SPC Mission/Action Programs

The Leon Mission Partners

Leon Mission Website

Manuel Marquez, member of the "patronado" (board of directors), Casas Loyola, Leon, Mexico:

"God works by mysterious ways behind our understanding, frequently, but always through people's good faith. And I want to thank God for having provided so many generous friends in our lives, especially those of the Sausalito community and the Leon Mission Partnership. Thanks for listening and following God's path."

Our volunteers building permanent homes with and for indigenous families from Centro Indigena, Leon, 7-07

"CASAS LOYOLA" is a nonprofit group founded by Mexican volunteers and philanthropists over 20 years ago. It operates a center for indigenous (Indian) families and also operates group homes (Casas) for abused or neglected children in Leon, a city of over 1 million in Guanajuato state.

Casa Indigena is a safe and sanitary community center and transitional home for Indigenous families who have migrated to the Leon area from several Mexican states including; Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Michoacan. (For more about the internal migrations and challenges of Mexican Indian people, click here.)The adults have few marketable skills, many families do not speak Spanish, and they trek to population centers, like Leon, principally to beg and work at the jobs other Mexicans won't do. This impoverished, nomadic life, forced on these families, makes them the most vulnerable of people in their own country. Casa Indigena, with the recent help of volunteers from the San Francisco Bay Area, is currently building transitional housing at their site in Leon, in addition to the classrooms, bathroom/showers, chapel and community room already constructed. There are currently 21 families living on site, helping the staff of Casa Indigena and the volunteers to create a model transitional community for other Mexican cities.

Casa Hogar consists of four homes in Leon neighborhoods for over 100 street boys and girls whose families can no longer care for them, or have abandoned or abused them. The kids at Casa Hogar now live in a safe, clean and loving environment. They are well clothed and fed and have a warm bed to sleep in each night . The kids go to school, participate in after school activities, and play sports. A doctor examines the kids regularly. As well, they and their families get counseling from the staff at Casa Hogar on a regular basis.

Volunteers of all ages and skills are very useful. We paint, clean, repair, construct, counsel, clean teeth, give medical check-ups, play, teach, learn, love, support, sight-see, eat out, cook in, and do anything that helps the extraordinary effort of the staff at Casa Indigena/ Casa Hogar. They work very hard and appreciate any helping hand. They especially want us to spend time with the kids. In recent years we have sent two or three volunteer teams per year for a week at a time to do projects.

Our Mission: To bring our energy, resources and love to support the efforts of Casa Indigena and Casa Hogar.

Our Goals: Improving the lives of the children and families at Casa Indigena and Casa Hogar.

Partners Wanted: The Mission Committees of Sausalito and First San Rafael Presbyterian churches, and the Unity Church of Marin, are looking for more partner churches and groups. If your wants to make a real difference in this world, please give contact us. The smallest group and the smallest donation make a visible difference in the lives of our extended family in Leon, Guanajuato. Contact: Sausalito Presbyterian Church office at 415-332-3790.

REPORT FROM LEON

From Lauren Bryant, high school student from San Rafael who wrote this story after serving as a volunteer on the Day Camp trip to Casa Hogar in Leon this past summer, 2006. She begins with this poem from Mary Oliver:

In Blackwater Woods

by Mary Oliver

"Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go."

I loved these words when I first read them. I loved them because I liked the way they felt in my mouth and I could feel that they were true, even though I had never experienced them fully. I had never loved something enough to realize that I would loose it someday, never held something that close so as not to feel it slipping away.

I was greeted in Mexico with the smell of tortillas. This simple scent of water and corn told me I was back where I belonged. Life eased its way through my body and I began to feel a warm contentedness swell in my chest. The aqua van rumbled down the highway, heading for Tierra Blanca, our residence for the next week. The gravel road vibrated lightly through the vehicle and one by one, the volunteers began to lean back and let the world close behind their sleepy eyes. I watched them slowly drop off, but I wouldn't let myself sleep. I kept my eyes wide as we passed taco shops and markets, their fluorescent lights blazing as the blue, Mexican night fell softly around us.

The day camp started and I soon began to feel it slide away as quickly as I had dreaded it would. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… The kids I had loved and remembered were still there, but they were too big to carry around now. They had grown taller, their faces had changed, and somehow, to everyone’s delight, their smiles had grown too. Their laughter was sweeter and louder than any of my memories could have made it and it bubbled out of their mouths around the play-yard like they were drops from a bottomless watering can- always laughter.

There were a few kids in particular that I was close with, mostly little girls I had known from the year before. I clung to them lovingly and they let my join their games- as long as they were paid in piggyback rides. There was one girl in particular- Alejandra. She had dark, olive skin and deep, black hair. Her beautiful, toothy smile was matched only by her almond-shaped eyes that gleamed and shone like the surface of an endless, black spring. She knew I barely spoke a word of Spanish, but she babbled on, pausing when I was supposed to reply with an "ooh" or an "ahh." She didn’t care if I understood her and I didn't feel like I would love her more if I knew what she was saying. We could play a game or read or color quietly and she would babble and I would listen to the trickling sound of her words, just smiling.

The week tumbled by and suddenly the last day was no longer hovering above us distantly, but simply sitting there. The last minutes of the last day had come and I sat restlessly, not knowing what to do. The old aqua van pulled up and twenty-five girls began piling in, layering themselves like thick cake in a van normally used for seven people. I woke up from my restlessness and began to say… goodbye.

"Adios…" I started. "No, hasta luego." I will see you later.

It was always, always later, never a final goodbye.

Before I could begin to avoid the thought of them leaving, the van was ready to go and I knew the time had come. I found Alejandra layered up in the trunk, her usually smiling face completely drawn and solemn, eyes staring deep into mine and glistening with her goodbyes. We stood there for a moment, eyeing each other and getting our last looks in and then, without warning, we were hugging. Her body relaxed into mine and suddenly I knew what Mary Oliver had meant. I could feel Alejandra's momentary light in this world pressing through my skin, warm and silky and almost see-through. We held each other, bone to bone, thumping heart to heart, clinging to our simple understanding in the transient world. She was growing and I was growing and who knew if we would grow in the same direction, but we were here now, pulling each other closer, tighter. Now was all that mattered and love was swelling between us, spilling out of our eyes and falling gently on the dust below, and we held on, fastened to each other. Even as I felt my hand slipping from her neck, even as the trunk closed and the van pulled away, I could still feel Alejandra's arms wrapped around me, a lingering love imprinted through every part of my body, now aching wonderfully with the life it held.

"To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go."

But I haven't let her go.