Forty-three years ago this July the two Mayan villages where the Marine View Presbyterian Church’s Guatemala team will work this month were literally wiped out by government forces seemingly bent on killing every man, woman and child in the region.
The Guatemalan Civil War, or Genocide as it’s often referred to now, lasted 36 years and had a death or “missing” toll of more than 200,000, many of whom were buried in mass graves. Whole villages were burned. Military forces carried out 626 of these massacres against the Maya during the conflict. They would later acknowledge their destruction of 440 Mayan villages between 1981 and 1983.
Relatives of the dead and missing would eventually return and re-establish our neighboring villages, Puente Alto and San Agustin, and a decade ago erect a solemn memorial attesting to the slaughter on July 7, 1982. When we arrive in the village next Sunday, April 19, among our greeters will be a fellow named Juan, one of the few survivors of the village massacre.
It may be appropriate that we go this month as April is commemorated worldwide as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. For anyone interested I will list more resources at the end of this post.
The war ended in 1996 and the region is at peace now. The horrible violence of the past has been replaced in these impoverished villages by other needs, and it is our mission to fulfill some of them. The 125 wood cooking stoves are either now, or soon will be, placed by each village home, ready for us to unpack and install, along with EcoFilter water filters. The latter are essentially five-gallon plastic buckets equipped with a clay pot to strain and purify contaminated river and pond water, with a spigot below. Our stoves, manufactured locally at the Hands for Peacemaking Foundation’s Aller Skills Center in nearby Santa Cruz Barillas, replace the often dilapitated stoves now in place and even open fires used for in-home cooking. Many are without a means to vent the smoke externally, leaving it to waft in the rafters of each home and fill the air with lung-damaging particulate.
While precise numbers for Guatemala are not definitive, globally the World Health Organization estimates that exposure to household air pollution from solid fuels (like wood) contributes to 3.2 million premature deaths annually, with 273,000 being children under 5, especially from pneumonia. Water-born illnesses are also rampant in developing nations. As part of our journey we will train the villagers to use both, hopefully greatly reducing illness and even preventing death.
We will also bring school supplies, dental packs, and toys for the children, one set of two hand-crafted hot pads for each home, and a solar-powered audio player with Bible stories in Spanish and Mayan. At the end of the mission, we will set up an eye clinic to fit vision-impaired villagers with donated reading glasses. While there our team will continually interact with the villagers, working side-by-side with village leaders throughout the installation process, entertaining the children, and making new friends along the way. While our team is of mixed religious background and faith, we will conduct mission studies, attend Easter service in Barillas and try to stand as an example of “good gringos” wherever we go.
More about Puento Alto
Puente Alto is a village of about 390 people divided into 65 families. It has a school enrollment of 54 students, and two teachers, with a projected rise to 60 students in 2025. Students are educated only through the sixth grade. The village is not served by electricity. The village has water, but it becomes scarce during the dry season.
More about San Agustin
San Agustin has about 360 residents among its 60 families. It has a school for 62 students with three teaches, with enrollment expected to rise to 70 in 2025. Like Puento Alto, there is no electricity in San Agustin and the water situation is similar too.
Health, Sanitation and Diet
The main staple for the villagers is corn tortillas, which are homemade from finely ground corn meal and water. There are corn mills, private enterprises serving the whole community. Also, there are convenience stores (tiendas) that sell a variety of packaged snack foods (chips and cookies) sodas, bottled water, and sundries.
Health care for villagers is scarce. Medical personnel visit the villages once or twice a week. Medical services for pregnant woman are provided by local midwives.
For bathrooms villagers use crude, home-built latrines that are less than sanitary.
Our team
The Marine View team consists of 12 this year from all walks of life. I will introduce them in a separate post. We have been planning and preparing for months for this mission by meeting, gathering supplies, raising funds, booking flights, and all else that goes into such an endeavor. On April 12, most of us (save two team members from Spokane) will gather in West Seattle for our “packing party” where we will first stuff all of our bring-alongs into 12-large suitcases and duffel bags to take along, then stuff ourselves with food being prepared by my brother and longtime team member Tom Dirks.
While we have been preparing, the Hands for Peacemaking staff has also been preparing in Guatemala. They work with the village leaders on development, timing and placement, bring the stoves and water filters and prepare the facilities where we will stay, even erecting showers and wash stands. We thank Alex and crew for all of their hard work!
How you can support us
Thanks to the generosity of many of you, our team is well-funded for its core mission of stoves and water filters. But every year when we go we find more projects and needs than originally anticipated. Last year, for example, we raised additional funds to help build a badly needed road, do major upgrades in two school kitchens, erect a fence at one school, install two computer networks filled with school curriculum, do school repairs and buy a water tank. Marco, our national director, is currently identifying additional needs for this year’s villages, including the replacement of student desks in the schools and whiteboards. So the more we raise, the more generous we can be to our villages!
Funds can go to https://www.handsforpeacemaking.org/give-financial-support , look for this button:
(Stoves cost $319 each and water filters $50. Each team member pays their own airfare and participation fee, but it takes about $50,000 on top of that to fund one of these missions).
Your prayers and good wishes are also much appreciated, especially for the villagers and for the team’s safety as we travel. And, feel free to share this piece within your circles in hopes of expanding our reach as we do this important work.
I will try to post at least a couple more of these before we travel then as we travel and serve. Thank you, and thanks for reading!
Until then and God Bless,
Brian Dirks
Team Coordinator
Resources
Guatemala Genocide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemalan_genocide
https://sfi.usc.edu/collections/guatemalan
https://www.voanews.com/a/bodies-emerge-guatemalas-war-era-model-villages/4184230.html
Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month:
https://www.globalr2p.org/publications/genprev_awarenessmonth_2023/