November 29, 2004
The Bible Comes To Life in Guatemala
So often as I travel around this tiny country of Guatemala, which
is about the size of Tennessee but packed with a large variety
of peoples and an equal variety of God’s good creation,
everything from volcanoes to beaches, I see Bible passages come
to life.
The psalmist writes of a “dry, worn out and thirsty land”
(Psalm 63:1), and I see that land as I travel up the Atlantic
highway with its desert landscape of cactus and barren hills or
down dusty footpaths leading to remote villages on the southwest
coast. I think about the people, many of whom are also “dry,
worn out and thirsty.” They are thirsty for peace, they
want food for their family, a decent place to live, they want
days without fear of assaults. Many are “worn out”
from the effort they must make just to survive the day. When one
is thirsty and worn out, it is easy to become passive, to give
up hoping for newness. I often hear the question, “What
can one person do to make a difference?”
The prophet Habakkuk writes in 3:17-19a of a faith that endures
in difficult times:
Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation,
God, the Lord, is my strength
I live and work with women, many of them single mothers or widows,
who in spite of all the odds live out the kind of faith that Habakkuk
describes. Women who struggle to provide a home, food, and education
for their children. Women who long to improve their own lives
and so will get up at 5:00 a.m. to prepare lunch for their family,
do the cleaning and washing, so they can travel on the bus an
hour to participate in a workshop. Women who are committed to
helping their sisters so they travel to remote, isolated villages,
by bus, pickup, walking the last kilometers, to encourage and
teach other women. In all they do, these women live out the words,
“God the Lord is my strength.” |
