Puzzle Pieces and Growing Connections

By Tracy Keenan, Missional Presbyter

If you have ever put together a jigsaw puzzle, you’ll know that you start with the borders and, working from the picture you were given, put the pieces together. I’m new to jigsaw puzzles, and I’m fascinated by the detail, how deeply you can examine even one small section of a complex picture, and how you can organize pieces by shape, color, or region. The image on the box doesn’t quite do justice to the big picture.

This was my third trip to Guatemala with our NCP Guatemala Partnership, and the picture, for me, is not only a puzzle taking shape but an image spilling beyond the edges and rising into multi-dimensional animation.  

My first trip to Guatemala four years ago put together the outline. Having read the background materials, watched a recommended video about the 36-year armed conflict, and packed my walking shoes, I felt as well prepared as one could be. And of course, there was the “picture on the box”, which was a montage of shy Mayan women in their traditional skirts and woven, embroidered huipils, or blouses, their hair wrapped and wound about their heads in colorful crowns; their shy, stilted presentations as they spoke before this group of Yanquis, telling of their investment, energy, and labor from their already demanding lives; the bright-eyed babies peeking from their perches on their mothers’ backs, wrapped in wide, woven swathes of red and blue. Amid the harrowing news at home about the treatment of immigrants at the American border that year, we visited a migrant camp and heard stories about why people would dare to undertake such a trek and the kinds of worse dangers they were fleeing. In the villages, we hiked from cinderblock house to garden to shed to see seedlings, chickens, pigs, and cows. It was a vivid, dizzying, high-altitude blur and I came home with a potent, but general impression of the work of those women, the educational and theological undergirding provided by CEDEPCA, and the importance of our partnership and the churches who contribute. It was a visit of snapshots, moments, and impressions, the puzzle pieces still scattered across my memory.

My second visit to Guatemala last year, allowed me to put more pieces together. This time, I spotted familiar faces among the women and remembered more names. The bright huipils, aprons, and baby wraps were the same. But the details came into clearer focus as we saw the growing success and confidence of the women, the broad smiles on those beautiful, sun-baked faces. They grinned and laughed with us. They spoke up. Even their posture was stronger. We were not the representatives of the funding machine who had come to check up on them. We were their friends and partners who had come to celebrate and affirm them. Some pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. This connection honors the dignity of these women and helps to empower them. This is exactly what we hope for in missional church partnerships.

Their empowerment dovetails with the work of CEDEPCA, which puts their theological education to work for family health, wholeness, domestic safety, and holy worth. They make it clear that our theology cannot just be cerebral or even merely heart-felt, but, to be true, must, through action, bring wholeness to all of life: personal, familial, and community shalom.

Even more than that, though, our connections are stretching beyond the outlines of the original puzzle. The picture is bigger than Guatemala and it is a marvel how the pieces fit together in what has become a three-dimensional, animated scene.

Between last year’s trip and this, we became more connected with a group of Guatemalan immigrant teenage girls in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, some of whom are pregnant. That story itself is a portion of the puzzle that could fill its own blog.

The director of the newly created YoungMoms group in that school district came along with us on the trip (Delfina: she is Argentinian and speaks flawless English along with her native Spanish), and took back some hand-woven baby-carrying wraps for the girls. Ideas started percolating about churches proposing to NCP’s Ignite funding for a retreat for the Young Moms so that they can grow in their confidence and learn more about tending to their babies’ health. We also began dreaming of what it would take to begin our own version of the after-school program from which the YoungMoms emerged in our southern region, where farms and poultry processing industries are numerous, and the young family members of the immigrants who work there need support. The picture puzzle was growing beyond its edges.

On this trip to Guatemala, we visited a migrant house where travelers can stay for one night while making their way to Mexico and, they hope, on to the U.S. At home we hear about the chaos and sheer numbers of people trying to cross the border. At the migrant house we heard about the desperation that caused people to even dare to make this dangerous trip. As we connect the pieces of the story we see a picture of climate change affecting the growing season, causing landslides, and sometimes ruining crops; gang power and cruelty, which can endanger a family who does not want their daughter taken or their son co-opted; and yes, the unemployment rate, even for people with education and strong work ethic. Here at home, we hear about the admirable work ethic of Guatemalan immigrants, who are employed on farms and in food and meat processing industries, among with other labor-intensive jobs. Even undocumented immigrants pay taxes and contribute to systems such as Social Security from which they will never be able to benefit under current laws.

Hold that part of the picture up next to this one: in Guatemala we also visited the extraordinary young Justa, whose bakery and café are fueled by her fierce work ethic, which permeates all she does, motivated by her determination that her sons will not emigrate. Our mission needs to take into consideration the bigger picture and simultaneous goals of humane treatment for immigrants in this country and helping to alleviate the desperation that makes people flee their homeland. These are not two different puzzles, but part of the same complex and bigger picture.

This trip was for me like seeing a colorful collection of images expand and rise up in three-dimensional, animated splendor. Many pieces are the same. The facts of history are still sobering. CEDEPCA’s “education that transforms” continues to address some of the most pressing concerns of the communities, such as health, nutrition, and domestic violence. Our revolving funds and investment in the planting of trees, wood-saving stoves, filtered water, and hygienic latrines are all continuing to bring health and sustenance to families as well as to the land itself. Some of the women are graduating from needing support to being self-sufficient, a true success in missional ministry.

But the work — the multiple connections of all the pieces — continues to evolve as ideas spark ideas, ministries spark ministries, and life-giving connections spark other life-giving connections. The awe-inspiring thing about healthy mission is that it widens the scope of the picture.

Our NCP Guatemalan Partnership is no longer just the “picture on the box,” but a breathing, pulsating, green, and growing miracle.