A lifetime of memories disappears in an earthquake.
Meet Paola Martinez Beuda de Rosales. She was born in Izalco, El Salvador in 1915. When she was 27 years old, she met Marcelino Rosales, a day laborer who worked the fields, planting and harvesting crops wherever he could find work. They married in 1945 and moved to San Salvador where they lived together until his death 15 years ago. They lived a simple life, raised one son and were very active in the Church.
The adobe house (constructed of bamboo and mud) that Marcelino had built for them collapsed in the 2001 earthquake that rocked the tiny nation, leaving the 82-year old widow homeless. Next to where her house was situated was a small adobe structure, weathered and damaged, that she formerly used for storage. She was forced to live in a small square room until relief efforts could eventually assist her.
When aid from the mayor’s office finally reached Paola, resources were in short supply due to the extreme national poverty and catastrophic damages all around the country. They did the best they could by fashioning for her a house made from logs, split bamboo and scraps of “lamina” (corrugated and flat aluminum sheets). And that’s where and how she’s been living ever since, as the house slowly decays around her, overrun with insects, mice and pigeons.
Victor, her only son, is in his late 60’s, has diabetes and various other health problems so is unable to work or provide her any assistance. Since her husband was an “unofficial worker”, she receives no pension, retirement or “social security”. She chronically suffers from respiratory ailments due to her constant exposure to the dust, air pollution and mold and because of her limited mobility, transportation challenges and the distance to the national public hospital, she doesn’t go for treatment. So she’s been growing weaker and frailer.
But there are modern day miracles and they are sometimes performed by school children! Namely, the students (and faculty!) of St. James the Less Catholic School in Columbus, Ohio. Each year, they organize a service learning project that includes awareness and fund-raising activities to help change the lives of needy individuals or organizations around the world. This year their theme was “Under Construction – God At Work”, and they collaborated with Maryknoll Lay Missioners in El Salvador to contribute to the Vivienda Project ~ a home-building ministry of the youth at Nuestra Señora de Lourdes Parroquia, where MKLM missioner Nan Tyrolt works as the “asesora” (advisor) to the youth.
Organized by Colleen Gomez, the Lead Service Learning Coordinator at St. James, nearly $3,000 was raised for the Vivienda Project – enough to build three semi-permanent homes for the extremely poor, homeless or displaced in Calle Real, the colonia in which Nuestra Señora de Lourdes parish is located. So when Ohio Dominican University sent its annual Service Immersion Delegation to El Salvador, Nan was able to use those funds and coordinate the construction of a new home for Paola, complete with cement floor, screened window openings and cheery paint. An individual donor even gifted a “Duckie” floor mat, robe and towels to Paola, to honor the memory of her mother.
Rainy season is just beginning in El Salvador. So far, there have been 3 or 4 heavy rainfalls. And for the first time since she can remember, Paola feels warm, dry and safe.
But, Nan says she still has about 100 names on the list for a home. So with prayer, the continued generous out-pouring of love and support and some Divine Intervention, she is hopeful that there will be more stories with happy endings, like Paola’s.
Kikambala Epilepsy Clinic
Maryknoll Lay Missioner, Dr. Susan Nagele, shares with us the impact of lack of medical availability in Kenya. Greetings to all of you from hot and humid Mombasa. The seasons here on the coast of the Indian ocean at the equator are opposite from the northern hemisphere. While all of you are welcoming the warmer weather of spring we are steaming, sweating and looking forward to the cooling rains that usually come in April.
A mother recently told me a story that still has me thinking. Her 16 year old son was brought because he has epilepsy. When he was four he was hospitalized at the provincial hospital in Mombasa, the referral center for 3 million people living on the coast. He had cerebral malaria and was in a coma for a month. The doctor pronounced him dead, removed all the tubes and IV line and told the mother. She begged the doctor to leave the child in the hospital bed while she prayed for him. The doctor agreed and for four days the child continued in coma. On the fifth day he opened his eyes. She told the nurse who didn’t believe her. The other patients confirmed the mother’s story and when the nurse went to see the boy she called the doctor. He came immediately, saw that the boy was alive and tore up the old hospital notes. He began IV fluids and on the third bottle the boy began to talk, asking for water to drink. The boy is now in the second year of high school. He began having seizures last year and came to us looking for medicine because the government doesn’t have them.
I suspect that part of the reason this boy was in a coma so long was because he was given too many fluids and his brain swelled. Once the fluids were stopped, the swelling in his brain decreased and he woke up. But what impresses me the most is the love and determination of the mother. She said she just knew in her heart that her son wasn’t dead. That is the kind of love God has for each of us. Despite our faults and failings God keeps waiting faithfully for us to wake up and truly live the fullness of life.
Over 600,000 people in Kenya live with epilepsy. In February we held a seminar on epilepsy to educate our staffs. There is a lot of stigma for these patients and over 90% believe it is caused by curses, witchcraft and punishment from God. On the coast, epilepsy is usually caused by low oxygen at birth, head injuries and infections with meningitis and cerebral malaria. People seek treatment from traditional doctors and children are prevented from going to school. In March we started a new clinic in Kikambala parish for people with epilepsy and saw 22 patients on the first day. We hope to find those with this illness, educate them about the causes and treat them so that they can live better lives.
The health care we provide is increasingly important because the government of Kenya really isn’t functioning much at all. According to the new constitution, elections for the President are supposed to be held in August. The electoral commission says it can’t be ready by August. No one knows when the next election will be held. Since the Ministries of Public Health and Medical Services aren’t able to meet the many health care problems, we continue to try to provide good care for those who are most in need. The frustrations and challenges of lack of decent health care have made Lent much more real for many people.
Builders of the Reign of God
Maryknoll Lay Missioner, Erica Olson, is living and serving in the small community of Santo Domingo de Guzman in El Salvador. One of her responsibilities is Coordinator of Pastoral Social at the local parish. This pastoral group is called to bring to life the Gospel of Jesus Christ through concrete acts of His love and compassion.
One of the first needs they were aware of was the lack of a chapel in one of the rural communities of the parish, Chapultepec. This community was formed after the war by the Salvadoran Government to give homes to displaced families. Many of them have since left, leaving their homes abandoned and others have moved in. Their main income comes from selling the corn they grow, which hardly keeps their families afloat. Therefore, when they were given a plot of land on which to put a Catholic chapel 10 years ago, they could only afford to make the basic structure pictured above, made out of logs and a tin roof, with benches of bamboo. For 10 years, they celebrated their faith is this humble space, hoping and praying for a more stable, dignified house of worship.
Being an hour’s walk down dirt roads from the town of Santo Domingo, this community not only lives on the margins due to their poverty but also literally on the margins of the parish boundaries. It is a community that is minimally visited by the parish priest, let alone other members of the parish. As a people of God, we are called to go to the margins to be a witness to the fact that we are all ONE community in God.
Looking at the reality through this lens, Pastoral Social decided to take a leap of faith with the community of Chapultepec and raise up a chapel. With the financial support of Erica’s high school, Sacred Heart Academy, in Louisville, KY, her parents’ Lutheran Church, Christ the King, in South Bend, IN, the Maryknoll Society of Fathers and Brothers, 
other generous donors, and with the efforts of the local parish community of Santo Domingo de Guzman, they were able to start buying the materials in March of 2011. Under the leadership of Sabas Damian, a brick-layer from town and member of Pastoral Social, his assistant, Jose Rodolfo, a teenager from Chapultepec, and with the voluntary support of many members of the parish and the local community, the chapel was built in less than a year.
The community decided that it would be dedicated to St. Joseph, Protector of Families. Living in a rural area of poverty, where some of the children do not go to school, where gender roles are very clearly defined, and where some of the men and women have migrated to the United States, it is a community that has been victimized by the presence of gangs, domestic abuse, and family disintegration. Therefore, they chose to have as their patron saint, St. Joseph, so that through his intercession, there would be hope and life for their families.
A concrete witness to these fruits of the Spirit occurred the day the chapel was officially inaugurated, March 17th, 2012. Prior to this day, several members of the community, walked around the town of Santo Domingo, asking for donations for the inauguration. With this support, they fixed lunch for all of the people who came without charging anything. They made sure that every child and every adult that came on the two trucks from town and from the other rural communities of the parish had food, that every person in their local community had food (including those who didn’t make it to the celebration), and they even made sure that the man who walked by selling ice cream received a plate of food. On that day, through the intercession of St. Joseph, the community of Chapultepec was looking out for their larger family: their brothers and sisters in Christ.
May God bless this community of believers and give them the strength to grow in their understanding of the Divine and in their fellowship with one another, and may this chapel be a physical sign of the Spirit working in and through this community as builders of the Reign of God.
God Is Present to All of Us and All of Creation
“A highlight for our broader goal of building parish community was a work day organized by the parish council. We began with a very moving reflection where many spoke of the importance of working in daily ways to care for the environment and the joy they get from food they are able to grow in the city. We ended the day at dark, eating sweet corn and visiting.”
Transformed by the Experience of Serving in Mission
“My relationship with God and my prayer life have been transformed by my experience of serving in mission. I have become more and more aware of how all that I am, know, and do is the result of God’s loving gift of life. I chose to respond to the invitation to come here, but I know that my effort to be present to the people of Tanzania and to be of service is only possible because of all that He created me to be.”
Voices of Compassion. Volume I 2012
We are lay, religious and ordained missioners working together as equals in mission. We seek to nourish the vocational choice of each member while drawing strength and richness from our diversity.
