News 10 -- March 1991

Luis is clear in describing his family's exodus: "There was a time when religion was comprised of saying the rosary, participating in processions and assisting at Mass on Sunday morning. But that was before Medellin (the Latin American Bishops´ Conference held in Medellin, Colombia in 1968). After Medellin, parish priests and sisters began to tell us that religion was more than pious, individual devotions. It was a way of life; a commitment to be involved in ´my barrio' with those like ourselves whose rights too had been violated and whose voice was not heard."

[In some of his letters Larry used the word womyn as his way of expressing the equality of women and men.
campo = farm field or farm region. Campesino(a) = peasant farmer]

Newsletter # 10

March 1991
El Salvador

Dear Friends:

The direction to proceed is often difficult to determine. This was the case recently while trying to decide when to terminate our work in the parish here in El Salvador.

After 4 1/2 years as volunteers accompanying the day to day life and struggle of our people, we felt it was the time to allow the community to continue on their own.

Though these past years have been invaluable in this small pueblo of El Salvador, I had always hoped to also experience how life is lived in other parts of the country. But how to leave, gracefully, those we had come to love dearly, and when to go from there were questions whose answers remained unclear.

However, around the 3rd week of January, a young priest from our diocese paid us a visit. He came with a proposal from the bishop. The bishop wished to send two young priests to work in our parish. We could stay on and work as a team with the 2 priests or we could join the families recently returned from Honduras, located relatively close by.

To Margaret, a Franciscan sister from Colorado, and me, the visit from the young priest was seen as a God-send. We now had a clear and justified reason for moving on. The bishop requested it. And where we would go was also seen as an answer to our prayers.

When the repatriation community returned from Honduras a year ago, the bishop asked our pastoral team to accompany them in any way possible. Our frequent visits allowed us to make acquaintances. Hearing the people's accounts of their personal sufferings, stories till then we had only read about, left a deep impression on us.

Now, with the bishop requesting that we take up residency with the community, we would have the opportunity to share even more in their life experiences.

We were asked to make the change promptly. And so, on Friday February 22nd, Margaret and I moved to our new location. We arrived in time to enter into the preparations for their first year anniversary celebration. A year ago, March 5th, marked the date of their return, that jubilant day of freedom, after nine years of separation from family, friends and homeland.

What memories would this celebration conjure up from their history of the past? In what way would Margaret and I be able to partake in this recounting and planning for the future?

Luis is clear in describing his family's exodus: "There was a time when religion was comprised of saying the rosary, participating in processions and assisting at Mass on Sunday morning. But that was before Medellin (the Latin American Bishops´ Conference held in Medellin, Colombia in 1968). After Medellin, parish priests and sisters began to tell us that religion was more than pious, individual devotions. It was a way of life; a commitment to be involved in `my barrio' with those like ourselves whose rights too, had been violated and whose voice was not heard."

Maria then continued: "A center for Christian lay leadership training was opened in our diocese. During these workshops, hundreds of us began to realize the role we had to play in the development of our future. It was during these days of study that we heard for the first time the words of the many popes who spoke of human rights, the right to organize, to work cooperatively and collectively."

As coffee simmered above the sizzling coals outside the provisionary plastic dwelling of Maria and Luis, Luis continued to tell me what was to be the turning point in their lives: "Upon the completion of several of the workshops for the laity, we returned to our community and began meeting weekly with a small group of neighbors. We read the scriptures aloud and then related them to the reality we found ourselves in. The challenge before us was how could we work toward changing the miserable conditions surrounding us?"

"We knew we had to do something," Maria said. "None of us in our village had the means to buy seeds to plant corn or to rent a piece of land. Our houses did not keep the rain out - put together with pieces of tin with cardboard or plastic bags used for the siding. We were faced with the question, what as a group must we do, in light of gospel demands?"

"Our Pastor agreed to loan us money to purchase a few acres of land that we would work together. The harvest would be shared according to the size and needs of each family."

"We also decided,” Luis said, to work together putting up a house at a time for the family needing it most, though the process would be slow and need the cooperation of all."

"We learned to do these things,” Maria added, "even before arriving in Honduras. However, from the very beginning, we were accused of being communists. After the arrest of one or two member of our community, we began to meet in secret. We invited only those we trusted the most to participate."

"We kept struggling to remain alive,” said Luis. "Meeting regularly and working the land together became harder and harder. And when the soldiers arrived in the middle of the night to arrest neighbors and friends, we realized that our work and our organizing was a threat to them. It was finally when the soldiers came and murdered our pastor that many of the villagers fled to take refuge in the nearby hills. From that time on, life was hell for us."

"Entire families fled, one after the other as our community leaders, catechists and delegates of the Word disappeared or were found dead along the roadside. Endless days and nights were spent walking without food or sleep."

It was at 5 a.m. over hot coffee that Luis and Maria shared their story. A time when the chill is still in the air and the fire and hot coffee warms body and soul. They want and need to share their hurt and their pain stored up within for so long. But not only their hurt and pain but also their many victories experienced both in the refugee camp of Honduras and now their joys and victories as they build toward a free and independent life again in El Salvador.

"We learned to read and to write, both the young and the old, while in Honduras,” continued Maria. "We learned to cultivate productive vegetable gardens and everyone was given the opportunity to learn a trade, the products of which were distributed to all. Shoes, clothing, tables, beds, hammocks and fresh vegetables were shared in common."

"Now that we are back on the land in El Salvador,” Luis said, "the challenge to begin again from scratch has been hard. But we have completed the first year of our return and have overcome what had seemed to be insurmountable obstacles."

"Planting small vegetable gardens,” said Luis, "is much different than looking at 70 acres of land, overgrown with weeds, directly in the eye. Less than 2 months after our return last March, with temporary housing needed for all before the rains came, and with latrines and collective kitchens demanding our immediate attention, the community went to the fields with cumas (small hand sickles) in hand, chopping and burning weeds, while borrowing a pair of oxen to turn the soil."

"Our hands and our backs were not accustomed to the hard work in the field. Aches and pains accompanied those first weeks as men, womyn and children worked from early morning to late afternoon. Neighbors came to join us,” Maria recalled. Two, then three, pair of oxen were on hand because of the generosity of our neighbors. Chickens were given to us and fresh milk sent down from the villagers living above us. They were glad to have us and we were made to feel welcomed from the start."

"When the first corn was sown,” Maria continued, "and temporary housing set up, concentration turned toward reopening schools again for the children. Popular education, a method learned in Honduras, capacitates young men and womyn as teachers of their own community. While the young and old are learning to read and write, they do so by speaking about the reality in which they live. They learn to write words such as water (aqua), land (tierra), corn (maiz). They talk about the importance of rain, of working in community and of forming cooperatives."

"Speaking about the price of beans, of rice, and of coffee captivates the campesino's interest," said Luis, "and thus we yearn to read so we can better understand the problems of the poor, because we ourselves are poor.”

One morning while we sat drinking coffee Maria and Luis' 17 year old son came out from their small plastic dwelling, supported by a pair of crutches. Luis extended a small bench for him to sit on. "Miguel came home from the hospital yesterday," Luis explained. "His knee was shattered by an M‑16 shell and his stomach opened in the same skirmish."

"We have lost two sons to the war,” Maria said, "and our 4th boy is presently away fighting. The war has taken a terrible toll on all of us in the community, but we have returned to El Salvador in hopes of creating a better life for our children and their children to come."

Maria is part of a group of womyn who wish, she says, "to discover together our role and rights as womyn. First to do so within our own community and then as womyn of society at large. God only knows, there is a false sense of values concerning womyn in our own community and we have an obligation to put things straight if we are to live together as Christians."

Luis, a member of the pastoral team, has, along with other members of the community, shared their stories on the diocesan level among men and womyn active in social action groups within their parishes. This interchange of lives and values has helped to break down barriers. True, but sad to say, the press and national television often depicts the men and womyn returning from the refugee camps as “guerrillas” and members of the FMLN. Reaching out to the local churches helps greatly to alleviate any existing fear and false impressions caused by such slander.

Maria and Luis believe, as does their community, that they have discovered a way of life, a model for living in community that poor the world over could benefit from. "We are eager," Luis says, "to share with our neighbors where we have been and where we hope to go in the future. It is not an easy road and often demands all we have - even our very lives."

Lorenzo