through their fields. It was very hot and difficult walking the ups and downs. Coming back, the tide had gone out, and our boat got stuck at the mouth of the river. So, the pilot jumped out into hip-deep muck, floated a ways in front of us with a rope and pulled us 100 feet. Then he went another 100 feet and pulled. And another 100 feet and pulled. We finally got into the bay and slowly made our way home, tired and content.
Some thoughts that stay with me from this experience: How did the earliest missionaries share their faith with people speaking such different languages? They must have been amazingly strong and with great perseverance to find and travel to these villages. The priests and Sisters and lay people who serve them these days must have a great faith and strength too. And how different are the cultures in the Catholic Church! Everyone should certainly be encouraged to celebrate their faith in their own ways. Blessed are those who can speak several languages, so we can communicate with each other. But at least our presence was a sign that we recognize that we are all one, respecting each other, caring about each other. What we took with us was not much, but what I experienced was a great blessing. And experience is the root of wisdom. May all of us have many experiences of differences. God is so much bigger than we are.
Columban Fr. Al Utzig is the director of the U.S. Region.
