September 2004

Dear Friends,

We moved to Quetzaltenango recently—to the western part of the country. The city has an altitude of about 8,000 feet and it is uncomfortably cool—especially for this time of year. It is considered far more tranquil than Guatemala City, and in our brief time here that seems to be the case. Part of the sense of tranquility may come not only from the cooler weather but also from the incessant humming and snapping of the electrified barbed wire, which is encircled by razor wire, located atop the 8’ wall that girdles the small two-bedroom house we have rented. Ah, security! Here in Guatemala, a country the size of Tennessee, security is a high priority if measured by the number of walls and lengths of barbed wire. Private security companies provide employment for over 80,000 people, and in a country with published rates of unemployment of 35-45 percent the job is quickly filled.

In reading the statistics, this concern for security makes sense: over 4000 murders a year; 30 percent of the people have been direct victims of some kind of crime; and polls show 75 percent of the people who live in Guatemala City are too afraid to leave their houses at night. Friends in Guatemala City had experienced frequent break-ins in their middle class neighborhood even with the walls and barbed wire. They organized the neighbors to construct gates to block both ends of their street and pay for a 24-hour armed guard to monitor the gates. It has worked; there have been no robberies or break-ins and their kids feel safe enough to play outside—at least during daylight hours in this one block. Many of the security companies are headed by former leaders of the army and national police. People who were charged with bringing order to the country are profiting now by its absence; more than an ironic turn of events.

But the visitors won’t recognize that from their tour buses. The Petén is home to a recently discovered Mayan site, El Mirador, which will dwarf Tikal—the most visited archeological site here. Yet the Petén has a poverty rate of 80-90 percent, and most people have received no benefit from this increase in travel.

The urge for security and the sometimes cynical view that accompanies it are not peculiar to Guatemala. In mid-September the renewed attacks in Iraq continue to create a growing sense of unease in the United States as well as incalculable sorrow for those families that suffer losses. In the United States, poverty is up for the third year in a row. Increased border patrols and officers; fortified walls; sophisticated systems for tracking and capturing illegal aliens; red, yellow, and orange alerts; all add to taxpayer costs but do not appear to have had the desired effect. Three million illegal immigrants will cross the southern border this year, and our own president says he cannot guarantee security.

One has to ask if the investment in all the paraphernalia designed to give us security is worth the expenditure in treasure and lives. Surely with our two-thousand-year history of espousing love and understanding as taught by Jesus Christ we could do better—although still a dream, it is a dream not only worth pursuing, it is demanded of us as Christians.

Ultimately we see how powerless we really are; we realize that neither our national strength nor barbed wire and walls can in truth grant us the tranquility and security we crave. We arrive at what some will find mushy and soft—practicing the love of Christ; but a radical love that extends to all of God’s creation; a love that forbids us to separate people on the basis of our own fallible interpretations; a love that sees no difference between peoples of different faiths; a love that extends care for all the world’s citizens and not just those who can afford it. I wish at times there were something else, something that had as yet not been said or written, something new that blew us away with its clarity. We can probably do no better than the psalmist who wrote: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope” (Ps 130: 5). Waiting and hoping for the Lord? Security and tranquility in the Lord? How quaint, but we know the truth of it. While we wait and hope, let us also work to develop peaceful methods of dealing with differences worthy of our calling as Christians so that our prayers won’t be merely plaintive wails and the abundant, secure, life promised for all becomes more than an ideal.

Gloria and Roger Marriott

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 133