A Future Not My Own

In the midst of all my verb memorization I thought I’d take some time out to do a little bit of an update:

I had the opportunity to spend last week with the guy who is currently doing the HIV educator position in El Salvador.  I had a really great time and saw a lot of the country side which, in terms of sheer beauty, comes close to paradise.  ANADES, the partner organization I’ll be working with directly is mostly focused on children’s health (including a free medical clinic) and education and they have a fair trade coffee plantation which supplements the cost of their children’s programming. However, they also do other community development work and that’s the department I’ll be in.  I got to meet some of the people (mostly women) receiving support from the AIDS support program.  Many were infected by husbands who have either subsequently left or died.  I got a sense of lots of systemic injustice and discrimination including local doctors who switch antiretroviral meds on patients which takes years off their lives simply because they don’t take the time to keep their supplies stocked, even though the drugs are free through the UN, or they even refuse to give basic medical service, refuse to give common decency like shaking hands with clients and workers because of discrimination, etc. 

Before I left El Salvador on Sunday to come back to Guatemala for language school, I had a chance to attend a celebration/memorial mass on Saturday night for 6 Jesuit priests who were massacred by the Salvadorian military (heavily funded by the American government).  Here’s a bit of background:

On November 16, 1989, six Jesuit priests - Ignacio Ellacuria, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Joaquin Lopez y Lopez, Juan Ramon Moreno, and Amado Lopez - were murdered by the Salvadoran military on the campus of the University of Central America (UCA) in San Salvador, El Salvador. Their housekeeper, Elba Ramos, and her daughter Celia Marisela Ramos, were murdered there as well. The Jesuits were labeled subversives by the Salvadoran Government for speaking out against the oppressive socioeconomic structure of Salvadoran society. Their assassinations were ordered for their unwavering defense of the poor.

The Jesuits were six of over 70,000 victims who died in El Salvador’s civil war which raged in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. The vast majority of these victims were civilians killed by El Salvador’s armed forces and paramilitary death squads. The death of the Jesuits brought international outrage and condemnation upon the Salvadoran Government and pressured them to negotiate an end to their country’s civil war.

The mass, which started off with a march around the UCA campus, also celebrated the life and witness of Archbishop Oscar Romero who was similarly assassinated for his very vocal opposition to the oppression by the military and the oligarchy in El Salvador, as well as other institutions including the church when they neglect their duty to stand in solidarity with the poor.  After the march and the mass, they have a couple bands play.  I stuck around for a bit but I had to go home around midnight because I needed to be up at 4:30 to catch my bus out to Guatemala.  I hear later into the night it gets really fun with people dancing in the street.  Too bad I missed that but I plan to stick around for the whole thing next year.

One of the MCC Staff back in Pennsylvania sent me a poem by Oscar Romero that sums up some of what I hope to understand at it’s most fundamental level during my time here.  It is:

A FUTURE NOT OUR OWN



It helps, now and then, to step back


And take the long view.


The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, 


It is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of


The magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.


Nothing we do is complete,


Which is another way of saying


That the kingdom always lies beyond us.



No statement says all that could be said.


No prayer fully expresses our faith.


No confession brings perfection…


No set of goals and objectives includes everything.



This is what we are about:


We plant seeds that one day will grow.


We water seeds already planted,


Knowing that they hold future promise.


We lay foundations that will need further development.


We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.



We cannot do everything


And there is a sense of liberation realizing that.


This enables us to do something,


And to do it very well.


It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,


An opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.



We may never see the end results…


We are prophets of a future not our own.

(Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was assassinated for speaking up for God's Kingdom and justice in 1980.)

Images of the civil war, and the thousands of lives it cost are everywhere.  Even though the war is over in a technical sense, it lives on and is felt in systemic injustice by, for example, women who don’t have access to basic health care and are thwarted in their attempts to stay alive just so that they can eek out an existence for themselves and their children.  So to step back, take the long view, and think about planting seeds for a future not my own is confusing.  But, like Romero says, it’s also liberating. 

Enough said.  I have to get back to my verbs.

Preguntar (ask!)

Jugar (play!)

Soñar (dream!)

Dar (give!)

Llorar (cry!)

Gritar (scream!)

Cantar (sing!)

Construiur (build!)

Preguntar (ask… again!)

Plantar (plant!)

Trabajar (work!)

Reir (laugh!)

Bailar (dance!)