SPC Mission/Action Programs
Mission Trips to Leon, Mexico
Leon Mission Trips
Leon Mission Trip: St. John's Episcopal Church, Crawfordsville, Indiana, Summer 2007
by Helen Hudson
We were sitting in a circle on the floor of Whitlock Hall at St. John's Episcopal Church in Crawfordsville. Hunkered around in small groups, we were thinking about the text from Genesis that Fr. Todd Kleffman had given us as part of a readings-and-reflections packet for our next nine days. I for one was noting my surprise that Lot was Abraham's nephew, a fact I'd just learned from our first reading. A moment later, after we had darkened the room to focus our prayer on a central candle, a fireman, dressed in full fire-fighting garb, burst through the open back door. "Is everyone okay?" he called. "Are you folks supposed to be here?" Unbeknownst to us, we had created a misleading image of arson and vandalism by being in the back part of a church deep on a Tuesday night: our local firefighters had been on the alert.
Twenty-two of us were readying to leave for the airport at 3:30 a.m.. We had brought sleeping bags so we could crash for the few hours before the flight. Some of our 14 teenagers had no intention of sleeping. We adults were filled with plenty of adrenaline as well. (In a last minute urge to add to the linens and towels we were taking with us, one member canvassed her neighborhood door-to-door, filling up a couple of extra suitcases. Extravagance of effort and exuberance were the name of the game.)
Our parish had been thinking and praying about this undertaking for two full years. Four orphanages in Leon, Mexico, had become part of our imaginations and spiritual contemplation. In 2005, one young St. John's family had traveled to see them and while there learned of their remarkable history.
Leon, Mexico, is a worldwide center for the leather trade. About 25 years ago, a group of shoe manufacturers and leather producers, almost all of whom had been classmates at a Jesuit high school in Leon, became aware through their employees of the deep needs of impoverished, neglected, and abused children in their city. These kids' lives too often were also marked by violence and sexual abuse. Drawing upon their own resources, the shoe magnates founded an orphanage to shelter adolescent boys in l983. In the years since, they have added three more orphanages (serving adolescent girls, young boys, and young girls). They have also founded Casa Indigena, a community of tiny homes and a school to aid c. 15 refugee families from Central America. Like Hispanic immigrants into North America, these people often don’t speak the language of their new country and often have very little in the way of material goods.
St. John's parish had been moved by this profound expression of good work in the face of human need and had expressed a wish to help. The past year had been a flurry of fundraising: we held an auction, sponsored Rent-a-Youth, feasted at a New Orleans Cajun dinner and a couple of Cinco de May breakfasts; and, much much more. A local Mexican Restaurant, Little Mexico, had aided in the fundraising effort by donating the profits from one evening each month to the cause. They also put out tip jars in their restaurant to collect cash. In consequence, the parish had been able to provide trips to central Mexico for 14 youth and several adult sponsors. We also had hundreds of dollars set aside to buy craft, sport, and art supplies for the nearly 80 orphans we were soon going to meet. Our bed linens and towels for the week would all remain behind for the orphanages after we departed. One parish member, who would accompany us as our nurse, handmade 36 quilts, one for each of the young children’s beds in the little girls' and little boys' orphanages. We had individually packed lightly but then would be carrying the maximum amount of luggage in the form of useful goods for the "Casas." (We had already come to call the orphanages by their Spanish name.)
We were ready. Yet on the night of our departure from Crawfordsville, after we had laughed at being "rescued" in our own church hall by the Crawfordsville firefighter, his question remained in our minds: "Are you folks supposed to be here?"
All mission trips, I suppose, are marked with trepidation. Will we be doing good work or just satisfying our First World curiosity and our idea of doing good work? As a collective group, we didn't have a lot of Spanish, so if that would make us useless, smiling strangers taking up quite a bit of space.. And how about the money? Personal connections are important, no doubt about that, but wouldn’t it be better to simply send our travel money directly to the orphanages?
But we had committed. Bishop Cate and Father Todd had both blessed our journey in early June, and our pilgrims, including Fr. Todd, were headed for the airport in the middle of an Indiana June night.
From the moment our drivers met us at the Leon airport and after a couple of our teenagers had shrieked the requisite shrieks at the size of the local spiders, right up until the last moment when we bade farewell to the orphanage kids, one of whom wrote her name in marker on most of our forearms, we were soundly and happily convinced that we should indeed have "been here."
During our mornings we painted the interiors of two large orphanages; during the afternoons we set up and operated day camps at the country acreage of Trebol, the little boys' orphanage. We were transported, fed, and housed by our generous, gracious, and welcoming hosts. It was a grand experience of mutual gratitude (which included bowls of more delectable kinds of salsa than we could have imagined existed).
Armed with rollers and brushes and pans, we St. John parishioners slapped gallons of paint on walls while the children were in school during the morning. At noon on the first day, after giving the dining room and halls their first coat of pale green paint in the older girls' Casa, the front doors of that spacious Mexican house flew open. In rushed the teenage girls, bright with excitement and neat and crisp in their handsome school uniforms. Kids from both cultures had big grins on their faces. Without hesitation, the Mexican girls came to each of us strangers, shook our hands, and gave us each a kiss on the cheek. With and without the benefit of a common language, the rich communication began. (We did have a couple of crack Spanish speakers with us and they were busy all day every day when specific information or confidences needed to be exchanged. "Dan, Dan" or "Alix, Alix, please tell him that---" or "How do you say---?" or "Please find out how the cactuses are cooked.".)
During the afternoons all the orphanage children were transported to Trebol. Our St. John's teens and adults were divided into teams to head up daily sports, arts, crafts, and language learning activities. Each day the St. John’s crew members had different responsibilities as they presided over and interacted with the lively chaos that results when about 80 children between the ages of four and sixteen are having fun. Soccer and sidewalk chalk, bracelet-making, balloons, rhythm band, puppets, and even a wall mural vied for everyone’s attention during our daily afternoon camps. We Americans were quite taken with even the small children’s ability to focus on tasks and complete them. Several little artists produced a dozen paintings; others wove a score of yarn and bead bracelets.
We also had special opportunities to visit Casa Indigena where we saw how refugees new to Leon are being helped to get on their feet economically through small businesses. The current residents sell fresh flowers, cane chairs, roast fresh potato chips, paint ceramic pots, and make dolls in indigenous costumes. Everywhere at Casa Indigena there was hope and dignity because the Casa structure provides the backbone of a good life in the form of safe housing, wholesome food, education, and health care. We North Americans were in deep admiration of this calm, quiet, good work in the face of so much adversity.
On Sunday afternoon, we accompanied all the kids to the Leon Municipal Zoo where we spent the day. Each of the orphanage Casas is overseen by a set of house parents, the tio and tia (uncle and aunt) as they are called. Without a doubt, these hard working, affectionate, substitute parents are the heroes of the Casa Leon orphanage enterprise. Each day each set of parents feeds, clothes, disciplines, and loves about 20 kids, all of whose earlier lives have been marred by deep sorrows if not tragedy.
One of the most moving sights to me was when we visited the little girls' orphanage, and saw all the perfectly made-up little bunk beds in their neat dorm-room rows, each with one stuffed animal or doll on its pillow. The girls' backpacks were all lined up on a large table. These little girls took our hands and gave us happy tours of their shared room, and their locker closets; they showed us their weekly chore lists. Accompanied by their tia, I went out into the kitchen and then on out into the open air laundry beyond. The washer was automatic but the "rinse cycle" was done entirely by hand in a tub, and all the clothes were dried by the sun, and only by the sun. Just imagine this going on day in, day out.
The hard working tios and tias didn’t even get a break on our zoo excursion day, In fact, they not only fed and dressed their kids for the outing, they then transported them to the zoo. These amazing "aunts and uncles" had also made, packed, and brought picnic food and drinks for all 100+ of us!
We cruised the zoo with the kids for a few hours. We then gathered around the picnic tables where the tios and tias slapped together sumptuous "Dagwood" sandwiches for everybody. We also feasted on watermelon and Jamaica water, a ruby-red drink made from flower blossoms. After lunch, Mexican and American kids jumped rope, talked teen music, played clap games, and shared as much languages as they could muster.
Later that evening, we adults walked into our shared meeting room to find the teenagers deep in discussion. They were planning ways to keep helping the orphanages once back in Indiana. One St. John’s girl said, “I’ve always been so sad about all the hardship in the world and when we were coming here, I knew we’d be doing some good but I thought it would be very painful and sad to see. Now that I know the orphans, they’re just like kids and teens back home. It makes me feel hopeful instead of hopeless.”
Our youth remarked more than once that their biggest surprise was that the orphanage children are cheerful, affectionate, and focused on life’s joys. This observation set one of life’s great mysteries squarely before our American group: How can people with so few material possessions and with such harsh backgrounds seem naturally as content as we Americans who have so much? That’s a question we will continue to ponder back in Crawfordsville as we continue to develop this rich connection with the Leon orphanages. Such questions, of course, are at the center of all of our spiritual lives.
If your church would be interested in a program presented by our youth about their work in Leon, Mexico, please contact: revtoddkleff@yahoo.com. Or, if you are interested in knowing more about Casa Hogar Loyola, contact: rchunter@mindspring.com.
Recuerdos de Leon - Memories of Leon
by Jim Burklo, SPC pastor, from the August 2005 work trip:
Nineteen of us went to Leon in August, including myself, Flora Sommers, and Linda Woodbury from Sausalito Presbyterian. Nine of our group were teenagers. We followed another trip led by SPC's Denni Locke in July '05. Denni's smaller team created a patio made of paver bricks that is a major enhancement to the formerly muddy and dusty area in front of the apartments (which our teams built years earlier) at Casa Indigena. Our focus was to conduct "campamento del dia", a day camp for about 50 of the kids in the Casa Hogar homes for abandoned, neglected, or abused children.
We stayed at Rosas Moreno, one of the group homes in downtown Leon, which is not in use in the summer, when many of the children go to temporary foster homes or, in some cases, to be reunited for the summer with their families. Rosas Moreno is an easy walk from the lovely plaza of Leon's old downtown.. After getting oriented to the city, our group took a tour of the Casas and of the site where some indigenous (Indian) families built squatter dwellings by the railroad tracks. This is one of the sites from which came the original group of families that occupied Casa Indigena.
The "campamento" was held for four days at Casa Trebol, the house for younger boys that is located on the edge of the city. It's a verdant spot with a nice yard (and clouds of flies that drift in from the odorous dairy "granja" next door). Flora Sommers of SPC led the camp, with special help from Maryellen Taylor, who organized the crafts projects. Casa Hogar's vans delivered children from the other group homes to Trebol for the camp each day.
The kids who have been in the Casas for an extended period were wonderfully well-mannered and cheerful. But it was obvious from the start of the camp that there were some new kids in the Casas, fresh out of very difficult circumstances. These few kids were a challenge for the first couple of days of the camp. It was beautiful to see these kids open up and reflect the warmth of the Casa Hogar staff and our volunteers, just in the short time we were there.
The kids decorated picture frames and had their photos taken individually on the first day. For many kids, this frame with their picture in it would become the only really personal thing they owned. They had a great time smearing paint and glue and decorations on their frames. Camp was off to a good start! The next day we decorated caps with wild colors and glitter and feathers. (All of us were glistening with glitter by the end of the week; no matter how hard we tried to wash it off in the dribbly showers at Rosas Moreno!)
In the afternoons, volunteers Cliff and Andy and Cameron taught the kids how to play baseball. Cliff Mettier, age 18, had gathered donated baseball equipment to bring down to Leon as his Eagle Scout service project. The kids were very excited about the game and serious about learning techniques of pitching, fielding, and batting from our volunteer "coaches". It helped a lot that Roberto, one of the "tios" or "uncles" who serve as house parents for the Casas, was a hotshot Mexican baseball player; he limed the field and "coached", too.... and will keep the equipment in use now that we have left!
As was the case last year, our planned "graduation ceremony" at the end of the camp was rained out, with thunder and lightning! Gaby Hernandez, Casa Loyola's director, made beautiful certificates for each child who participated, which she distributed later. But the hugging and crying of kids and volunteers as we departed more than made up for any formalities!
Most of the volunteers stayed on for a day of R and R in nearby Guanajuato, a lovely old colonial city in a mining district in the mountains. Our teen volunteers stood on the balcony of Hotel San Diego late at night to listen to Cervantes-era Spanish music being sung and played by college students in 16th century dress, on the plaza below. A smaller group of us then went on to San Miguel de Allende, another smaller, very beautiful colonial city in Guanajuato state, the next day.