The Chains of Injustice

This weekend we all paired up and went into different base church communities throughout El Salvador. My site ended up being San Antonio Abad which is located in San Salvador, so I didn't have to travel too far. We were kind of just dropped off at our host home without too much knowledge about what we were supposed to be doing or expecting this weekend. The weekend proved to be challenging for a variety of reasons.

The first was that although we spent four weeks taking one-on-one, five hour a day Spanish classes, the language barrier still exists. The accent here is incredibly different than what we heard in Guatemala and our host family was convinced that we were fluent, I think.

This obviously presented some issues. Mostly, I think Lia and I were just frustrated with ourselves. The family we stayed with is so beautiful and they were so generous and hospitable and open. It was really difficult to realize that these women were sharing things that are really, really close to their hearts with us. They were telling us about the deaths of their parents and their brothers. They were telling us about the fear that they lived with as children, simply because their families were involved in the church. Or as our professor put it, “These people didn't have weapons in their pockets, but they had ideas in their heads.”  These women poured out their hearts to us and we were able to pick up some things, but we missed so much and had to just nod our heads and pretend that we understood their stories.

Today we came back to the guest house that we’re all staying in together and we shared our experiences with everyone else. The stories everywhere were so similar. I’m realizing that nearly (if not every) person we've met or are meeting has lost someone due to the internal conflicts of their countries. Every person.

Communities that had populations of 12,000 people now have populations of 3,000.

Families are spread out across the world because people were so unsafe that they had to leave the country.

Nearly 3 million Salvadorans live outside of the country.

I realized, today, how much I've been hardening my heart to the stories and the people.  I've been justifying that by saying that it’s necessary because otherwise I’ll be crying all of the time.

And I think that’s probably still kind of reasonable because I’m not going to be able to do anything if I’m just crying.

But maybe right now, while I’m here to just learn and listen, maybe I should be crying all of the time. Maybe I should be sitting in the ashes, weeping, crying out to God with these people who are teaching me, sharing with me.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just saying this because I want to feel like there is something I can do.

 And believe me, I can cry.

I don’t know. It’s really, really difficult to try to process all of these stories. I feel heavy. And I’m afraid I’m becoming calloused. And while I’m afraid of that, I kind of desire it. Because it hurts to hear these people tell me about their families and friends who have been murdered.

I guess I’m trying to find hope in the fact that these communities still believe that there is a God and that He is good. I’m trying to find hope in the fact that the people who were murdered in the conflict are not being forgotten but are being raised up as martyrs to inspire communities to continue the fight for justice and change. I’m trying to find hope in the fact that even though the weapons used to kill their family members were very likely paid for by my government, they still are sharing their lives with me.

I’m trying to find hope in the fact that these are the words of my God:

Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free

and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked to clothe them, and not turn away from your own flesh and blood?

--Isaiah 58:6-7