Canadian Mennonite
Volume 12, No. 7
March 31, 2008
Focus on Elementary and Secondary Education
Worldview paradigm shift
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On Feb. 6, a group of 10 Rosthern Junior College (RJC) students and four chaperones boarded a plane with a mixture of anxiety and excitement for our school’s annual International Service and Learning Tour to Guatemala.
During a tour of Guatemala City led by Rob Cahill, a former Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) worker who served as our guide for our 11 days in Guatemala, we learned stories of the people, of the civil war that lasted for decades and the effects of such a war, and about the desperate conditions common to many of the people of Guatemala.
Equipped with a small knowledge of the locale, we embarked on the heart of the trip—our visit to Alta Verapaz, a district inhabited by the Kekchi people, descendants of the ancient Mayans. MCC has focused much energy here, and our time was divided between Bezaleel, a Mennonite boarding school for young boys and girls who learn academic subjects and vocational arts to equip them to become leaders in their home communities, and Semesche, a Kekchi village that RJC has had a relationship with for the past six years.
Bezaleel was the recipient of RJC’s student fundraiser, Pennies for Poverty. RJC students raised $2,700, which meant that 27 new students would be given the opportunity to attend school. We were proud to deliver this money to Bezaleel. As our time with Bezaleel’s students came to a close, we presented them with hockey sticks and had an international exhibition game—Guatemala versus Canada!
In Semesche, we were made welcome in the Mennonite church—the largest congregation of Mennonites in all of Guatemala—and were given the Kekchi ceremonial banquet meal: “Mayan Borscht” with chicken, rice and some hot sauce, complete with all you could eat corn tortillas. The church deacons met with us and gave stirring personal testimonies. One of the deacons left the group with a powerful quote: “We come from different languages and different cultures, but we share a oneness in Christ.”
We spent much of our time in Semesche learning about empowerment, and how in order to really help people in situations like this, you need to give them the means to help themselves. We talked about problems the people encounter, and visited many of the projects that MCC and Heifer International have begun. We were given the unique opportunity to stay with a host family while we were there and were touched by their genuine hospitality, their generosity to us as guests, and to their richness of spirit, even though they are quite poor.
We finished the trip with two days in Santiago Atitlan, where we visited people who were affected by Hurricane Stan in 2005 and with whom MCC is currently working.
This Guatemala experience has left us all with an entirely new worldview and new questions that we must take upon ourselves to answer. World and personal perspectives have been challenged, and we will never forget what we learned, saw and felt while we were in Guatemala.