| jmelmo13@yahoo.com
May 1, 2004
Hello all and happy belated Easter!
I hope that you are all doing well. Time really is flying by.
I can’t believe that in just over three months I will arrive
home. I get the feeling the time will go fast. Thank you all again
for your love and support.
Things here are going well. I have been working with my few individual
students. I have one in particular who is soaking everything up
like a sponge. Her name is Yesica. She is 12 years old and has
only been to school for three months several years ago. She is
learning to read amazingly fast and is always so excited to get
to work. Her desire to learn is quite inspirational. She told
me that she would like to study in school but her family is not
sending her for financial reasons, although her younger brother
is going. Martha and I are currently exploring options for her
to continue studying after I leave.
My other students are a little more challenging. I’m learning
that it takes a great amount of patience to teach someone how
to read and that sometimes it takes me more effort to be patient
than to actually teach. But we are moving forward. I was working
with a mother and daughter team, but last week the mother told
me that her husband told her that he wanted me to dedicate all
my time to the little girl because she had more time than the
mother and what I taught to the woman wouldn’t stick away.
You can imagine my reaction to that. The mother told me then that
she didn’t have time anyway but she sat with us and watched
me work with her daughter the whole time. I tried several times
to get her to work with us. But she just kept saying no, that
it was better to work with the daughter because it doesn’t
stick for her. Well, I know that just isn’t true, because
she had remembered what we had done before and was even helping
her daughter. I told her this, but to no avail, her husband had
convinced her that she couldn’t do it. I will continue to
do what I can to encourage her. Unfortunately, this is only one
example of the many ways that the society, culture, and even their
own husbands keep the women I work with from believing that they
can improve their lives. I talked with Martha, my supervisor,
about the situation. She was frustrated too but not surprised.
She said that she has seen that time and time again but more so
in 20 de Octubre than the other places she has lived.
My workshops with the women on Thursdays have been going well.
The women continue to come. We have been exploring our spiritual
gifts as a way to deal with some self-esteem and community-building
issues. The idea is that if they could identify their gifts, we
could then develop them and explore interesting ways to use them,
thus helping them to feel like valuable members of a functioning
community. Great idea, in theory. This has not been as easy and
fruitful as I had hoped. It turns out that most of them feel like
their spiritual gift is cleaning the church and that they only
get one spiritual gift so if it’s sweeping and mopping the
church then that is it. Several of them said that they had a desire
in their hearts to do other things, like preach, but, “Mi
mente no me ayuda,” which literally translates to “My
mind doesn’t help me” and more loosely to “I’m
not smart enough.” One of the women who said this I happen
to know very well and I happen to know that not only is she smart
enough, but that she would probably preach a better message than
several of the men in the church. The bottom line is that they
have learned that all that they are good for is cleaning the church,
which I might add is not a spiritual gift at all but a task, a
job that just about anyone could do.
Last week, after running it by Martha first, I told them that
cleaning the church was not a spiritual gift but that it was a
task that might fall under the spiritual gift of service. So perhaps
their spiritual gift was really service. They seemed open to this
idea. We are going to spend some more time exploring that in the
weeks to come.
Needless to say, I have had to find another approach. Now we
are studying the women in the Bible, many of whom are strong,
empowered women with a plethora of spiritual gifts. They have
never been exposed to these stories or personalities because they
generally are not focused on in the churches here. I’m hoping
that through some of these ancient sisters they will find some
inspiration. Their lack of self-worth is astounding to me and
makes my heart ache in a way I have not known. Especially because
I see them using spiritual gifts that they don’t even know
they have. I see them doing remarkable things that they have been
taught are not worth anything. I ask for prayers for my sisters
here and for me. That they might see themselves as the valuable
daughters of God that they are and that I will be able to find
ways to help them open their hearts and eyes.
The women I work with in 20 de Octubre and the women I work with
in the Directiva of the Presbyterial are like night and day. The
women who make up the Directiva are empowered and dedicated. Every
time I meet with them, I’m amazed by their dedication, their
willingness to learn and their support for their fellow women.
They have the strength and the courage to stand up for what they
know they deserve. They are an inspiration to me and likely will
be for many years to come.
This month I went with them to visit a church in the mountains.
The Sociedad Femenil (women’s society) was celebrating their
one-year anniversary. We each traveled from five to seven hours,
much of which was on an unpaved very curvy mountain road. We arrived
and were fed a delicious meal. There were two services that day.
About five minutes before the afternoon service one of the elders
asked if one of the women would preach during the service and
could she give him the Bible verse she was going use so he could
prepare the order of worship. Without a hesitation, the women
said, Of course, could he give them five minutes to choose a verse?
So they decided who was going to preach and then chose a verse
that talked about the women who traveled with Jesus. She then
preached a lovely and empowering sermon on how important these
women were to Jesus’ ministry and how important we, the
women, were in the work of God today. I was amazed. They showed
so much love and compassion to the women we were visiting. It
was a huge gift to be able to accompany them, to observe them
and share with them the wonders that I saw. I feel very blessed
to have been with them, despite the long trip and the cold.
These women are such an inspiration. They have given me a great
gift by inviting me to walk with them in their journey this year.
I am very excited to report that a group of women from my home
church in Fairfax, including my mom and my sister, will be traveling
here in July to spend the week with these amazing women. I’m
so excited to share with them the gifts I have received here.
The women here are so excited to meet them and to share with them.
It will be a fantastic week.
Soon the volunteers gather together for our week-long retreat
to El Salvador. We are excited about this adventure. I’m
sure I’ll have lot to say about that in my next letter.
Peace and blessings,
Jen
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