Youth Reader 1: 75% of women in Guatemala have, at sometime in their lives, been enrolled in primary school. 30% of women in Guatemala have, at sometime in their lives, been enrolled in secondary school.

Youth Reader 2: I started elementary school when I was 21 year old, paying my own way.

Youth Reader 1: 50% of children do not make it to the fifth grade.

Youth Reader 2: My parents took me out of school when I reached the third grade.

Youth Reader 1: 45% of women give birth by the age of 20.

Youth Reader 2: When I had my first baby we lived in a bamboo hut with a dirt floor. We ate tortillas and salt.

Youth Reader 1: Women work an average of 12 hours a day.

Youth Reader 2: My daughter and I do all our families laundry by hand in the river. Laundry for 9 people takes a long time.

Youth Reader 1: 37% of women in Guatemala can’t read and write

Youth Reader 2: He told me I couldn’t learn how to read, that my mind wouldn’t help me that it wouldn’t stick.

I see your pain and want to banish it
with the wave of a star,
but have no star.

I see your tears and want to dry them
with the hem of an angel’s gown,
but have no angel.

I see your heart fallen to the ground and want to return it
wrapped in cloths woven of rainbow,
but have no rainbow. (Ann Weems)


During my year as a Young Adult Volunteer I began to understand what it means to be a woman in Guatemala.

Patricia is a member of my church. She is the mother of four daughters who works hard to maintain her household. but Patricia can’t read. Glendy, her nine-year-old daughter, is no longer going to school. I worked with Patricia and Glendy on literacy in Spanish. I went to their house one day for a lesson, Patricia told me that she had told her husband what I was doing with them. He then told her that she couldn’t learn how to read. No te ayuda la mente. No te queda. Her mind wouldn’t help her, it wouldn’t stick, she wasn’t smart enough. He told her that I should focus my energy just on Glendy. I tried several times and several ways to convince her she could learn how to read. I was not successful; her husband’s word was law.

Martha was my supervisor. She is a member of the executive committee of the Presbyterian Women at the presbytery level, as well as the Christian Service committee of the national Presbyterian Women. She’s the pastor’s wife of our local church and the church’s nurse. When she was a child there was only enough money for a couple of her siblings to go to school. Her family sent her brothers. She worked to help pay for their education. She started elementary school when she was 21 years, paying her own way. Later she felt called to seminary. She began her studies, with the permission of her husband. He made it very clear to her that he would never allow her to be ordained, a decision reinforced by her father. She opted to stop fighting him on the issue for the sake of peace in her home. But she told me she prays everyday that God will touch their hearts and help them to change their minds. She continues to use her theological education to do ministry in her local church and at the presbytery level despite the fact that she can’t have the title of pastor

Vila is a 13-year-old girl from my church. When she reached the third grade her parents took her out of school. Her mother had given birth to her 7th child. Vila, the oldest daughter in the home, was taken out of school to help her mother with the household chores. Their family, like most in my village, wash all of their laundry by hand in the river. As you can imagine, laundry for 9 people takes a very long time. Vila and her mother also make by hand at least 100 tortillas a day to feed the family. There is little hope that Vila will return to school.

The stories of Patricia, Martha and Vila could be the story of countless Guatemalan women. Unfortunately, there is nothing unusual about these stories. Each Thursday I led bible studies with the women in my town. We were exploring spiritual gifts. I asked the women what they thought their spiritual gifts were. All of them told me their one and only spiritual gift was, la limpieza, cleaning the church. They also told me that they believed that God only gives you one spiritual gift.

I also worked with the Executive Committee of the Presbyterian Women at the presbytery level. In April, we were invited to the presbytery meeting. We elected our two delegates who obediently and willingly fulfilled their responsibility. The rest of us went along with them to give them just to give them some extra support. Many of us traveled the entire day by bus, leaving our homes at 5 am. While at the 2 day meeting we slept all together on the floor of a church member's home. Many of the pastors stayed in a nearby hotel.

When we arrived at the meeting we were politely greeted, but with some distance. We sat in the back. The meeting started and all the bodies represented were welcomed, except ours. We began to realize that our invitation there was not a sincere desire for our presence but more the fulfillment of an obligation.

The agenda turned to the issue of the ordination of women as elders and Pastors. The national church in Guatemala has approved the ordination of women but has allowed each Presbytery to make their own decision as to whether or not they would ordain women.

We listened as the majority of pastors and elders present rejected the ordination of women as elders and pastors. Saying things like it goes against the Holy Scriptures. Most of the women I was with are studying in seminary. Their advisor is an ordained female pastor from the PC(USA) with a PhD from Princeton. We knew that no woman would ever be ordained as a pastor by this presbytery anytime soon.

The time came for the executive committee of the Presbyterian Women to present our report, as all our past work and future plans must be approved by the presbytery. We were condescended too and treated as though we had no knowledge of our own work or how to implement our plans. We had carefully followed the changes they had suggested at the last meeting but they still said we were not doing enough. We were treated as their unknowing and naive children, not as theologically trained colleagues. Even at lunch we were shunned by our own community of faith. Pastors and elders ignored us, they shot us dirty looks. We know we were no longer welcome there. Why? Simply, because we are women.

We stood together stunned. We had worked so hard. Progress had been made. We thought we were finally beginning to gain their respect. But we had just been pushed 5 steps backward. We pulled together. We tried to encourage each other. Martha said, ‘Ay hermanas, para mis nietas, para mis nietas, hago la lucha, para mis nietas pastoras.’ “Oh my sisters, for my granddaughters, for my granddaughters, I am in this struggle, so my granddaughters can be pastors”. We left the meeting broken. We were beaten down. We struggled to make sense of what had happened and to move forward. How should we respond? We were determined but hurting.

This is the context in which the women who love and cared for me live. It doesn’t sound too fun, does it? I spent a large part of my year trying to make sense of all this, trying to figure out how God wanted me, wants us to serve. In a year I couldn’t fix all this. That’s what we always want to do, right? We want to figure out how to fix it. We read passages like John 13 and Matthew 25, You know - “ I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me drink…” And we think we are supposed to fix it. God gave us the money and the education to help so we should right. That’s what I thought when I went to Guatemala.

The women on the executive committee of the Presbyterian Women sent me to 20 de Octubre to build a literacy program. Great, I was thinking, I was going to help these women by teaching them how to read. But I got there and quickly realized that I was not going to fix anything. The women there didn’t even think they were valuable enough to learn how to read. They didn’t think they could, or their husbands wouldn’t let them. I had to listen to them and gain their trust to help them understand that they were valuable in the eyes of God before I could even begin to teach them how to read. I thought I was going to teach the women in the Executive Committee how to plan and facilitate excellent workshops. But they faced so much opposition they really just needed my love and encouragement.

It took me the whole year to learn a very valuable lesson. A lesson that I was not able to really understand in a concrete way and articulate until July when something very special happened.

In July we were still struggling to understand what we had experienced at the Presbytery meeting in April. The wound was still fresh. It was then that God sent us a gift. A group of four women, came from Fairfax Presbyterian Church.

Carol Barrett, our DCE and an ordained pastor, Ann Warburton a brave deacon of our congregation, Trina Fischer, a friend of mine from New York and Carolyn Thalman, my mom, came Guatemala to build relationships, to learn how their sisters in Christ were living and to support me. These four women will tell you of the countless gifts they received through the warm hospitality and grace of Guatemalans. But I don’t think they knew the gift of healing they were bringing with them.

I had been living with the Guatemalan’s for almost a year. I had witnessed and experienced their joys and pains. I am a member of the group from Guatemala that received the delegation but at the same time I am a member of Fairfax Presbyterian Church. I both served on the delegation and was served by the delegation. My dual role was quite a blessing and taught me great deal about the power a short-term mission project can have.

While they were there, we visited, led workshops and learned to make tortillas at the church of the moderator of the Presbyterian Women. Her name is Sarah. We ate dinner in her home. Pastor Carol asked Sarah to share the story of how she had been called to God’s service. She shared with us her whole life’s story. A story filled with the pain of poverty. A story she shared through tears; a story she had never shared before, not even with the other women in the Executive Committee.

Later in the week, we did home stays in my tiny little town where women are kept down in so many ways and struggle to believe they are worth of God’s love. We learned about all the work our sisters do just to keep their families clean and fed. We listened to their stories. We let them care for us when some of us were sick. We gave them the opportunity to let them shine at what they are best at --– hospitality.

But I think, one of the most poignant moments for me was a morning we spent with the executive committee of the Presbyterian Women, the same women who had been at the presbytery meeting in April. The plan was for each group, the women from Guatemala and the women from Fairfax, to plan and share a workshop. The workshop that the women from Fairfax brought included a foot washing service. So Pastor Carol, read the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet from John 13. We talked about the passage. We talked about service. She then explained that she, along with Ann and my mom were going to wash the feet of all the women in the circle just as Jesus had washed the feet of the disciples. The Guatemalan women were a little unsure about the whole thing. They had never experienced anything like this. They sat with their arms crossed. They were a little suspicious but they were open. Pastor Carol knelt down in front of Marina, the secretary for the Presbyterian Women. She slid Marina’s shoes off and gently held her feet over the bowl, slowing pouring the perfumed water over them. She looked Marina in the eye and said, “You are a child of God. I wash your feet in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Do unto others what I have done for you.” As I translated her profoundly gentle words in to Spanish, my mom slowly and deliberately knelt in front of Marina. She winced in pain on the way down holding on to my arm for support. As some of you know, my mom has severe Rheumatoid Arthritis. Getting up and down off the floor for her is extremely painful and difficult. But she knelt in front of Marina and dried Marina’s feet with a towel, hugging each foot with her motherly hand as if to say, “Thank you for the love and care you are giving to my daughter while she is far away from home”. She looked in Marina’s tear-filled eyes, smiled with her whole being, mother to mother, and then reached for my arm to help her up. The women were watching with great interest now. They had uncrossed their arms. We were all aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit among us. Pastor Carol, Ann and my mom worked their way around the circle taking the same great care with each tired and wounded set of feet.

Sarah, the moderator was last in the circle. When Pastor Carol finished with her she sat down next to Sarah allowing a moment to pass as we all contemplated what had happened. Sarah looked at the bowl of water and then at Pastor Carol. Then in one decisive movement she knelt in front of Carol. She carefully slipped off Carol’s shoes and washed her feet, repeating Carol’s words in Spanish. We all wept tears of healing and grace as we knew that God had been there bringing Gods healing touch to God’s children.

What Carol, Ann, my mom and Sarah had done that day was a symbolic act of love and service for a group of wounded women who spend their lives serving their families and their God with little to no recognition. These women are what keep the church going. This was probably for some of them the first time that anyone had ever humbled themselves before them in reverent service to them. It was the first time for many of them that anyone had ever said, “I see you as a servant of the Lord and I validate your work”. It was a gift that only God could bring to us. The women in Guatemala still talk about that day, as do the women from Fairfax.
They didn’t bring hammers and nails and they didn’t build a house or a school. But they were busily building the whole week. Through them, God built hope. God built relationships. God built a space of healing. God built friendships that none of us, Guatemalan or North American will ever forget.

After they left, I returned to my little village of 20 de Octubre. I thought about that trip, about my whole year and about that day. I thought about all the grand plans I had had at the beginning and how I had accomplished very few of them. I had been wondering if that meant that somehow I had failed. But the day of the foot washing, in fact that whole trip made me start to think about mission in a new way. The Gals to Guatemala didn’t fix anything. They just came and they loved and they let themselves be loved. They let God use them..

In thinking about my year, I realized that most people that I knew there didn’t know what my job was before I came, what my master’s degree is in or that I even have one. They didn’t care about any of that. They cared that I came, that I loved them, that I wanted to learn about them, that I thought they were important. They cared that I sat and listened to their stories and washed clothes with them. They cared that I let them care for me.

I realized that that’s all it takes. I found another meaning in John 13. Jesus was telling us to serve others that is what we usually take from that passage. But Jesus used the most humble and simple of tasks to teach us that. Washing feet was a common every day thing then. People wore sandals and there was lots of dust. People had their feet washed all the time. This was no “great act”. I thought about the disciples’ perspective. Peter didn’t think he was worthy of this act of service from the Lord. But he let Jesus do it. There is service in that too. I thought about the dignity and importance my host mom Elena felt because she cared for me so well, because I never got sick from her food, because she successfully taught me how to wash my cloths in the pila, because I let her love me and care for me. God worked through the simple acts of living and loving to serve us both.

In Matthew 25 Jesus again used simple every day acts to talk about service.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you cared for me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'”

These things require no special skills, they cost very little money and three of them, inviting, caring for and visiting require nothing at all but only to be with someone and to love them. The rest of the Ann Weems poem that I started with goes like this

God is the One
who has stars, and angels and rainbows,
and I am the one
God sends to sit beside you
until the stars come out
and the angels dry your tears
and your heart is back in place,
rainbow blessed.

All that time that I thought I wasn’t being a good missionary because I wasn’t teaching the whole village how to read, God was using me to sit beside people the stars come out. I began to see all the ways that God had used me to touch the lives of the people around me. The Gals to Guatemala didn’t get to see all the seeds they had planted. But I got to see a few because I heard the women talk about how they were touched by their visit. We didn’t have to bring any special skills and we didn’t have to “accomplish” anything. We just had to let God use us and those around us. I learned that through the simple tasks of life, great acts of love and service can be shared if we open our hearts and let God use us. No one says this is easy or comfortable, in fact I imagine that those might be the very last words any of us would use to describe our time in Guatemala. But it’s what Jesus calls us to do – in Guatemala and here in Fairfax.

How is God calling you to be God’s light? Who will you sit beside until the stars come out, and the angels dry their tears and their hearts are back in place rainbow blessed?