Blessing by Dag Hammerskold

May God give you a pure heart to see Him, a humble heart to hear Him, a loving heart to serve Him, a faithful heart that He might abide in you.  And may our Gracious God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bless you and fill your souls, now and always. Amen

The rose that grew from a crack in the concrete

Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared. 

Tupac Shakur

I seek you soul

In the midst of the storm

I seek you soul.

Life's companion

hidden in the heartbeat

of daily doings.

I seek you soul

in my roots

past experiences

history, culture, art, faith

inheritance firmly planted

where not even the fiercest storm

can unearth me.

I seek you soul

flying with wings

feathered dreams

reach clarity

in thin air

and twirl among the colors

breath of invention and imagination

Creating life before the hurricane

that cannot defeat me..

29 August 2011

Elena Huegel

Good Ripples

Good Ripples

I don´t watch much television, but when a friend lent me the DVD episodes of "Joan of Arcadia" a few years ago,  I found myself exploring the various philosophical and religious themes of the show with my teenage nephew who was at my house for a visit. One of my favorite lines is an exclamation of joy from Joan in "Jump," a thought-provoking episode about suicide:  "The ripples were good!"  I often think about how my actions, even the ones that seem unimportant in relation to the need which are so great, can ripple on to touch people and change faraway situations with results that I may never know about.

This week, the ripples came back to me in the form of photographs.  In September, Mexico suffered two devastating earthquakes.  In October, I facilitated a Roots in the Ruins: Hope in Trauma course with seven church leaders from Juchitán, Oaxaca, an area severely affected by the earthquakes.  In November, those leaders helped teach the "Doors of Hope" training workshop for Sunday school teachers.  And this week, the first group of Sunday School teachers sent me photos of their emotional first aid, trauma awareness, dignity and resilience building classes with the children, youth and adults of the Emanuel Church of the Nazarene in Juchitán, Oaxaca.  The ripples have been good!

Elena Huegel

Dec. 2017

The Widow's Mite (Might)

And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.

And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:

For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.  Mark 12:42-44

I am invited to preach just outside the city of Juchitán, Oaxaca in an area where most of the residents are Zapotec people.  Just three years ago, the services were adapted into Spanish from Zapotec because the new minister does not speak the ancient Mesoamerican language. Zapotec words, phrases and songs spring from the hearts of the people in the congregation during the worship service like the little flowers decorating the auto repair and machine tool shop sanctuary.   Clanging work continues in the background even as the service begins.

Mary Katherine Ball, a Global Missions Intern on loan to the Institute for Intercultural Studies and Research while waiting her assignment in Ecuador, accompanies me past the rubble, to the solitary pillars of what is left of the church building.  "The sisters and brothers worked so hard to have a simple, comfortable, worthy place to worship," the pastor says shaking his head.  "Every single family in my congregation lost their home." 

As I preach, three Zapotec matriarchs look on from the second row,  their bright clothes trimmed with lace and long braids intertwined with ribbons.  They nod in agreement and then weep openly as I remind them that we are the children of the High King, worthy princes and princesses, who treat others with dignity just as we expect and demand to be treated.    "When you treat me with dignity, your own dignity is uplifted.  When I treat you with dignity, my dignity is strengthened.  Dignity is expressed and experienced in community."

At the end of the worship service, one of the matriarchs hands me an envelope. " Thank you for coming to visit us. This is our offering so that you might bless others in need," she tells me as she gives me a hug.

Ten dollars. Three matriarchs.  Widows?  Houseless?  Churchless?  Worthy queens in the court of the High King! Again the widow's mite, becomes the widows' might,  for nothing, not even a devastating earthquake can strip them of their dignity and their power to share that dignity with others!

We spoke too soon

                Magyolene, the Global Ministries volunteer from Chile who serves in Nicaragua, arrived on Sunday.  I was thrilled to be facilitating again with her, as we had many times over the years at the Shalom Center of the Pentecostal Church of Chile: environmental education projects, youth mediation trainings, and the Roots in the Ruins: Hope in Trauma post earthquake recovery program. We spent the evening decorating the old meeting hall at the Institute for Intercultural Studies and Research in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, México, for the "Four Winds of Healing: Hope for Traumatized Communities" course which would start the next day.  We caught up on our lives, the changes and the dreams, and remembered friends and family spread across the globe. 

                The course began Monday morning with 6 participants from Mexico, Nicaragua and the USA and continued all day, along with a continuous rainfall outside, until 9:30 pm when everyone when home. Just past midnight, I awoke to another aftershock.  I calmed myself down with the hand massage I teach in the emotional first aid courses and went back to sleep.

                The neighbor of the Institute, whom I greet every day as I walk by her shop, stopped me in the street, wringing her hands and shaking nervously.  "The wall between the Institute and my house fell last night!  It made a terrible noise.  Please tell the administrator to come see me as soon as possible!"  I was the first to enter the Institute grounds, arriving early to set up the details for the next session of the community trauma healing course.  I reported a couple of weeks ago, after the two large earthquakes in Mexico, that the Institute buildings had not suffered any damages.  Well, this is no longer the case. 

                When I open the doors to the old colonial adobe and tile-roofed hall, a bright beam of sunshine greeted me through a gaping hole in the wall.  The roof sagged precariously.  The two monuments the participants had made the night before out of cardboard rolls and magazine cutouts to commemorate community grief and trauma, resilience, and the path to healing had been gently pushed away from the falling adobes and sat, unharmed, the middle of the room.  A corner of the "grief process" flip chart poked out of the rubble while the cheery yellow cards stating the elements of dignity, some buried and others mud-streaked, wrinkled or wet, decorated the moist, brown earthen heap.  Normally I reuse my flipcharts and signs.  Not this time.   But the guitar, piano, violin, computer and projector also in the room suffered no damage.

                As the other staff and participants arrived, we quickly moved everything out of the meeting hall, and Magyolene and I set up the course again, now in the dining room.  By the time we ended the course that afternoon, the administrator had already called in a work crew.  The roof has been propped up and the massive amount of mud (even 200 year-old adobes turn back to mud when wet since the blocks are cooked only by the sun) is being removed from the hall. The board of the Institute has begun to try to figure out how and when repairs will be made, including the neighbor's wall.

                It is probable that the wall of the Institute's old meeting room cracked during the two previous earthquakes allowing for the rain to seep into the adobes.  Then, the saturated wall crumbled with the smaller aftershock.  Many other buildings and homes will disintegrate across Chiapas and Oaxaca as the rains soak through deep fissures in the adobe walls and the tectonic plates continue to settle.  Meanwhile, we are grateful to have a new meeting space at the Institute, and even though it is not completely finished, we are rushing to clean it up and begin using it during the next workshop.

                We ended the community healing course by sitting in a circle and sharing food and drink, giving thanks that the wall caved in while we were gone and that the neighbors were not harmed, remembering all those whose suffering is compounded by the rains, and committing ourselves to continue to be a part of the healing of the communities we are accompanying .

Elena Huegel

Chiapas, México, 2017