adultfaith

Our Partnership with Jesus de los Milagros

in Guatemala

(see pictures below)

Since 2002 Shepherd of the Hills has been in a missionary partnership with Jesus de los Milagros (Jesus of the Miracles) in Guatemala. We became aware of the existence of Lutherans in Guatemala when one of our members, Aaron Hart, traveled to Guatemala in 1993 with Lutheran Campus Ministry students from the University of Colorado in Boulder. He spoke to the members of Shepherd of the Hills about the work of Rev. Horacio Castillo, who founded three small churches made up of groups of returning refugees. Established churches during that time were unwilling to hold services in the street or in the crude homes of cardboard and scraps of wood that these new parishioners were able to build. Rev. Castillo became beloved when the word spread that he would minister to poor people, and he was asked to help compose the Peace Accord that settled the Guatemala Civil War. He has continued his work so that now there are fourteen established Lutheran churches and three mission churches. Most are in remote areas accessible only on foot.

Rev. Castillo encouraged us to partner specifically with Jesus de los Milagros. In 2002 five members of our congregation traveled to Guatemala to formalize the relationship. In 2006 the wife of Reverend Castillo, their daughter and grand daughter visited Canon City to update us about their work. Their visit was helpful to provide communication and spiritual support for both churches.

In February 2008, five members of our congregation visited Jesus de los Milagros Iglesia Luterana, which is located in the north central highlands of Guatemala. Rev. Robert Kippley, Dena Richter, Bob Erickson, and Tom and Karen Hart traveled together to the remote village. Where the road ended, several men from the small church were waiting to help carry food and other supplies into their village. A nearly completed road made an easy walk of over an hour, but a visit in 2000 required almost a three-hour walk on a trail that had been cleared by machetes through the rain forest and required crossing four streams without bridges. The families in the village named Israel, which is their ancestral home, have returned from many years in a Mexican refugee camp where they fled during the civil war in Guatemala during the 1980’s. They live very simply and welcomed their guests with great joy. Many of them had never seen “gringos” before.

Our congregation plans to help the community finance a well project to provide safe drinking water and the construction of outdoor latrines. During the rainy season the water table rises and becomes contaminated by their present outdoor latrines creating many health problems. A deep well and properly designed latrines will help to remedy this problem. The congregation has also assisted in the funding for the education of three students from the Guatemalan church.

The United Nations Development Program has begun a project with a Guatemalan company to fund the development of renewable resources for productive use directed specifically to the region where the Jesus de los Milagros congregation is located. Bob Erickson works on energy projects and established a connection between the renewable energy project and Guatemalan Lutheran church.

The relationship fostered over the years between these two churches has been of mutual benefit to both congregations. The joy and spiritual enthusiasm found in the Guatemalan church has been an inspiration for those who have visited. Although their material riches are few, they have a deep interior richness that sustains them.