Vamos a cortar la distancia entre la vision y la realidad

January 30, 2010

Especially for Lynn and me, undertaking an out of country mission after having a family requires a considerable amount of unwinding from so many of those affiliations necessary for surviving in American society. During that time we tried to give back along the way, but we recognized the difficuly of doing that, especially when the needs of our immediate family asserted themselves intensely and frequently. I'm reminded of a remark by Reverend Preston Dumas of Texas, "When you're raising kids, that's about all you do." And as I think about it, that's about right. So Lynn and I found ourselves with a desire to keep on responding to those very real human needs in a way that broadened our sense of family at a time when we could manage to pursue that vision. Along with the many other people along the way who helped us, I think of Harmon Wray who suggested to me that maybe his friend Alex Weisendanger could tell us something about the Jesuit Volunteer Corp (which Lynn's professor from divinity school, Patout Burns, had first mentioned to her) and how that led to chat with Alex over some really fine brew at the Bongo Java East in Nashville, and that led to talk about living in intentional communities and opportunities for lay missionary work through the Maryknoll group in Ossining, NY and the Franciscan Mission Service (FMS) in Washington, DC. We were fortunate to be selected by FMS and to live in the mission house, Casa San Salvador, just down the street from the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, during our 3-month formation period under the direction of returned missioner Beth Riehle.

I thought about that journey as I shot this photo recently on the street in Cochabamba, Bolivia. We are in the process of finding additional supports as we gradually enter into Bolivian society. Among them are our language school, the Maryknoll Language Institute (MLI), where we spend most of our time learning Spanish, and our host family of Dr. Henry Rojas, his wife Lily Arze, their three adult children, Lupita, Diego, and Cathy, and Diego's wife Cecilia and their 3-year-old son, Sebastian. I caption the picture "Vamos a cortar la distancia entre la vision y la realidad," or "We go to bridge the gap between the vision and the reality." Those in the picture left to right are fellow Franciscan missioners Nora, Lynn, Clare and Catherine, and Padre Ignatius Harding, OFM, our mentor for mission in Bolivia. They stand before the middle panel of a 3-panel mural painted on an exterior wall of the Franciscan church. The left panel depicts common people working to realize a better life. The right panel depicts a polluted world through which combat-ready soldiers move warily. The middle panel depicts a triumphant Francis of Assisi striding through an ideal world.

We know that our mission service will give us a more Bolivian-specific understanding of the Spanish verb trabajar. We work now to acquire a common language for servicex in Bolivia, and to learn more about Franciscanism and Bolivian culture. All of our efforts proceed simultaneously.

On an afternoon not long after I took that photo we met with Fr. Ignacio at the Centro Social Franciscano on Calle Colombia, a few quadras from the Franciscan church. When we arrived the Centro was not in session, but Padre Ignatius gave us a tour. It is an immense two-storied antique casa with open porches built around a central courtyard. The story about the facility evolved was interesting to me--a property of the Poor Clares that they wanted to see put to better use. An appeal to the Franciscan Padres, some meetings with other members of the Diocese and the agenda was set to offer up the facility as a site for social services badly needed for the poor in that area of the city. The facility then became a magnet for others in the city who wanted to share their skills in providing those social services. With only a few salaried employees, the Centro offers people an impressive array of care options: primary medical and dental care, otorhinolaryngological care, psychological counseling, massage therapy, and access to counseling for alcoholics and their families through group meetings with a chapter of the local Alcoholics Anonymous. Other services include burn care for children and housing for them while they convalesce. One of the young boys in recovery met us and asked us if we would be back tomorrow--and, in fact, some of the new Franciscan missioners might return to perform their service there. Even the weekly meal prepared and served by volunteers from the Legion of Mary and others provided good service opportunities for anyone who cared to help. (As skilled choppers of potatoes, carrots, and onions--thanks to all the guys at the Fr. McKenna Center in DC--Lynn and I quickly identified a short-term service op.) And the facility itself with the broad porches, tall ceilings, and welcoming staff offered people hope.

While touring the Centro, I saw that good will toward poor people in Cochabamba is hardly fallow. May God grant us all serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. It made me feel better about the fate of people outside who crouched along the walkways and in the plazas, mendicantes begging outright or offering some small service or product like chewing gum or a tune from a flute. But the number of them doing this dwarfs anything I've seen in the U.S. It made me wonder about the causes of this poverty too and how service might work both to alleviate the suffering of those trapped in it and to keep others from being trapped. Photographing my fellow missioners before a mural, as beautiful a statement as that might make, was only a moment of psychological preparation to become a trabajador in the tradition of Francis and Clare. The need is there, the facility and companeros are there. We just need to find our place in the active picture of social response to the need.

The need for service was underscored again while we were there by the presence of Padre Edwin Quispe, OFM who leads the mission outreach effort in the Parroquia San Carlos Borromeo to the south. He talked to us and showed some of the different paths for mission there in providing instruction about the importance of good health habits and nutrition within that environmental context, after school care and tutoring for children, accompanying them in games that promote community involvement and activities such as dance from their own varied cultural backgrounds. He made it clear that with the work being done via small centros throughout the parroquia, new volunteers are needed.

I thought back to the photo of the missioners before the mural and I know that they all had their zapatas on, but it reminded me of a quote from the Bible in a reading Lynn had used from Francis Klein's Four Ways of Holiness for the Universal Church: "And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Rom. 10: 14-15).

The coming week gave me more opportunities to struggle with language (a pobre hombre is not the same as an hombre pobre), learn some Bolivian history through a presentation by Dan Moriarty, Program Director of the Maryknoll Bolivia Mission Immersion Program, and think about poverty both abstract and Bolivian style.