Making Change One Step at a Time

Our church, Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Atlanta, supports an important mission in Guatemala.  Our church friends at home would not understand how we might spend two months in Guatemala without visiting the Luterana Center (ILAG) here.    

We did and it was life changing.  Our visit was fun, informative, eye-opening, moving and inspiring.  It’s leader, Pastor Karen, is a soft-spoken powerhouse. I will never be able to relate everything she and her ILAG team do and the change they are creating in Guatemala, just 15 girls at a time and more recently 200 elementary school children at a time.   

People often wonder why Latin Americans risk their lives and hard-earned money coming to the USA when there is no welcome mat and no guarantee of a better life.  Here are some things to consider:  

Public school is inadequately supported by the government; as a result, public school is virtually non-existent.  Private schools, even at as little as $20 a month much less the more typical $200 a month, are completely out of the reach of most people and are completely out of reach for people in rural areas.  And for those who do manage to go to school, completion of junior and senior high school is “an education,” as others might view a university education.    

Without access to education, generations continue to live as their parents and grandparents before them lived because they know little else.  Girls are taught to do as their mothers did, cook and raise children.  Some women might open the door to the casa or build a shed where they sell cooked food, fruit, or crafts.  Men tend farm by hand and do manual labor.  Gangs enlist young boys with the promise of easy money and respect.   It is common for girls to be married off at age 11 and pregnant by age 12, and the cycle repeats itself.  Sexual abuse is common.  Because so many live and sleep together in one room, often the father of a young girl’s baby is a relative.  To reach age 18 with no pregnancies is a rare thing for a poor Guatemalan girl.  

While mothers are revered, women are not.  Quite a contradiction!  As a gender, women are not valued, they are subject to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.  As a segment of society, indigenous people are not valued, they are subject to the same discrimination.  

Pastor Karen Castillo leads ILAG, Iglesia Luterana Augustina de Guatemala, founded in 1991 and operated by a family of pastors whose purpose at that time was to help the development of people living in marginal areas of Guatemala, supporting their fight for the land they lived on and belonged to them.  

It is not my intent to tell the ILAG story.  This information can be easily found at https://iglesialuteranaagustina.org/.   It is worth a read.  But the programs at ILAG that Stan and I learned about are an example of important life-changing, cycle-breaking work done by some very caring people through the Lord’s hand.  

Pastor Karen picked us up at our apartment and took us to the Lutheran Center where we met the staff and few of the girls in the Milagro program. Pastor Karen told us their history and the mission of ILAG. She gave us a tour of the facility including a peek at Milagro classrooms and dormitories. Later she drove us for a look at the elementary school located in another part of town. 

At MILAGRO, 15 girls (ages 13-26) from remote indigenous villages, most a 14- to 18-hour chicken bus ride away, live for three years learning skills to ensure they can take care of themselves. They gain confidence, make friends, and learn leadership skills they take back home to share in their community.  They learn baking, gardening, and dressmaking, as examples, skills they can use at home to start a sustainable business.  They learn Spanish as a second language to their native indigenous language to ensure they can communicate and expand their reach outside their home community; they learn computer skills, music, art, and mathematics and some become prepared to teach others.  Equipping young women with skills, confidence and independence is a giant step in breaking the cycle of poverty.   

Milagro, translated to English is miracle. To enter Milagro a young girl must have the support and approval of every family member, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters.  Full family support diminishes the possibility that a family member may insist she return home to marry or help support the family.  If anyone objects, the girl cannot enroll in the school.  

Pastor Karen added, when asked what they like most about living in Milagro, many say they like feeling safe.   

In the year 2000, ILAG founded its elementary school, CLAG.  Today 200 local kids have access to a basic education that otherwise would not be available to them.  It is located in Boca del Monte, an area in Guatemala City most people do not feel safe in visiting. Even UBER drivers hesitate to go or pick up there. No one, however, disturbs the school or the kids. 

Since schools in Guatemala were not in session during our visit, we did not get to meet any of the kids, but happily, we did get to meet three Milagro girls who did not go home during the holiday vacation.  They and ILAG staff members were busy getting the school cleaned, painted, and ready to greet the kids again in January.   Stan and I did what we do best – we got involved.  We came back to the elementary school the next day to work and another day a few days later to help as we could . . . we grabbed brooms and paintbrushes and got to work.  

One organization like ILAG with programs like Milagro and CLAG makes a small dent in enduring poverty in a poor country like Guatemala but its impact on the young girls at Milagro and the kids at the elementary school is likely earth-shattering.   

This story ends another journey for us.  In this nine-month adventure, Stan and I learned, loved, ate well, and had an incredible experience in Spain, Paraguay, El Salvador, and Guatemala.  To all those we met along the way, las benediciones de Dios para ti.  We hope our paths cross again.  We will never forget you.  

To family and friends at home and elsewhere, Merry Christmas, peace, and God’s blessings to all. Our love endures!! 

Stan and I will be back online in late March.   In the meantime, we will be practicing . . . bon jour, merci, s’il vous plait, oui oui, et ou sont les toilettes.