Saturday, February 22 The alarm clock rings at 5:15 am. Time to get up and get ready to leave by 6:30. On the way I pick up my other missionary associates. We are on the way to Santa Cruz Chinautla where, a year ago, we started this adventure. Every third Saturday of the month it is the same routine.
We could have reached Santa Cruz in 40 minutes, but because of the Saturday morning traffic in Guatemala City, it takes one hour and a half. When we get there, and the children are waiting, their smiles make us forget the time we spent traveling.
This is how it is all the time… The same… Then come the greetings. Then a prayer to start with, the recitation of the Rosary, a short celebration of the Word, since Fr. Roberto, the pastor of Santa Cruz, had apologized the day before for not being able to come to celebrate the Eucharist, due to other important commitments. By the time prayer is over it is 10 in the morning, time to eat something, some bread with beans and a drink of Jamaica for all… the menu the kids love the most.
Joy, peace, trust, service, always the same… the older children eat fast, take seconds on bread and drink, since there is enough for all, thanks be to God. The little ones cannot finish their share and put it away to eat it later… It is always the same.
We follow with a short catechism lesson… some knowledge… We tell the children about God the creator of the human being… we are all equal, intelligent, free and able to love. We have the same dignity as persons.
The theme is quite deep and it is passed on with stories, drawings, songs, games. We give out drawings to be colored and, finally, the children get to share what they have learned in their own words… The same… Almost always the same…
To send them off, they line up for a piece of candy and then we take them home to get a little closer to the adults in the community. At the end, everyone is happy. They are joyful, animated, thanks to having met others…and to be the other, about 35 of them, boys and girls between the ages of two and 12, more or less.
They are innocent, trusting, sincere, spontaneous and this way… in the same way… the older ones mind their younger siblings as it is customary, because the parents are usually working at this time on Saturday morning.
They have fun, they learn, they share among themselves and with us. Always the same…
But it is different… They are different and renewed because the Holy Spirit makes all things new, a new day, a new encounter, different gratitude to God’s gift. It is a different date, a different joy, a different air, a different caress from the sun and the wind. God renews everything…
Everything is unique, everything is amazing, it was the same… but different… the same to human eyes… different in the eyes of God… It is a different effort. It is a different tiredness and a different joy and peace, not like those of last year, nor of one… two… or six months ago… the one of Saturday, February 22, 2020 is unique and special.
Passion for mission, written in the heart of each one, comes from heaven, makes it all the same and all different. All that we live in, tomorrow will be different, renewed by the Spirit of God, even though it may all look the same… And so, this blessed vocation of being a Comboni Lay Missionary will develop.
It will always be the same… But different because of the love of God.
“Holy and able, making common cause with the poorest and most abandoned” (St. Daniel Comboni)
Lily Portillo
Comboni Lay Missionary, Province of Central America, Guatemala
