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| Antigua, Guatemala (photo: Ben Muhleman) |
Be present to be a present.
At 2:00 AM on August 5, 2023, a small group of missionaries
left Abundant Life Foursquare Church in Bremerton, Washington. The group was
heading for a small community in Guatemala City called La Isla with the simple
goal to “be present to be a present.” I want to explain to you what that means
and why that matters. Actually, I’m hoping to help you feel what that
means. But in order to have any shot at all at that, I need to take to you to
Guatemala City.
Guatemala City: A City of Contrast
Guatemala City is the largest city in Central America. It’s
home to over three million people. It’s everything you’d expect a city to be.
Bustling and vibrant and crowded and full of history. Just northeast of the
airport, you’ll find fine dining, towers, shopping malls, and fine hotels. It
is all so shiny. Polished marble and walls of glass and chrome railings glint
in the sun. Walking the streets, you can imagine you’re walking in a North
American city like Seattle or San Diego. It is familiar but just enough
different to be exciting. Look at us. We’re traveling the world. Isn’t this
nice? But instead of catching a movie or looking for new sunglasses, let’s go
on a trip. After all, we didn’t come all the way to Guatemala City to sip on
Starbucks and eat at KFC.
As we head south, the tall building give way to an
industrial neighborhood near the airport. After a mile or so, we turn right and
enter Colonial Santa Fe. The big city, downtown feeling is replaced by a dense,
residential vibe. There are one-, two-, and three-story houses and apartments
built off of each other one after the next. Power lines crisscross overhead and
meet at impossibly crowded poles. The buildings are concrete, roofed with
corrugated steel. Nothing is shiny. Every is matte here. To the untrained eyes
of someone from the United States, the streets are unmanageably small and busy.
Motorcycles weave through traffic on all sides. Traffic signs and lane markings
are disregarded by everyone. The sidewalks are full of vendors selling anything
and everything. The cracked concrete streets are awash in the colors of the
people and their wares. In this busy and beautiful and crowded corner of the
city, we will find The Final Trumpet. It is the church of Pastors Erick and
Veronica, who will be our hosts for the week. We are roughly three miles from
the shopping malls and fine hotels, and in those three miles we have changed
worlds. We’ll visit the church later. But now, I want to take you to La Isla.
We head south again through narrow streets lined with
corrugated steel filling holes in concrete walls. There is a narrow bridge that
separates La Isla from the rest of Guatemala City. Spanish for “the island,” La
Isla is an island separated from the rest of the city by cliffs rather than
water. It is a pocket of humanity perched precariously atop a sea of green.
La Isla is not a safe place. To provide some perspective to
that statement, it helps to know that Guatemala City has a murder rate of
roughly four times that of Los Angeles (a similarly sized city). Gang violence,
kidnapping, and corruption of the local police are all concerns noted by the
United States Travel Department. La Isla is considered dangerous in Guatemala
City. Delivery services that are readily available in other parts of the city
will not deliver to La Isla due to concerns for the safety of their drivers.
The same applies to taxis. Google Street view stops just before the bridge. You
can digitally tour downtown. You can see most of Colonial Santa Fe. But you
need to visit La Isla in person.
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| A dog in La Isla (photo: Tom Stamey) |
It is here in La Isla that we find Jackie’s School. A door
hung inside a large, steel gate leads to a small courtyard. Ahead of you is a
derelict church. To your left is a one-story concrete building with a
corrugated steel roof. Inside there are classrooms and desks and supplies.
Everything a preschool child needs to start their education. As you walk in,
the children smile and wave. They recite verses and hand out cards and hugs.
For several years, Abundant Life Foursquare Church has
financially sponsored this small preschool. It is reasonable to ask why. Why
does ALFC, a church located three thousand miles away and separated by
language, send money and missionaries to this little school in a little
community clinging to cliffs in a massive city?
You can’t. But you can.
You can’t fix the corruption in Guatemala City. You can’t
fix the gang violence. You can’t stop the kidnappings. I don’t mean to be a downer
here, but the list of things you can’t do is incredibly long. The best
preschool in the world won’t suddenly make a community crime-free and
prosperous. And yet the school exists and ALFC sponsors it and sends
missionaries as often as possible. Why?
Because you can. You can make the lives of a few children
better by providing them the tools they need to read, by paying for a teacher
so they can learn about God and His laws and His forgiveness and His mercy. You
can help them learn about emotions and sharing and how to play together and be
together. And, thus prepared for the world, those children will grow into
adults that are less likely to commit crimes and join gangs. That statement is
not just me being optimistic. Studies show that quality early childhood
education reduces the likelihood of the child growing into an adult that
commits crime. Those results are amplified in poorer communities. That’s hope
founded in evidence and supported by love. That hope of a better future, that
glimmering, shimmering, beautiful hope, is why ALFC supports Jackie’s School.
We do not send missionaries there to do work that the people
of La Isla cannot do. The school is run by locals, spiritually overseen by a
local pastor, and repair work is done by locals as well. Instead, the
missionaries come to show those kids and their parents and their community that
this church from this impossibly distant land is made of real people like them.
People who love them and love God and are loved by God. People like me and
Christian who worked with a local man named William to replace the school’s
rusted out gutter. People like Ben who bring shoes and toys and candy with the
hopes of making life a little better. In the hopes that his presence will be a
present. I started this by saying I wanted you to understand what “be present
to be a present” means, and what it feels like. And we’re getting close, but
we’re not there yet. To get to where I want to go, we need to go to church.
Take me to Church
Let us, at last, come to The Final Trumpet. Worship at the
Final Trumpet is loud. You can feel the music in your chest, rattling the air
in your lungs as you sing. It pounds and thumps as they sing and jump. It is a
visceral experience.
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| Christian in front of the Final Trumpet (photo: Tom Stamey) |
On the Sunday I was fortunate to attend, Pastor Craig
preached and Wendy translated. And then Pastor Erick opened the alter for
prayer. People came up. One or two at first. Then more. A steady stream. People
cried. Prayers were offered. The group of missionaries worked through the
crowd. Prayed in English for people who speak Spanish to a God who understands
everything. I prayed for a woman whose husband was murdered, leaving her alone
with her six kids. My heart broke. I couldn’t fix it. Couldn’t bring him back.
Couldn’t speak to her in her own language. But I was there. And she was there.
And God was there.
Being present to be a present isn’t about toys or shoes or
candy. It’s about caring and showing that care. And sometimes that present is a
child’s smile when you hand them candy or their laugh as they watch you miss a
ball. And sometimes that present is tears and prayers and love shared with
people who are hurting.
Go
I’m going to be honest with you. Thinking about this mission
trip makes me want to smile and laugh and dance and curl up into a ball and
cry. It makes me want to do all those things at the same time. There is such
beauty and love in Guatemala. And there is such suffering and pain. And they
exist, the beauty and the pain, together. In the midst of that contrast, the
people of Guatemala do their best to live together.
I want to leave you with one last picture. It’s evening.
We’ve spent all day playing with kids and hanging gutters and bouncing around
in the back of Pastor Erick’s minibus. We’re sitting in chairs on the patio of
the hostel enjoying the light breeze and the clean feeling of having rinsed off
the dirt and sweat of the day. The sun is setting over the city, painting
everything in vibrant colors.
This is the feeling of a day well spent. I don’t know what it feels like to save the world. I don’t know what it feels like to end injustice or to free the oppressed, but I do know what it feels like to look at the sun setting over a city and know that at least one small part of it is just a little bit better because of our work. Friends, it is a good feeling.
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