Chicken Rides and Christian Reflection

I’ve never had 9 hours of bus-riding before. Especially not on what Salvadorans call “Chicken Buses”. Let me explain: In our travels from San Salvador to the highlands of Guatamala, four friends and I traveled on buses that resemble public school activity buses in the US except that they are bright and gaudy colors like red and green and they have racks on top where luggage, agricultural products (yes, you guessed it—chickens), and apparently (though infrequently) people ride. The buses have names like Maria, Josephina, and even Jennifer. Inside, seven or eight people ride in each row (yes, these are like activity bus seats) and near the end of the ride when the bus is overly full, many stand (it was quite a ride standing on the whole entire 3 hour return trip from the Guatemalan mountains to Guatemala City). The drivers are apparently paid by the distance they cover in a given time because we passed so many small cars coming down the mountain that I can’t count them and there were many exciting moments that the bus leaned very, very, very far over onto one side, I thought flipping was possible. So, actually there is not much real semblance to activity buses after all, but I will never look at an activity bus the same again. However, my chicken rides were part of my Salvadoran initiation.

The location of this weekend’s retreat was beautiful. It was in the high mountains overlooking Lake Atitlan in Guatemala at a retreat center called “Mount Carmel” run by a Guatemalan parish. My photos are of our views of lake Atitlan and the retreat center. Beautiful. I have also posted a picture of the group that gathered at the retreat center—we were all the VMM missioners that serve in the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. There were the Morrans, a couple with two girls ages 11 and 8, who are in their last month of a 2-year long water and sanitation project. Both are engineers, and though they have encountered many difficulties, they have realized that relationships and meaningful moments have been more important in the end anyways. Then there are Betsy and Steven. Betsy and Steven are in their latter-70s, and Steven is deaf in one ear and half-deaf in the other, but it was such a blessing to sit beside Steven on his better-ear side to hear his story of living in Central America since the 80’s in many different capacities—as a parish minister, a VMM, a teacher, etc. Wisdom that will help me down the road I am sure.

There were more individuals (including other 20-somethings who will prove to be an excellent “peer” community), but perhaps more important was the sense of community at large. The pastor that led organized the retreat around 3 of the five of Jesus’ “discourses”, a.k.a long teachings, in Matthew: Missions (Mttw 10), Parables about the Kingdom of God (Mttw 13), and Community (Mttw 18). Jesus lived and taught to demonstrate that God’s kingdom is both here and not yet (a mystery in Mttw 13) and that God’s desire is for all of us to realize that kingdom, which must be great as it is compared to a mustard seed, leaven, treasure, pearl, and net, both here and in the future.