Oh friends, where to start.
On the one hand, there’s no news. We are still here. The children are getting bigger, Jeff is still a psychologist, and I am still running an ill-fated but hopefully (!) helpful diabetes program in the basurero in Guatemala City. It’s a never-ending dry season, the Mayan farmers are yet again burning their crops before it finally (DEAR LORD) rains, the volcanoes continue to belch fine black dust and smoke into the air, everyone is wheezing and coughing and we are all praying for moisture, as we always do this time of year, as people have done since Jesus walked the earth. (not here, in Central America, but I’m sure he would have LOVED it here. Land of eternal spring etc.)
(Context: I’m writing this letter from the tranquility of our delightful home outside the city, in the middle of a parental conflict with my 12 year old who is complaining about having to cook dinner. She’s been reminded that she lives here rent-free and to put her shoulder into it.)
On the other hand, there’s a lot of news. Zone 3 (where the clinic is—) is suffering through what I think is best described as a gang war. There is a gang on one side of the community that is trying to take territory from the gang that currently controls the community where the clinic is. Supposedly it’s washout from all the autocratic gang crackdown going on in El Salvador, but who knows. Normally when we drive through the community into clinic there are families and kids around, people working, feels like pretty normal (*urban slum) life.
But it’s so bad lately. Something like 20 homes have burned, and dozens of people have died over the last month. I couldn’t get into the clinic entrance with my car a few weeks ago because someone had been killed in front of the clinic, and I had to park on the street around the corner and scuttle in the alley entrance.
People are tense. There are guns out in the open, lots and lots of police on the corner, but it didn’t help at all that three PNC police officers were on the corner when the tienda by the clinic was shot up yesterday afternoon. Cora was with me in clinic for the morning, and we could see the sneakers of the guy that had been killed poking out the door amid the chip and cookie racks when we drove by.
I’ve always thought that the cheapest lives anywhere are Guatemalan lives, especially young men. I have a degree of immunity walking through small alleys and streets to check on my patients at home, a bizarrely tall woman and super white— people know that killing/robbing/whatevering me would bring some international heat of some sort. (also, I don’t look rich or all that attractive to street criminals? fingers crossed.) My friends that actually live in Zone 3 are NERVOUS and for good reason. Staid and trusted community leaders are being extorted and killed, children are being threatened, and I think the thing I want you all to understand is that these are real people, just like us. They have fingernails and hairlines and livers and kidneys and bad knees, tons of random regrets. They love birthday parties, blue skies and a crisp breeze, fried pork skin and cold cokes. They’ve got denial and heartburn and their backs hurt and they lay awake at night worrying about the future of their children, just like the rest of us. It’s mundane tragedy unfolding constantly, and I feel so inept and impotent in the face of such persistent darkness. A woman in clinic this week, explaining what she thinks could be contributing to her poor diabetes control, acid reflux and neck pain, explained that she lives next to the 20 some-odd homes that burned a couple of weeks ago and that the violence was really getting to her. “But these sorts of things happen.”
I start thinking about how to write these letters a month or two in advance and have been planning to write about how much we have learned from our patients and therapy clients about what it means to follow Jesus through catastrophe. Women who have been through unimaginable compound trauma, that look me dead in the eye and say that praying and reading their Bible is genuinely helpful in the midst of a panic attack at 3 in the morning. (I’m like: ok, but I’m… also going to give you some medication for that.)
I think this is where I am supposed to share something transcendentally true, about how God is still good and in control of everything, but I’ll be honest that I struggle to believe it some days. And about how we are still stable Christian missionaries, joyfully serving the Lord in the valley of the shadow and so on. It’s true, that God is real and good and our brother and father and friend, but the story preached through at church last weekend about Jacob physically fighting with God and coming out alive (!!) and with a dislocated hip feels more resonant.
You can pray for our faith, honestly. It’s a dark time. Pray for our girls to see the forest through the trees. Pray for my physical safety— I’ve got to go visit a woman at home tomorrow that lives in el Gallito (where the other gang is based) and will have permission from the dudes that control the neighborhood as usual, and I know it’s a little crazy but she’s a real person that has had a stroke and has (probably/at least) pneumonia and literally no one else will go in there to check on her.
Pray for Guatemala City. Pray for God to remember that he is GOOD, and that his people are hurting. For peace and daylight and rain to return to a burning city. Pray for Gaza and Ukraine, and most of all for Jesus to come and for us to remember that while the world is unwell, the kingdom, somehow, comes.
Very gratefully yours,
Abbie (and Jeff and the girls)
PS: Let us know how you are!! I don’t alway write back, much to my shame, but we love your responses. Massive hugs from Guatemala.
Hi Abbie, I’ve been praying for all of you , and reading this post helps me comprehend a little more what it’s like there. My goodness… so many challenges and uncertainties in every day. I’m amazed how you carry on. And inspired! And it makes me want to meet you and know you . May God surround you with protection and encouragement. With care, Karen Howells
You are great at writing and painting a picture of y'all's lives currently. Thank you so much for sharing and being honest about all the realities and emotions of life right now. I will be sure to pray for you and your family as well as your surrounding community and Guatemala.