The local parish has a number of outlying communities that meet for religious services and instruction. This afternoon we jump in the orphanage pickup truck, some in the cab, some in the cargo bed, to travel a few miles south of town to Holy Family.
Those of its members who could get there had been at Mass in town that morning. They also had there own service that afternoon. We arrived in the middle of that afternoon's service, during a Scripture lesson delivered mostly in Cachiquel, the local Mayan tribal language. The hymns were accompanied by keyboards and guitars, both considerably amplified, along with a drum set and congas. This clip doesn't give justice to the volume; if you were there, your internal organs would have been keeping time to the music.
They then welcomed our group. The building we were in
was a farm house which they used because they did not have a chapel. I had thought that one little part of the joy of the Guatemala mission would be getting away from the St. Al's capital campaign, but here I was listening to the Guatemalan version. They had purchased a building site, but the diocese could not help them with building because of the costs of repairs to existing buildings damaged by Hurricane Stan. So they were looking elsewhere for help; to us, perhaps. On the bright side, they did not have a packet of supporting materials with DVD.
In case you were wondering what we do with our issues on these trips, we pack 'em up and bring 'em along. For example, a constant theme in every year's mission orientation meetings has been that "Mission is not about building churches." I wonder if there'll be any recanting, or if it will just get dropped down the memory hole, if we take on the Sagrada Familia building campaign as part of our mission.
Our leader is also a deacon, and blessed the local seed corn, and the house. Then there was fellowship with our hosts, who treated us to tamales and coffee.
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