Going the Extra Mile for the Sake of the Last Mile
From left to right in the photograph: Dezman, Fran, Debbie, Fred and James.
A common description of where LWR works is the "last mile." This
mission sounds geographical, but it's more; it refers to our focus on
people whose reality is marginalization. Sometimes they're experiencing
oppression. Often, they're living in isolation, and invariably these
survivors have little without access to opportunity or training. Rural dwellers as I have witnessed them in South Asia, East and West Africa and Latin America are hard working women and men. But because of their last mile status, they often lose as much ground as they gain--and their families, especially children, suffer the most. LWR is investing in the creative capacity of these communities to claw their way out of poverty.
That's what motivates this team in the photograph at LWR headquarters in Baltimore, MD, USA. By-passing their Christmas break this week, this mission advancement crew is at their desks when almost all of their colleagues have the time off. Arriving by mail, over the phone and via the Internet are thousands of gifts from people across the United States who want their donations to make a positive difference in the world. LWR is grateful for such compassionate giving at Christmas and all year round. And, we are very proud of our commitment to carefully and quickly process these gifts while also offering thanks for each individual contribution.
So, kudos to these colleagues this week, they're going the extra mile for the sake of those at the last mile.
This morning, the day after Christmas, as I boiled water for breakfast oatmeal, the Wall Street Journal arrived with a page one article mentioning a Victorian tradition I grew up with called Boxing Day. My Canadian mother and my Jamaican father, and millions throughout the former British Commonwealth, set aside the day after Christmas to box up (as the day’s name suggestions) leftover food and other items for the less fortunate. One LWR colleague, Joanne Fairley, who grew up in Australia, has experiences similar to mine. Our chats over the years about similar imperial childhoods—though separated by thousands of miles—along with today’s WSJ article prompt good memories for me.
Nowadays, the day after Christmas is reserved by many for returning gifts, taking back less desirable, duplicate or non-fitting merchandise for refunds or exchanges. Today as I write from the safety of home, my thoughts go to those braver ones than I who face frazzled clerks at hectic malls to get in on hot holiday sales. Not that commerce and compassion are necessarily mutually exclusive, but often mercantilism trumps humanitarianism.
Five years ago today, the South-Asian Tsunami destroyed the lives of millions. Moved by the love of Christ, it also launched an unprecedented response of post-Christmas giving to Lutheran World Relief. That same Joanne Fairley is the regional director, overseeing the intensive program that channels the financial contributions of U.S. Lutherans and others, investing them in the on-going rebuilding of the impacted communities of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Indian.
No wants to see a return of a Tsunami, but I have visited LWR’s work and I know that these communities are better prepared for what will be an inevitable next big wave. (For more information on LWR's tsunami-related work, see: www.lwr.org/tsunami ) Neither do I, who bear proudly a postcolonial worldview, wish to see a return of the British Empire, but the return of some Boxing Day charity strikes me as more than sentimentalism. It would be one small way to make this busy world a better place.
“Such good food, and so much!” remarked a recent dinner guest. But what was most remarkable was only the first course of salads had been served.
The line of reasoning for this blog entry is likely pretty obvious: “… and may there be a goodly share on every table everywhere,” we pray. Everywhere LWR works, we operate in ways that help others to grow their own fair share of food.
I invite you to pause in the midst of your own plenty today and give one more Christmas gift—one that helps fill an empty table somewhere. http://lwrgifts.org/
LWR Gifts allows you to give gifts today and throughout the year for those in need around the world.
Blessings to you and those you love this Christmas day!
LWR Fair Trade Coordinator Kattie Somerfeld recently traveled to Uganda to visit the farmers of the Gumutindo Coffee Growers’ Federation and learn about how LWR works to help farmers improve crops and increase income. Thanks, Kattie for sharing your thoughts with us!
I visited Uganda to see the work LWR does with the farmers of the Gumutindo coffee growers’ federation, a collective of coffee farmers who grow the coffee used in the Organic Fellowship blend, one of the many offerings of the LWR Coffee Project.
It’s one thing to know intellectually how Fair Trade benefits farmers and their communities. Farmers receive a guaranteed minimum price for their crops. Their cooperatives receive social premiums—additional money to invest in the community often used to build schools and medical clinics, and provide clean water.
It’s another thing to feel it. Visiting their farms, seeing their crops, and hearing them describe the changes in their lives… it touches something deep in your heart and connects you directly to these people whose lives are being changed.
Let me share just two examples of incredibly strong women who have greatly benefitted form Fair Trade and LWR.
The first is Bira Nagwere. Bira has a beautiful farm, growing coffee as her main cash crop and supplementing her diet and income with chickens, cows, fruit and other crops. She manages the entire farm herself, putting in long hours to tend her plants, feed her animals, and take care of her children and grandchildren.
The second is Justine Watalunga (pictured). Justine also sells coffee as her main crop and supplements it with bananas, beans, maize, cocoa yams, sweet potatoes and cassava. She also raises cows and goats for milk and meat, and chickens for eggs and meat. Between taking care of her 6 children and tending to her farm, she also volunteers at a school for children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic.
Both women struggled to grow coffee before working with LWR and partners. Their trees did not yield much and the quality of the beans did not draw a high price. Both wanted to send their children to school to get an education.
LWR and partners are working with farmers in the area to learn to better care for their coffee trees—to plant and prune them properly, to use manure for fertilizer, and to process their coffee to maximize quality and get a better price.
Both women report that their hard work is paying off—since they began working with the LWR project two years ago, their yields have about quadrupled and their higher quality beans sell for twice the price.
But you get a sense of the real impact when they speak about their children—about how ALL of their children (and all of Bira’s grandchildren) are going to school. Justine is able to send all six of her children to school, which is no easy feat. School fees for her family are about $1,250 a year. Now, with the income she earns, she is able to not only send her children to school, she can also save money to use in case of emergencies
I asked every farmer I spoke with what they would like to tell Lutherans in the U.S. who drink their coffee. Each person expressed profound gratitude and asked Lutherans to continue buying their coffee—but not simply because it benefits their lives and communities. The farmers of Gumutindo take great pride in the work they do, the coffee they produce. One farmer summed it up well by saying, “we work hard to produce the best coffee possible. That is why you should drink our coffee.”
"He was just a farmer that liked to work." Albertina Bahena, this entry is for you and for the memory of your father.
I joined my Lutheran World Relief colleagues and Rosario Montoya, the Director of FundacionInfanciaFeliz, in a visit to the "Finca la Alemania," the German farm (no one is sure why it is called the German farm). As we drove to the farm, Rosario briefed us on the farm's history and the people who had recently returned to the farm after having been displaced by one of the most feared paramilitary leaders, called "the Chain," in the state of Cordoba.
Like many other paramilitary leaders, the Chain used the farm as a place to torture and kill people who tried to resist or who were wrongfully accused of many different things. Rosario cried as she told us that the community had recently found yet another mass grave on the German farm.
The farmers (men and women) were waiting for us under a large tree nearby that overlooked some of the most beautiful and bucolic farm land I have ever seen. Each introduced themselves to us and I was struck by the pride that oozed from their pores as they ended their introductions with, "and I am a campesino (farmer). 100%."
LWR and FundacionInfanciaFeliz are working with this community to get legal title to their land and to improve their agricultural production. We heard many stories of excitement at being back on the farm, of how they felt whole again now that they were working the soil, and, of course, many stories of the violence they suffered at the hands of the paramilitaries. One story in particular made the group fall silent, the story Albertina Bahena told about her father and his presumed death at the hands of the paramilitaries.
Many of the stories I have heard this week have been heartbreaking. All of them have touched me and I have felt honored to hear these very personal stories of love and loss. Because I feel like a big piece of my soul lives on my own family's farm and because I am so close to my dad, I was particularly touched by Albertina's story.
The best way I can think of to honor Albertina's story and her love for her father is to offer you her unedited story here.
As you read her story, imagine her standing underneath a large mango tree, surrounded by other farmers from her community. Imagine a strong, clear voice coming from a very petite woman. Imagine her insistence that she tell this difficult story and the many times she had to stop to let the tears flow. Imagine a woman of incredible strength ensuring that her father's memory lives on.
Albertina Bahena's story:
When I talk about my father I cry a lot. My dad, he was disappeared [Disappeared is a term used in Colombia to describe people who were kidnapped by the paramilitaries and never returned. In a few cases, their bodies are found. But, in many cases, like Albertina's, families live without ever seeing their family members again--alive or dead.]
My dad lived with my mom on this farm. On a Tuesday he sent my mom to visit her mother a short distance away. They took him on Thursday of that same week. My mom has never gotten over being gone when they took him. She cries a lot and is very sad that she didn't get to say goodbye to him.
When they took him, they stripped him of all of his clothes except his underwear. They tied him up and carried him around so that people would see him tied up. I can't stand that so many people saw him humiliated like that. He was a very proud man. Everyone saw him in such a bad way. They dragged him around like an animal.
They took him into the farm house and tortured him for hours. Then they paraded him around again -- this time whipping him with wire and telling everyone that if they tried to help him -- they would die the same, tortured death he faced.
We never saw him again. My brother and my uncle went to look for him. After a few days, the paramilitaries captured them and told him to stop looking for him. They said that if my brother and uncle looked for him or asked others about him, the same thing that happened to my dad would happen to them and everyone else in the family they could find.
We still haven't found him.
They took everything of his. We have nothing left of him -- no photo, no shirt -- nothing.
He was a really good man and I know that his friends standing here with me would say that about him.
When my dad died, I thought that I had lost everything. My husband kept telling me, "No. You haven't, you must keep going." Now my husband and I care for my four younger siblings and our own children. I am not ready to move back to the farm yet. I ride my bicycle for two hours each day to get to the farm so I can work in these fields. At the end of the day, I ride my bicycle for two hours to get home and care for my family.
Please remember my father. Take his story back with you. He was a really good man and I know that his friends standing here with me would say that about him.
Mother, Maria Doris Gallego, 46; and Daughter, Anna Maria Hernandez, 24 (with some of the children from the congregation of Pastor Gonzalez).
What would you REALLY be willing to do for your congregation?
Can you imagine being displaced and being "forced" to live with your entire congregation?
Let me first say this: I love my congregation -- Augustana Lutheran Church in Washington, DC. That said, I can't imagine what it would be like to seek shelter (for two months or more) in a cramped, unairconditioned school with my husband, our Pastor (no offense Pastor Kidd) and every other member of my congregation. I love my congregation -- but -- I can't imagine being with all of them, in a cramped, hot space full of children, chickens, dogs and people.
I joined Lutheran World Relief Staff and our partner, CORSOC, in a visit to a Colombian congregation and community (they are one in the same for this group) that had been caught in the crossfire between two warring paramilitary groups. With no time to organize or gather their belongings, they were forced from their homes and had to find somewhere to stay. Another church, Cristo del Rey, helped these 60 families find a temporary home in a school. That was two months ago and all 60 families, their chickens, and a few pets are sharing three small classrooms and a courtyard. LWR and our partner, CORSOC, are working to help this community find more permanent, suitable housing and a way to make a living. Until an alternative is found, this school is their joint home.
As we talked to the community members and toured their cramped quarters I was struck by the immaculate state of the "living" spaces and the outdoor areas. I also noticed signs that listed a leader and members for each of the committees that the community had formed to manage their lives together. They had committees for security, cooking, cleaning, laundry, worship, child care, recreation, and exercise.
I asked their Pastor, Pastor Panfilo Gonzalez, if these committees and the systems they had put in place really worked. He said, "Yes, you might find it hard to believe, but everyone has been doing their work and we haven't once had someone say that they weren't going to contribute or do their job." He must have noticed my skeptical tone and disbelief, he said, "Why do you find what I say so hard to believe?" I laughed and told him that at my congregation in Washington, DC, and in many congregations across the U.S., we sometimes find it hard to get people to show up for a committee meeting let alone do the work. That we sometimes have a very difficult time getting what seem to be very simple tasks -- especially when compared with what Pastor Gonzalez's congregation has faced together -- done. And, in many cases, the same few people show up and do the work of the congregation.
Pastor Gonzalez laughed and said, "Well, I hope that your congregation never faces what we've had to face in order to bring you closer as a community. But, if you think it would help, we would gladly allow your congregation to live and work with us for a while. We could probably teach them a thing or two."
What would you REALLY be willing to do for your congregation?
What do you do when a 12-year-old displaced person gives you her house?
In my travels to visit Lutheran World Relief projects, partners and the people we serve around the world, I have received many incredible gifts. Each time we leave a community, it seems like we leave with an embarrassment of riches–hand-crafted jewelry, traditional clothing, books and food. I always wish I had something to give to the people I meet, but it would be impossible to bring something for everyone. And then there’s the question of what I would bring that would mean as much as what I have received. And, after today, I know I could never give anything that would means as much as a gift I received from 12-year-old Kattie. Kattie and her mother, Elizabeth, live in the New Hope Community just outside of Tierralta in the Colombian state of Cordoba.
In the last few years, thousands of Colombian farmers have been displaced from their land. Sometimes the community, the church or the people receive written death threats from paramilitary leaders giving them 24 to 48 hours to leave their home, their land and their only source of income—their farms. In other cases, communities are raided in the middle of the night by gun-carrying paramilitaries who demand that everyone leave immediately. And, all too often, paramilitaries kill one or many community leaders as a “message” that no one is safe in this community and all must leave.
In Kattie’s case, she and her mother were displaced because their farming community was caught in the crossfire between two warring paramilitary groups. Had they not fled from their home and their community immediately, they likely would have been killed. Kattie and her mother fled their farm and made their way with the rest of their community members (about 75 people) to Tierralta because they heard that a church, Cristo el Rey, helped displaced communities. The members and pastor of Cristo el Rey helped the community members find temporary shelter at a school. Life at the school was safe but far from comfortable. Five or six families lived in a classroom. Access to water and sanitation was spotty and it seemed like there was never enough food to feed everyone.
Over time, Cristo el Rey has helped so many displaced people they knew that they needed to formalize their processes and work on ways to get people more permanent housing and the tools they needed to make a living. They formed a community-based organization, the Corporation for Community Social Development (CORSOC), and LWR began to partner with them to assist displaced people in rebuilding their lives and advocating for their rights.
Today, in the midst of so much violence and grief we visited a place full of peace and laughter, the New Hope community. LWR and CORSOC worked with Kattie’s community to build the entirely new village of New Hope. The houses have traditional thatched roofs, hammocks for sleeping, and a covered front porch of sorts where we talked to many of the residents.
We stopped to admire Elizabeth and Kattie’s garden and to talk with them about their experience. As we talked with Kattie and her mother I noticed a perfect, dollhouse-sized replica of their house hanging on the wall. I asked if I could take a photograph of the house and Elizabeth, Kattie’s mom, proudly explained to me that Kattie had created it all by herself. When I asked Kattie about it, she said that her new house was so comfortable and beautiful, she wanted to make a replica of it for her art class. I admired the replica as Kattie explained how she gathered materials to build it.
We left Kattie’s house and continued our tour of the community. About an hour later, as we got in the van to leave, many of the residents ran to the van, offering us even more gifts—fresh eggplants, green beans, giant okra and other goodies from their gardens. Just before we pulled off, Kattie and her mom ran to the roadside, carrying the replica of their house. I gave Kattie and her mom a hug, thanked them for allowing me into their home, and wished them well. Kattie pulled on my hand and put it on the house she had built and said, “I want you to remember me so I want give you me house.” I didn’t think I should accept such a precious gift, but, our Colombia Program Manager, Zoraida, let me know that it was okay – that I should accept the gift. So, what do you do when a 12-year-old displaced person gives you her house? You hug her and say thank you. She doesn’t have to worry about me forgetting her, there’s no way I could ever forget her or her community – New Hope indeed.
LWR’s Public Policy and Advocacy Director, Annalise posing with Sandra (Carmelo and Rosi’s daughter). They’re holding a poster meant to draw attention to Carmelo’s plight.
More from LWR’s Vice President for External Relations, Lisa Bonds, traveling in Colombia.
In the Baumgartner family, my birth family, Christmas is a time to be together. For years, no matter where we lived—Colorado, New Mexico or Minnesota—my parents piled the three of us kids into the car and we traveled cross-country to spend the holiday with our grandparents and extended family. Christmas Eve was generally in Litchfield, MN with my paternal grandparents and Christmas morning was in Pelican Rapids, MN with my maternal grandparents.
We never considered doing anything else for Christmas—it was a holiday that just couldn’t be celebrated unless we were together as a family. To this day, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas unless I am surrounded by family.
Today we spent time with three members of the Agamez family.
First, we met Rosi, the wife of Carmelo and the mother of Sandra. She runs one of the most welcoming, clean, small, roadside restaurants I have ever seen. We stopped by her restaurant for a quick cup of sweet, strong coffee and to ask if she had any messages she would like us to bring to her husband.
Second, at noon, we had lunch at the home of a woman who works with Colombia’s victims’ rights movement. (More on the amazing cheese soup, Mote de Queso, later.) At lunch, we met Sandra, Carmelo and Rosi’s daughter.
Finally, after lunch conversation about human rights abuses in Colombia and current cases, we left to visit Rosi’s husband and Sandra’s father, Carmelo.
The Agamez family is clearly an incredibly close and strong family. But, it would take a miracle for them to be together as a family this Christmas. Carmelo is serving time in the “Establecimiento de Reclusion Especial de Corozal” in Corozal, Colombia. The fancy name can’t hide the fact that it is a prison. Carmelo has been imprisoned for a little over a year.
His crime? Speaking out against the paramilitaries and leading a social movement to fight human rights abuses.
Rosi misses her husband and worries about him. But, as she told us this morning, she has faith that he will be home soon. Before he went to prison, Sandra wasn’t a big fan of her father’s activism. Now, she has been transformed. She is in school studying to be a lawyer and today, when she introduced herself, she said, “I am Sandra and I am a defender of human rights, thanks to my dad.” When we saw Carmelo and Sandra together as we visited him in prison, the father- daughter bond was clear and he was bursting with pride about his daughter’s new fire and activism in the Colombian human rights movement.
So, although they won’t likely spend Christmas together, at home, this family is definitely together. Together in the fight for human rights in Colombia. And even though they are physically apart right now, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a family this close, this together. So, Merry Christmas Agamez family and, next year, we hope you are all celebrating at home, together. Until you are together again, and, likely, for many years to come, LWR will definitely continue to work to free Carmelo and defend the rights of many other Colombians.
Note: Cross your fingers that Sandra is able to get a visa to travel to the United States. If she gets her visa, you’ll be able to meet her in Minneapolis, Minnesota on April 18, 2010 at a very special Lutheran World Relief event at Central Lutheran Church.
LWR’s Vice President for External Relations, Lisa Bonds, shares this post with us from Colombia, where she is currently traveling.
In the photo, children of Gambote show the difference between the water when it has been treated and when it hasn’t.
The community we visited today, Gambote, is less than an hour’s drive from the simultaneously ancient, cosmopolitan, and stunning coastal city of Cartegena, Colombia.
During our visit, the people of Gambote told us their success story – with the assistance of LWR and our Colombian partner, CDS, the community constructed a new water system. The water system pumps water from a river to a treatment facility and then into a holding tank. The 190 families in Gambote now have the unprecedented, incredible luxury of clean, safe water coming into a tap in their home.
Each family has to pay about $3.00 US monthly to assist with the costs of treating the water and maintaining the system. The Colombian government, through the local mayor, is supposed to subsidize a portion of the cost. The government has been sending that money to the local mayor, but the mayor has not been giving it to the local committee that manages the water system. LWR and our partner have assisted the community in advocating to the mayor and other government agencies, but, the advocacy hasn’t yet succeeded.
Community members are doing their part – they helped build the system, they maintain and manage it, and work to ensure that each household pays their fair share. But the money collected is barely enough to purchase the chemicals necessary to ensure that the water is clean and safe. If the community actually received the government subsidy, they’d be able to set aside a fund to ensure that they have a cushion to pay for any necessary repairs or unforeseen problems with the system. As it is now, they don’t always have enough money to treat the water each day, so, the problems caused by water impurities continue to occur.
Today (Dec. 8) is a huge festival day throughout Colombia – it is the Night of Candles. Family members come together to celebrate, and key to the celebration is the lighting of candles to honor the conception of the Virgin Mary. It’s a day to bring your family together and a prelude to the upcoming miracle of Christmas. At the end of our visit, we joined the community in lighting candles to celebrate their work and success and to inspire our future work together. As the candles were lit, community leaders said that they lit their candles for hope, remembrance of people who died from illness caused by unclean water, and to spread the word about the need for everyone there to join together to fight for their right to water.
I tipped my candle and lit it from the candle of Gambote’s 71-year-old water system technician and resident dynamo, Esequiel Teheran. He winked at me and said, “Come back next year and we’ll light a candle to honor our next success – winning in our battle with the local mayor.”
I left Gambote thinking of candles, my own anxious anticipation of Christ’s birth as we move through Advent, the Colombian celebration of the Night of Candles and the hard-working people of Gambote. Join me in lighting a candle to honor the people of Gambote and others around the world who are creating their own “miracles” through sustainable development and advocacy.
Social media give us the opportunity for immediate responses to events. This memorial reflection for my friend Herb, like birth, isn’t as instant as everyone might like—(especially as my colleagues on the crack communication team at LWR deserve). I sometimes work according to a more old-fashioned rhythm, needing room for a reflection to reverberate. Herb’s death is one such time.
Derek Walcott—another poet—once said: “The inarticulate wisdom of really knowing another person is not in the broad sweep of that other person’s life but in its gestures.”
Gestures are subtle, slice-thin with nuance, yet often packed with meaning. Gestures must be watched for closely, and can be missed easily. When I became president of Lutheran World Relief, my friend Dr. Brokering laid down this subversive subtlety: “God has found the right person for LWR. She knows of your compassion.”
Chip May, director of Camp Arcadia, notes how innumerable are the lives touched by Herb Brokering. His gestures of connectivity made such an impact that most who knew him can tell you their own unique Herb stories. I had mine.
Herb was a mentor to me in many ways, especially in the way of being creative in public. I once called him anxiously seeking counsel, for example, prior to speaking for the LCMS National Youth Gathering. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “of course, you’re not as young as them; they don’t need you to be their age; they need you to be their clown, their fool for Christ, which means for you, John, don’t be afraid. Be just who you are.” Thanks? I think.
On the third anniversary of his wife Lois’ death (11 July 2007), Herb emailed me on the theme of life, aided by life-giving gestures given by Lutheran World Relief in the aftermath of World War II Europe: “In 1948 I hauled LWR clothing and food to 30 Baltic refugee camps in northern Germany. Dr. Fry said then: ‘Don’t talk about Jesus out there unless you give them a blanket or a pair of shoes.’ He knew then as we do now that Spirit is physical and real.”
Such healing gestures of generosity speak the name of Jesus.
This man was so much more than a poet. Herb wrote so well because he saw deeply, with percipience, mystically. Better said, we merely see; Herb beheld.
In his prayerful hymn: Talk with us, till we behold A joyful life you will unfold: Heal our eyes to see the prize: Jesus, take us to the light.
1. Franklin Clark Fry (1900—1968) was president of the United Lutheran Church in America (1944-1962) and the Lutheran Church in America (1962-1968). Time magazine’s front-cover article called him “Mr. Protestant” in 1958.
.JPG)
