Reflections on Guatemala 2011

The climate is pretty similar, actually. Chicago is about to be frozen over for the next 4 months. All the trees give up their bloom for another time, reminding us that everything needs to be revived. The Guatemala city garbage dump personifies winter in absolutely every facet. Winter, in the way that C.S. Lewis portrays in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. No matter where you look, the scalding-hot-putrid-trash-smelling garbage dump is solid ice. Lifeless. Cold. At every corner there are more and more stories that are a biting cold reminding you that spring has not arrived.

Take Oscar, for example. His father was murdered. Slit throat maybe, maybe a bullet. Three of his mother’s cousins were murdered. His aunt was murdered. In an effort to get her children out of horrendous neighborhood she arrogated another plot of land, which is how you do it in a community that the government has no desire to control. In the new house, she was the victim of another enemy. Nature. In the torrential storms, that enslaved everyone in their homes for the month of October, everything that she owned was ruined. She owns nothing, now. Oscar, his mom, and his 3 siblings live in a tiny room with his uncle who has been seriously injured. His uncle sleeps in the bed, and the five in Oscar’s family sleep on the floor. Oh, and yes, they call a garbage dump their hometown.

A little old lady, who scavenged the garbage for resources, working long days to provide for her five children, has since been abandoned by all but 2. Only one works, and sends her money when he can. Of course he lives on less than $2-a-day. As you can imagine, there’s not much to send. In her one-room house, the 74-year-old longs for companionship. Her husband has long since passed away. Her lungs ache in pain due to infection from breathing in methane day-after-day for years. She smiles, flashing one solitary tooth. But, she smiles.

There, are however, a few blossoms. Like walking down the street in April seeing the grass stab through the melting snow. Jamileta is 16 years old. Oldest in her family. Her father, too, was murdered. Her mother knew that Jamileta needed an escape. The depression that overcame her with her father’s passing was going to plague all of Jamileta’s future, and likely the future of their family. Her mother signed her up at Potter’s House. She met Jesus. Her grades soared. She gained a scholarship for a local high school. Having nothing, she feared the mockery of the other lower/middle class kids that would be in her grade. They had enough money to buy shoes, she probably had to find hers. But, she outperformed every one of them. She received another scholarship to an even better school. Same story. She is entering one of the better high schools in the country in January. Her peers will have no idea what she has overcome to get there. But she attributes it to one thing. Despite her father being ripped from her life at an early age, crippling poverty, tight quarters, sickness, and this debilitating cycle all around her, Jesus rescued her. In her own words, “God is faithful”.

And here we are. The majority of us hung-over from the feasts we celebrated over the weekend, denying ourselves nothing. Certainly in gratefulness, but a gratefulness that is decidedly blind to these “weightier matters” during the holidays. We gorge ourselves on turkey, and then stand in lines for digital cameras on black Friday. And everything in side of me screams at my own conscience “who are you to judge?” I am no one to judge. But Christ will. Sifted like wheat. Separated like goats from sheep. It will be evident whose faith was genuine, and whose was not. Spring is coming. And our version of winter pales in comparison to the version that freezes the Guatemala City garbage dump. And Chicago will eventually see it’s physical spring bloom in a couple of months. But many will remain frozen, gripped by the cold and lifeless hands of a world that needs remade. Christ is King. And he is bringing spring. And we, the first fruits, his bride, agents of spring, ambassadors of a new kingdom, are here as the tiny blossom on the barren tree. He has made spring in us. And I pray my life stands out, colorful against the gray, gloomy, and dreary background of winter. Evidence that a new day is coming. Longing to be joined by others.