Misty mountain dwellings in Nueva Ybaho19 March 2006
Recollections of Chiapas, and Gratitude
Chiapas As you may know Eddie and I spent several days with Dr. Angelica and her husband Dan traveling. We went to the southernmost state of Chiapas, and then also spent a few days in Oaxaca City.
Chiapas is almost always described as one of the most beautiful, richest in natural resources, and the poorest of all the states in Mexico. I had meant to do more research for you, but busyness and weariness prevailed, and all I have for you is what I saw…and what I feel.
Spending time among indigenous groups here and with the simple campesinos where our daughter and her family live, we take poverty in stride. Actually I don’t even think much about poverty, it is just reality that people are undernourished and have little. They sell handicrafts or work fields for pesos. They walk for miles, sometimes days, to gather sticks to haul on their backs or burros for their cooking fires. Their clothes, even their brightly and intricately adorned huipeles are worn for weeks on end, dirty and worn, because they have no others. Their feet are bare, wide and calloused from walking the trails deep with dust, and rough with rocks. If they have sandals they are held together with twine.
There is a difference we see between the Christian Mixtecs and the people who come to us with their illness and pain at our mountain clinics. In the Christians we see smiles and industry and purpose. In the others we see hopelessness; lately we have seen depression…and now, that we have been to Chiapas, we have seen fear.
Las Abejas
In the mountains of Chiapas, among the indigenous Tzotzil we met a different kind of people. Las Abejas, the bees, are a group of Tzotzil that like other indigenous of the region, are fighting for their land and their lives. They are descended from the ancient Mayas and have been in these mountains for many centuries.
Sign at the entrance to the Zapatista village, the las line states, "Here the people command and the government obeys".
Unlike the Zapatistas, the Bees have sought to change the situation with non-violence, education and public awareness. Poor as they are they have internet and a computer and they reach out to the world, as have the Zapatistas, with their cause.
Our guide to Chiapas, Angelica’s husband Dan, has worked for many years with an organization called Jubilee Economic Ministries. He introduced us to this misty green world, decorated with bright red coffee berries and distinctively dressed women with colorful ribbons in their hair and their local style of huipiles.
He gave us a little of their history. Embracing the gospel of peace, taught by a priest who has since been sent from their region, sympathetic with the Zapatista goals, the Bees have suffered greatly. If you search recent history, and the internet you will learn how on December 22, 1997 at the church in Acteal, a group of mostly women and children that had gathered to pray for peace, and presumably their rights, were attacked by a paramilitary group.
Chapel where Acteal massacre occurred
At least 45 were killed that day, others injured. They say that throughout the little villages they could hear the gunfire. As we walked through the mist and mud from house to house to treat the sick, we could imagine how the sound must have shattered the silence.
Eddie preparing for bed
Our weekend in the mountains We slept in little houses made of wood, 1 x 12’s with one inch gaps so you could see out, their were no windows. Kitchens were separate buildings with a cooking fire of sticks on the ground in a corner. There was no other escape for the smoke except for the door which was kept closed against the cold and the rain, and so as you gratefully sat at the long table with your hot, just slightly sweet coffee and tortillas, the smoke permeated your clothes and hair.
Me brushing my teeth, wearing everything I had brought to try to keep warm
Our hosts were the leaders of the villages. Their president, Augustino, along with different town representatives accompanied us through the villages, and into each home translating and demonstrating remarkable compassion for each individual.
Some of the women who fed us
Beautiful dark faces, and smiles, most of the men spoke Spanish. As we ate together over a thin soup with a chicken leg, and perhaps a potato, they spoke of their children and the hardship of obtaining education. If they can afford it they send them to other villages, which are ruled by the PRI party, or to the city San Cristobal de las Casas. Their children suffer discrimination daily from teachers and students alike because they are from The Bees communities.
Dan as a representative of a Christian human rights organization was presented with the latest dream to have their own secondary school. It would be a school where PRI and Zapatista students could be taught along with the Bees, without discrimination.
Dan, Dr. Angelica with Catalina and her family
Before I conclude please let me share just a few more snapshots of our weekend among the Bees. We met Catalina, a young woman who was in the church when the Acteal Massacre occurred. She has had many surgeries to try to restore some function to her right leg, her sciatic nerve severely damaged by a bullet. She carries many other bullet scars on her body.
A woman with a sick baby came running down the road as we started to leave, Sabino met her and translated for us.
We met Sabino, a very young man with a family, who serves his people as a healthcare worker. He accompanies village people to the city and translates for them at their hospital appointments. He had a list of appointments for “massacre victims” on his calendar. He runs a small clinic, receiving no income from the government, only the aid of his neighbors whom he serves. He was with us on a house call, as we returned to our car, he saw a woman carrying a baby running toward us, “the baby has been sick with bad diarrhea!” Angelica examined the baby there in the road, and I dug into the mini-mobile pharmacy I had packed to see what little we had left.
We treated Nicolas who for years has suffered surgeries including a cystostomy to deal with the results of a near fatal accident that shattered his pelvis. He told us in Tzotzil how he had been fasting asking God to let him get rid of the bag that he had with him all the time and urinate normally, or let him die. As Augustino translated for Nicolas, he seemed to be broken hearted over the plight of this man. “Please, please, if you know of any one who can come and help him.”
We made a quick visit to MayaVinic, the headquarters of the fair trade coffee cooperative that the Bees run. We also went further up the mountain to visit the Bees clandestine, or rather, unregistered, radio station and gave our greeting to the listeners.
Another world It was a whirlwind tour of a world I might not even have read about. It was odd how the reality of what had happened there, and what these people are still suffering as a displaced people driven from their ancestral home could not penetrate my heart. My people have never lived in one location for much longer than 15 or 20 years. We have never suffered attack. We have never lived with the constant fear of strangers with guns breaking into our homes. My mind would not grasp it.
As I stretched out on my bed in my room here in Roca Blanca, my body clean from my cold shower, I sighed. How good to be in my own bed. As the air conditioner droned on my mind began a litany of “thank you’s” to God.
I am thankful for the privilege of sleeping on boards in a remote mountain village, for the opportunity to walk in the rain and mud and see things I could not have imagined. I am so grateful for a clean hotel room, a hot shower, clean sheets, and strong antibiotics to combat the consequences of our adventure, and a steaming bowl of comforting herb tea.
”The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked has no such concern.” Proverbs 29:7
I also am thankful for things that should not only be available to us who live in a rich western culture. I am challenged to pray and consider what part believers should play in obtaining justice for the poor. I did a quick search on my computer concordance found many scriptures about justice.
In my mind, obedience to what God has spoken to each of us individually to do is paramount, but when it comes to prayer, I cannot close my eyes and call myself innocent when I have not sought the heart of God about how I will care for the poor, and fulfill Isaiah 61.
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion--to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair….
March 31, 2008
It is Monday night at Roca Blanca. As we wait for news from Eddie that they have safely met up with Dan, a ministry team from the Bible school here has returned from Chiapas.They just gave us exciting reports of God's move on the young people ages 12-15 at the church where they brought teaching and ministry. One of the team reported overhearing a child only 8 or 9 year crying out to God, "Lord, teach me how to serve you!"
I look forward to our team's return, and report!
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