Note: The following is some additional trip reflections from another of our travelers, Louis Potts.
Guatemala has one of the highest birth rates and lowest literacy rates in
the Western Hemisphere. It is therefore profoundly revolutionary that the young
community of San Gregorio has come together behind an effort to build a primary
school. For centuries the Mayans have endured hardship and now seek
liberation. During our visit we talked with Andres Chajil. As a youth he
and his family served as peonage labor on a nearby plantation and suffered
severe social discrimination. He escaped this horrific situation, gained an
education and is now an engineer in charge of crucial water projects in the
region. A water tank he built serves San Gregorio and sits adjacent to the
school site. He emphasized the need for universal service exemplified by our
church’s “across the sea”missions. Our projects have empowered these people in
manifold cooperative ways. Wives now share in family decisions, families each
have contributed one square meter of rocks to the school foundation, children
from three different hamlets exclaimed that we were laying the foundation to
THEIR school, the regional government has pledged they will contribute teachers.
One of the very appropriate devotional readings our team discussed was: “If you
plan for a year, plant a seed. If for ten years, plant a tree. If for a hundred
years, teach a child....When you teach a child, you reap a hundred harvests.”
-Louis Potts
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