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August 2002
“Can You See It Yet?”
I’m standing in the middle of Peru’s coastal desert
a million miles from nowhere, wondering what in the heck I’m
doing here. Miles and miles of sand and broken rock frame the
horizon.
“It’s just ahead, brother. Can you see it yet?”
“Definitely not,” I think to myself.
The PC(USA)’s Self-Development of People (SDOP) program
had asked me to visit the Haya de la Torre Association, a group
of landless farmers who had been working together once a week
for 16 years in an attempt to cut a 1.4 mile-long irrigation canal
out of solid rock. The canal would irrigate 2700 acres of parched
land and provide them with land for themselves and their children
after them. With only 124 yards left to complete the project,
they had requested SDOP funds to rent the heavy machinery necessary
to cut and cart away the rock.
I took one look at the granite mountain in front of us and chuckled
to myself. It looked like pure foolishness. But I guess I’d
never seen faith really move mountains before.
A charter member of the Association, 68 year-old Alicia Moraga,
showed me the 1.3 mile ditch already cut and carefully lined with
rock. Using ancient Incan technology, the community had coaxed
water out of the Huara River high above the arid lands and brought
it to within reach of their goal. I looked at Alicia, perplexed.
“16 years? What kept you going, señora?” I asked.
Now it was Alicia’s turned to be perplexed. “But you
should know about hope, brother!” she replied. “We want
our children to have a better life than we’ve had, and they’ll
need land for that.” Alicia said the association had bet
on the fact that if they could bring water to the arid, unclaimed
land overlooking the town of Humaya, they could obtain land¾approximately
40 acres per family. All along Peru’s bone-dry Pacific coast,
the equation is simple:
Land + Water = Life
I stopped in my tracks. The thought of dirt-poor peasants working
for 16 years with picks and shovels made my definition of hope
look pretty wimpy. They had already raised money for the hydrological
study and had successfully battled both a mining company and the
government to retain title to the arid land (once it became clear
that the irrigation project might succeed, you’d be amazed
at who all became interested in the project).
I would hesitate to send an absurd little project like this to
most international development organizations—on paper, the
whole thing just looks impossible. There is nothing “feasible”
about this project, except that it is a community-developed response
to a critical problem as defined by the community: the desperate
need for arable land. I smiled as I suddenly realized our God’s
remarkable sense of humor. For this is precisely what SDOP does
best: sharing modest funding from our church’s One Great
Hour of Sharing with poor and oppressed communities through community-initiated,
community-managed projects.
And so in Humaya, Alicia Moraga and her small band of poor, landless
farmers are opening up a small piece of God's Reign to provide
a hope and an inheritance for their children. And when they heard
that the Self-Development of People program has agreed to fund
the last 124 yards of their crazy dream they asked me to thank
you for having the faith to believe in them.
And I’m thankful to Alicia and her friends because they
have shared with me a faith that moves mountains.
“Can you see it yet?”
The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 263
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