Collateral Beauty

Last Sunday we watched a movie called Collateral Beauty.  I highly recommend the movie, especially if your heart has been broken by death of a loved one.

I was touched by the beauty of the film, but it also brought up the grief I'm often too busy to feel… the loss of my father and brother in 2015.  The depth of the sadness I have felt since watching the movie has surprised me.    Watching the movie also coincides with the time of year that I often feel blue, but this year the grief welled up inside of me…it was a loss due to a miscarriage I had less than a year after we moved to Nicaragua.

Joseph playing with nephew and niece, Elliot and Charlotte

I always felt it was wrong or ungrateful to feel that grief because not long after the miscarriage, we were blessed with Joseph being conceived and he is a such a joy to our family.

But as Mike reminded me yesterday, a loss is a loss…despite the collateral beauty we have found in the life and love of our Joseph.

Many years ago, a delegation member asked me if Nicaraguan parents felt the depth of sadness that parents in the U.S. felt after losing a child, because many of these desperately poor parents had lost three, four, five children.  Some in birth, some in infancy, some as wee ones and some as teens. 

I responded – I thought – quite calmly in face of such an insensitive question…or so I thought then.

Now, I think it was an honest question, because people of wealthier nations…nations of power…stick their heads in the sands and think no one out there feels what they feel.  And at least ASKING the question is place to begin.

Powerful nations drop bombs, send drones, send armies whenever they think they are in danger…and all those bombs, drones, and soldiers kill children.  Children of parents, who, if not dead themselves, have their hearts ripped out of their chests when they hold their precious dead children in their arms.  

Nawar Anwar al-Awlaki, 8 years old, died recently, and she was not the first.

Wealthy nations that abuse countries like Nicaragua and keep them poor, or even keep their own people poor, hide from the truth that hunger and disease kill children…or they refuse to accept their role in these children’s deaths.

It is bad enough to lose a child to an illness with no cure but to lose a child to a curable illness is beyond imagination as a parent lowers their little child’s coffin into the ground.

I have been blessed to have in my life 3 wonderful sons and 2 amazing step children.  They fill my life with goodness that I cannot begin to express, and yet, today, I weep for that little 12-week fetus I lost 21 years ago…

So in answer to that question posed to me long ago…Yes, no matter how many children they have lost, parents here feel the same heart-wrenching grief that parents in the U.S. feel…maybe deeper because keeping their children safe is completely out of their hands.

I wish everyone could understand the pain…not experience it but understand it in order to stop the senseless deaths of children to war, bombs, disease, hunger, violence, and poverty...then maybe Nawar Anwar al-Awlaki could be the last.

-Kathleen

How Do You Feel When You See___?

Look at these pictures and reflect on how you feel:

When Coury, our son, was in Secondary school he wanted to be a Symbologist.  He was fascinated with symbols, especially dragons.  Assuming that real dragons never existed, they still found their way into art and lore across the world and had drastically different meanings depending on the culture.

Symbols are powerful.  Before Seminary I wore a cross, to remind myself that Jesus died for all.

While in Seminary I learned what dying on a cross really meant.  I realized that it was method of state executions of the Roman Empire.  It was murder in a most cruel fashion of both the innocent and the guilty; and suddenly, I felt like I had an electric chair or gas chamber around my neck.  The cross went into my jewelry box...not as a lack of faith, but a change in its symbolism for me.

My wedding ring...a simple band...is a symbol of my love and
commitment to Mike.  I know if I should lose it, my commitment would not change.  Like the cross necklace, the ring is just metal, though dear to me.  I also know dear or not, I would not risk my life or even my finger to protect it ...it is just shaped metal.

And this understanding is what - I think - many people are lacking.  Flags are cloth...symbols yes, but cloth.  The hijab and the burka are cloth...just like thong bikinis...only more of it.  Beards are hair...and as a friend told me when I dreaded cutting Coury's baby hair for the first time..."Kathleen, it is just dead protein, get over it."

Add to that... there is the important fact that we keep forgetting: meaningful symbols for one group of people can become symbols of hate for others.  What was once a precious symbol, can suddenly be used to incite hatred...even murder and mass genocide.

We have to guard against this hatred that allow symbols be greater than the children of God.

When flags are burned, it is not the act of destroying the flag that really offends people, because we throw flags away all the time.  It is the fear and uncertainty when we realize that others hate our nation...ergo us.   And many of us respond with fear and announce how bad these people are; instead of asking "WHY do they hate us?" and  "How can we change that hate and become friends?"  Not only is it more productive, it is also faith-based.

Guarding against bigotry of those who are different from us...guarding against the fear of their symbols or even worse using those symbols to mark them for death...this vanguard could be our work and our calling as children of the Divine...in other words we could just be plain decent human beings.

On-line, on television, and even with those I love....I hear and see hatred pouring out regarding people of color and people of different faiths.  Sometimes it is out-and-out, but more often it is insidious.

I even hear the fear and hatred in churches...I once actually heard a pastor warn against being tolerant of people different from Christians.  If he had gone on to say "Don't be tolerant.  Be more.  Be loving"...Jesus would have been proud, but the preacher did not and - I believe - Jesus' heart broke.

I heard one of Obama's last interviews on 60 Minutes.  When asked "For what do you think you will be remembered?"  Obama listed some of his achievements, but - I think - he knows but will not say...he will be remembered most for being the First President of the United States of America who was a person of color.  Look at those two photos.  He was definitely not the first Black man in the White House...

Depending on your bias: you are either proud that he was president or threatened that he was president instead of the butler.

Symbols.  They can stir passions of love and hate as well as respect and fear; but mostly they are made of things.  People are much more important and THAT is where our energy must lie.

-Kathleen

Sight for Sore Eyes

Have you ever put on somebody else’s eyeglasses and wondered how in the world they can see through them? 

It’s hard to see through glasses that aren’t yours, but that’s what we ask our patients at the Nueva Vida Clinic to do all the time when we try to match them with used glasses that have been donated. But thanks to a pilot project we’re doing with the Bucknell University Engineers, we can now make eyeglasses to order at the Nueva Vida Clinic!

Since we started our Vision Program six years ago with training from a Cuban ophthalmologist, Pat and I together with a host of volunteers have weekly been doing vision testing and trying to match patients to used glasses that we get donated from the New Jersey Lions Club Eyeglasses Recycling Center. While this system works very well for reading glasses, it’s harder for distance glasses: we have to find patients a match in their right eye then the left, as well as a match for astigmatism corrections. Most of the time we can get close to what patients need, but it’s usually not exactly what they need, and that can make a big difference. Even when we get close, the frames are often out of style which has a big effect on patients’ ability to adjust to wearing glasses.

So in an effort to get patients' glasses made to their own prescription in better-looking frames, we are working with engineers to try out a pilot program in hopes that we can create a low-cost sustainable vision program that can be adapted to other places as well. The program is called Project for Sustainable Eye Care or PROSEC.

In June, Bucknell engineering graduate student Paden Troxell came down to Nicaragua with small machinery, a stock of a selection of frames and blank lenses in a range of pre-ground prescriptions. Paden taught Pat and Sarah and I how to make the glasses and use the small lens cutter and lens beveller, and since then we’ve been giving our patients at the clinic the option of purchasing PROSEC glasses for just under $7 instead of trying to match them to a donated pair of distance glasses.   We settled on the price of $7 to cover the cost of the frames, lenses and someone to cut the lenses and fit them to the frames, since Pat and I hope not to be doing that forever!

So far we have sold and made over 100 PROSEC glasses, and have found that since we have begun to offer the low-cost glasses, more patients are coming in to the Clinic for eye exams. In November, we worked together with our Ciudad Sandino Rotary Club to do three days of Vision Checks in rural communities and in a local church. We checked everyone's blood pressure, did vision checks, handed out reading glasses at no charge, did refraction tests for distance glasses, and sold PROSEC glasses. In that time we saw 195 patients, handed out 115 reading glasses and sold 42 PROSEC glasses, the vast majority of which Pat made in the following weeks (with a tiny bit of help from me).


These vision days were a huge success, and we hope to continue them more regularly next year with the help of Rotary and community volunteers. Just making the glasses more accessible to people – making it easy to get eye checks, affordable price, and good choice of frames – means that many more people will be able to see!

Of course we’re learning as we go – we will be adding a new machine in January in hopes of making the lens cutting more efficient, we will be revising our frame stock to remove difficult frames and add more popular styles, and while we can’t currently correct for astigmatism, we hope be able to do so in the future. - Becca 

Las Lobas Camp

Last weekend we held the first Las Lobas Camp. Jessenia and I decided that we should do our own weekend camp with all of the Lobas up at El Porvenir. Our thinking was that we could afford El Porvenir (only food cost and diesel to get up the mountain) and that it would be a good experience for the urban Lobas to be in the forest with no running water or electricity (or cell phones!) for a few days.


As with everything we do with this group, we didn’t really know how to run a camp, but thought we could figure it out. We invited Diana to come along to help, all of us brought our kids and Paul came too. All but two of the Lobas were able to come, so there were 10 of them! It was amazing to have that support from the parents, in fact, many of the families came to the Clinic to say goodbye to the girls and take pictures of them with their phones as they got in the ambulances! For several of them it was the first time they slept away from home.

The first night we set guidelines for the camp together with the girls and posted them on the wall…we were immediately afforded an opportunity to go back over them when several of the girls had trouble sleeping on pads on the hacienda porch floor and kept others up with their talking and shining flashlights.

On Saturday morning we did team-building and trust-building activities, and they spent two hours picking coffee in pairs. We held a contest to see which team could pick the most coffee, Gabriel from the co-op measured it at the end of the exercise and declared a winner. Although nobody actually liked picking coffee, they all participated and were all sorely disappointed at the end to learn they’d only earned $0.52 each.

In the afternoon Diana organized everyone to make a piñata and party favors for a village party while Jessenia and I carried out individual interviews with each of the girls.

These interviews were my favorite part of the camp by far. We had asked each of the girls to write down their goals for the next year, and so when we sat down we talked with them about what we had observed in them in the past year, anticipated possible obstacles to meeting their goals, and talked over possible ways around those obstacles. In part, this was a chance for Jessenia and I together to reinforce good behavior and offer constructive criticism –it was gratifying to see some of the girls’ faces light up with pleasure at hearing positive things about themselves. But we also got to learn more about many of the girls – we were thrilled to find out that one of the girls who hasn’t gone to school for years has been secretly studying and just passed 3rd/4th grade! She’s now headed to 5th/6th and we told her if she wants to keep a secret that’s fine, but that she should invite us to her graduation next year! Jessenia offered insight and support to one of the girls who has a lot of responsibilities at home following a death in her family – she often has to cook for 10 people. We talked with one of the girls who is a natural leader about the pressures that leaders can feel – she has been uncharacteristically crying and getting angry at others – and talked about how she can take care of herself better. Each girl got a hug from both of us and I don’t think I’m mistaken in my observation that we gained a new level of confidence with most of the girls over the camp.

Diana and Jessenia organized the village party late in the afternoon with participation from all the Lobas – it was the most organized piñata I think I’ve ever been to! The Lobas really enjoyed doing something for the kids in the community – they had been affected by seeing the kids working. Everyone up at El Porvenir hauls their own water – 20 gallons per family – from the hacienda. Several of the Lobas saw a little boy struggling to carry his family’s water up the steps to his horse, so they carried the jugs themselves and gave the boy a tangerine to eat while they figured out how to get the jugs onto the horse. They were then shocked to see him – barefoot but for his spurs –  lead his horse over to a low wall where he could climb into the saddle and pull the last jug onto the saddle horn with a rope before head off for home.

Saturday night we walked out to the viewpoint and had a bonfire with marshmallow roasting, and Sunday morning we had our closing circle activities there.

Not every moment of the camp went swimmingly, of course. There times of hurt feelings and a few small disciplinary issues, par for the course. But in the end, no one can take memories of this camp away from the Lobas. They have all slept away from home, picked coffee, hauled water for hand washing and drinking.

I don’t know if any of the advice Jessenia and I doled out will take hold, but there was one solid moment of hope where I began to feel it might. During a free time at the end of the camp all the girls all crowded together on the mats talking to each other. “You don’t want to get together with a boy too soon,” said one to another. “First you have to finish school, there’s plenty of time for that later.” All the advice that means so little from Jessenia or me takes on much more weight one Loba to another. - Becca       

Lesson from Little Lucy

Little Lucy is my favorite human in the Chronicles of Narnia.  In Prince Caspian, there is a part where Lucy sees Aslan, the Lion who rules Narnia, but none of her other siblings or the dwarf see him or believe that she sees him.  In one scene, she encounters Aslan:

      "I saw you all right.  They wouldn't believe me.  They're all so-"
      From somewhere deep inside Aslan's body there came the faintest suggestion of a growl...
      "I'm sorry," said Lucy...."But it wasn't my fault anyway, was it?"
      The Lion looked straight into her eyes.
      ..."You don't mean it was?....But what would have been the good?"
      Aslan said nothing.

We all like to blame others for not doing the right thing.  "Others are to blame for the world we have," we tend to think; but this short scene explains it all.

For me - this exchange is the culmination of all seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia.  In this particular scene:  There were many in danger from a ruler who was afraid of the differences of non-humans.  A few were called.  The smallest one saw the path they were to take to save those who had been oppressed by a ruler and his followers.  No one believed the smallest; therefore, instead of doing what was right, the small one went along with the rest...to everyone's peril.

I see this over and over in churches particularly.  There are followers of Jesus' teachings but they do not speak out or go apart to do the right thing...they don't lead.

I listen to sermons and I, too, do not stand up and say, "WHOA!  That's not what Jesus said.  Aren't we to include, not exclude?   Aren't we to work for true justice?  How are we following the Prince of Peace as we do nothing to stop the violence?  Aren't we to love?"

Or I've listened to more sermons than I care to where the moment of truth is right there....within reach...but missed as the pastor tries not ruffle feathers...caring more about the budget than justice.

Or I've bitten my tongue so many times with family, friends, volunteers or even my own community to not blatantly offend...and some of you don't believe that, I know!  😃  But ashamedly, I have.

We want "peace" or the better words "to be comfortable with others."  Convenience is more important.  Not rocking the boat.  Making sure everyone is on board before the right thing is done.   Not challenging people but letting them go to their "safe places".  Only challenging on Facebook or Twitter when the faces are hidden.

This is one of the reasons we are looking at the future that we are.  We move around with like-minded people and don't want to hurt feelings.  We try to get consensus before trying to get justice.  We ignore the anger and the privileged around us.  We allow the powerful and wealthy to split us apart by getting us to blame the people who are different in color, gender, or religion instead of class from ourselves.

We have to stop being scared and get on with it...even if the others do not come.

     ...Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face...."I'm sorry, Aslan," she said.  "I'm ready now."
      "Now you are a lioness," said Aslan.  "And now all Narnia will be renewed.  But come.  We have no time to lose."

Amen.

-Kathleen