Sharing ourselves with others
Who dares make light of small
beginnings? (Zechariah
4:10 NET)
The other
day, on a crowded subway in Mexico City, I watched a mother buy a pack of
flavored gum for her two-year-old son from a vendor passing through the train
cars. The two-year-old delighted in opening the gum packet and eating a piece.
Then his mother did an amazing thing.
The mother
instructed the boy to share his gum with those of us sitting in the same area
on the train, and he did! Smiling and laughing, he made his way up and down the
car offering gum to each one of us, all of us smiling and laughing in return.
What a joy to watch! Such a small act of generosity with such a large impact!
This is
how I often find myself feeling when I see MCC’s work around the world alongside
our partners. A relatively small contribution can often make such a large
difference in peoples’ lives.
In the
village of Tepatlaxco about 90 minutes outside of Mexico City, Aulas de
Desarrollo y Esperanza (classrooms of development and hope), with just a staff
of two, serves a dozen children with physical and developmental disabilities.
MCC helps with a small grant to Aulus. When you see these children smile, you
know something good is happening here.
The 50 or
60 children that Aulus has touched in the last six years is only a small
percentage of the children who could use its services. “The children feel at
home here, and yes, these children have disabilities, but sometimes, it’s other
people who create the barriers for them,” the director, Maribel, told us. Maribel
wants to encourage more families in the nearby villages to use Aulus’ services.
In Mexico
City, we are staying at Casa de los Amigos (House of Friends), another MCC
partner organization. Marco Antonio, the director, sees his ministry as one of
hospitality, not just for people like us passing through, but also for the 65
migrants who have also stayed here during the past several years. Tonio
estimates that 250,000 migrants will pass through Mexico this year, about
200,000 from Central America and the rest from other parts of the world.
The 65 migrants
Casa has hosted represents a very small number of the many people in need, but
it is a faithful witness. Tonio believes about 10 of
the 65 migrants made it
into the United States, legally or illegally, and another 20 decided to stay in
Mexico. Who knows, he says, what happened to the rest, but he think many
probably are in the northern Mexico border region trying to get into the United
States.
Tonio says
the migrants who made it as far as Mexico City are the lucky ones. Violence is
a regular occurrence on the journey north where migrants are seen as
“merchandise to be sold” as cheap labor, mules for the drug trade, forced into
prostitution or their bodies’ organs harvested to sell.
Tonio
says, if it wasn’t for the humanitarian network that Casa and MCC represent in
the country, this would be even larger humanitarian disaster.
Mexico is
a country with one of the highest levels of corruption in the world.
Communities organize themselves to live off the migration traffic. Both Mexico
and the U.S. have learned how to benefit from the corruption. And the Mexican
mafia also preys on the people fleeing north from violence or for economic or political
reasons.
We met
with a group of Mexico City pastors from Anabaptist denominations who tell us
about the increasing violence around them, largely, they believe, because of
the demand for drugs in the United States. They see the political corruption
and the human trafficking effecting their communities. “We have a tremendous
challenge,” one leader tells us.
We are
realizing, says one leader, that being a church of peace is not about being
like our neighbors or how big our church is, but about how much we are sharing
ourselves and sharing our food with people in need.
The
Prophet Zechariah imagined a day when small beginnings would bring about the
restoration of the temple in Jerusalem. May we also imagine a day when our
efforts will bear much fruit in communities and in peoples’ lives all over the
world.
Ron Byler is executive director of MCC
U.S.
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