From Guatemala

Update on Kidnapped COPIISCO Xinca Leader 
My apologies for the delayed note.   After a few days with other commitments, I was unable to inform you about don Roberto Ucelo.  Following is an update from our Communication Dept. Coordinator  Mayra Ramirez:

Brother and Sisters,

Yesterday, March 18th, in the late evening, Roberto González Ucelo was taken and abandoned in the department/state of Chimaltenango, Guatemala.    Mr. González Ucelo is president of the Xinca parliament and active leader of the North Eastern Region of Popular, Indigenous, Church, Union and Peasant Coordinating Organization, (COPIISCO).

Thanks be to God that he was found alive and although threatened to death, he continues and is committed to the defense of the natural territories.  We inform you that Rodolfo López y Rigoberto Aguilar were able to escape and we regret the extrajudicial execution of Mr. Exaltación Marcos, Xinca Parliament Secretary at Santa María Xalapán.

The four active indigenous leaders were kidnapped on Sunday March 17th after returning from a community consultation.  

We ask that everyone maintain the necessary security measures, in particular those who are at the forefront of the struggle and defense of our natural goods and assets.

Sincerely,
Mayra Rodriguez, Communication Dept. Coordinator
Ecumenical Christian Council of Guatemala

Gloria Vicente

 Illinois Maya Ministry met today, Friday, May 18, 2012 in Warrenville, Illinois, at the home of Rev. Denise Griebler, to listen to a very pregnant Gloria Vicente share about her work in Guatemala as a missionary through Common Global Ministries.  Gloria was able to explain in depth about her experience at Guatemalan Christian Action (ACG).  She also talked a little about her plans for her future work in Guatemala.  Part of the work of IMM is to accompany our missionaries with Mayan people.  

Gloria Vicente at the Illinois Conference Meeting

by Rev. Michael Swartz

At the Illinois Conference Meeting at Springfield, Illinois, Gloria Vicente was the speaker at the Illinois Maya Ministries luncheon that took place on Saturday, June 6, in the Convention Center. Gloria, along with her husband, Santos, and their baby, Nicolas, were present with about twenty conference members, and we all had lunch together.

Gloria, as the speaker, shared some of her own journey with us. There is something remarkably engaging when persons give witness to their own experience. There is power when we construct the narrative of our life. Gloria began by talking about the experience of her family.

The village where she lived was totally destroyed by the military. It was quite near the village of the Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, and Gloria’s father knew Vicente Menchu, Rigoberta’s father. Gloria’s father met with Vicente Menchu the night before he was killed in the 1980 burning of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City. The Campasino Unity Group had entered the Spanish Embassy and the Guatemalan police burned down the building on January 31, 1980, killing 36 persons, including the Spanish Ambassador. This was a defining event in the Guatemalan Civil War, and in Gloria’s life.

Gloria’s family fled to Mexico, and later to Texas. In Texas they were sheltered by a Presbyterian Church, and later they came to Chicago and were offered sanctuary by the University Church in Hyde Park. This was all part of the Sanctuary movement, and she came to Chicago in 1985, when she was ten years old.

Gloria remembers interpreting into English for her father as he spoke to groups in the Chicago Metropolitan Sanctuary Alliance and in the Chicago Religious Leadership Network.

Later, accompanied by a delegation of Disciples and members of the United Church of Christ, she travelled with her father and saw for the first time the village of Sac Ja in Guatemala. She saw the place where he grandparents were killed. She saw their names listed among those killed on the pillars in front of the National Cathedral in Guatemala City. She walked the land that they had worked as campasino farmers. This was a profound experience for Gloria, having grown up in the United States. This required quite a lot of emotional processing.

“As I learned to process the pain it made me want to go (back to the homeland of my ancestors) and serve as a missionary,” says Gloria. “I feel called to serve and to be a bridge builder.” Gloria is aware that on the one hand she has a lot in common with the people in Guatemala, and on the other hand her differences are significant as well – growing up in Chicago. “I want to return and accompany others as we were accompanied in our time of need.”

Gloria is now assigned by Global Ministries – a joint ministry of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), http://www.globalministries.org/, and she is working in Santa Cruz, in the highlands of Guatemala with ACG – Guatemalan Cultural Action. This is in the K’iche’ region and Gloria is impressed with her co-workers.

Gloria has been living and learning in Guatemala. She was married to Santos Par, whom she met in Guatemala. Her husband is K’iche’, and she has been learning the language. Her husband is from Huehuetenango. Among her responsibilities with ACG is to receive international delegations. She said she hoped to see some of us who were at the luncheon in Guatemala!

She and Santos are in the United States right now. Her son, Nicolas was born in the US. He will soon have a surgery and then they will be able to return to Guatemala.

In the last few years Gloria has become ever more aware that her life has purpose. The very unusual experiences she has had, being born of Mayan people in Guatemala, travelling through Mexico to arrive in Chicago. Having been sheltered by the church and given sanctuary, then to return as a missionary and bridge-builder to Guatemala – give her an ability understand and to act in this moment.

Gloria’s talk was an inspiration to us all.

Guatemalan Cultural Action (ACG), Healthy Stove Project

On May 2002 a group of doctors from the United States spent one week making house visits in ACG's communities. A total of 250 community members were examined. At week's end, the doctors informed ACG that their findings included eye infections, respiratory problems, constant headaches, burns, chronic fatigue, etcetera. Such findings were the result of smoke inside the families' homes on a daily basis, created by floor or raised cooking fires without chimneys. While men tended to the agricultural sphere of labor outdoors, it was apparent that women, girls, and small children were the most effected. ACG evaluated the doctors' findings and were determined to begin a healthy stove initiative.

ACG also found that the new stoves burn a third less firewood. So there is a reduction in the amount of trees cut needed to burn for fires in the home. Ecologists have determined that a group of 500 people need a total of one square kilometer of forest in order to meet their annual usage of firewood. The average annual consumption of firewood for one family is between 600-900 kilograms. A healthy stove reduces this amount by two thirds. (The Sphere Project, Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response, Oxfam, p. 208)

Here's what you can do! Help ACG build stoves for over 1500 families still on a waiting list. Support the work of Illinois Maya Ministries. Make a difference today on your own, with your family, with your church, and help a family breathe easier. You can do this by: Making a special gift of $300 to cover the cost of a healthy stove. Write a check to the Illinois Conference UCC with an important memo indicating: Illinois Maya Ministry, Healthy Stoves.

Please send to: Illinois Maya Ministry; Illinois Conference UCC; 1840 Westchester Blvd, #200; Westchester, IL 60154.