Every New Year I try to leave the country for at least one week. Beyond my general distaste for New Year ’s Eve gatherings in the States, I guess there is something about ringing in the New Year in a new place that makes me feel more hopeful about the state of humanity; more hopeful about the power we have to be change makers in an ever shifting world.
This year I had the honor of spending two weeks in community with the people of San Lucan, Toliman, Guatemala. What a wonderful experience! I have done a lot of international service work and each time I go I realize exactly how useless I am – an admission that reminds me of endlessly embarrassing moments of poorly constructed walls and hopelessly ugly paint jobs. It is usually the case that the unfortunate person who has to teach me a task can lay tiles, haul dirt, pick coffee, paint walls, etc. 5 times faster than I can …. and yet, the patience and encouragement I receive by these fine teachers blows my mind each time.
Father Gregory Schaeffer shed some light on the source of this patience in a talk he gave during my time in Guatemala. He began by explaining that one of the first things destroyed by poverty is self esteem and what we, as volunteers, were bringing into the community was not labor or a helping hand but renewed esteem. To eat what was put in front of us, sleep where we were put, and contribute where we were asked was a sign of respect and a contribution to dignity in a community devastated by war, poverty, natural disaster and disease.
As community builders our job is to empower those around us to live the lives they want to live; to support and develop the conditions that foster power in communities. We must be witnesses of power, we must realize that sometimes the greatest value added is the voice that says, “I see your power and what you can build with it.” So often I find myself wondering what I can do in a world that seems so hopeless sometimes – I guess my answer this year is contribute – to dignity, to power, to esteem. Happy New Year.