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Church,
villagers, strengthen bond
November, 2000
For many members of the Needham Congregational Church, hosting five visitors from a small Guatemalan village for two weeks was more like greeting long-lost relatives than it was like welcoming strangers.
After all, the church and the village of Santa Mariá Tzejá have had 14 years to get acquainted. That’s how long they have had an ongoing relationship.
During that time, more than 100 people from the church have traveled to the village. But this was the first time a delegation had traveled from the Mayan indigenous village to Needham.
“They are such warm, loving people,” said Dot Dwyer, who hosted two of delegates at her home, and who grew teary-eyed at the thought of their leaving. “They think we give them things, but they give us a lot of love and inspiration.”
The church first partnered with the village — or what was left of it — in 1987, five years after it had been destroyed by the Guatemalan army in an attempt to rid the region of opposition forces. Seventeen people were killed when the village, which had been established in the early 1970s, was invaded and burned to the ground.
For the last 14 years, the Needham church has worked to help the village rebuild.
The church sends delegations to the village twice a year, makes regular telephone calls, and has contributed funds toward building roads, bridges and schools, supporting teachers, training health workers, providing medicine and providing scholarships. Because of the funds provided by the church, approximately 100 students from the village are in high school or attending a university.
In 1998, Clark and Kay Taylor received the Conference’s Haystack Award for Social Justice, in recognition of their long leadership on the project.
Dianne Rees is one of the church members who has traveled to Santa Mariá Tzejá. She went with her teenage daughter, and said the experience was “life-changing” for both of them.
“It's like you feel the scales fall from your eyes,” she said. “I’m a highly educated person, but I had no idea about Latin America, no idea about what our governments relationship has been, no idea what it is like to live in a Third World Country.”
For the five members of the Guatemalan delegation, their visit here was equally eye-opening.
The group stayed and shared meals at the homes of church members, visited schools, colleges, libraries and museums, traveled from Boston to Lowell to Gloucester, were interviewed by newspaper and radio reporters, and enjoyed a Guatemala Fiesta at the church. And, during worship on their final Sunday here, the group saw snow for the first time.
But for Pedro Canil Gonzalez, who lost his mother, oldest daughter and four nieces and nephews to the violence at home, what most impressed him during the visit was the generosity he encountered.
With a church member translating, he talked about how “families here know how to share their homes and their food and themselves and their friendship.” He also talked about how impressed he was with the willingness of the church members to share their wealth with his village.
“I see you uniting with us as a community and with Guatemala in general, and it gives me a lot of courage, it gives me a lot of incentive and strength to go forward in securing justice in my community,” he said through a translator.
The village is working with scientists to find the bodies of those killed in the violence. Also, several of the villagers have testified about the atrocities committed at formal government hearings. They believe that a recent fire that destroyed their community center — which had the only telephone and computer in the region — was set in retribution for that testimony.
For one of the delegates, Dominga Castro Gutierrez, the visit to Needham was a chance to escape the fear of more violence.
Through a translator, she said being in Needham made her feel “so much more at peace, and so much more safe.”