A letter from Marcia Towers in Guatemala
July 2011
Dear Friends,
In a workshop with YAV Laura Amlin, teachers are participating in a roleplay on how to give positive, specific feedback.
As another year of Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) comes near its close, I want to celebrate their lives and their service in Guatemala.
The YAV program sends young people (19- to 30-year olds) to various sites around the world and in the United States for one year to serve in communities of need, participate in intentional community, and grow in knowledge of self and of their faith.
Last fall we began by thinking about how this year can be a Sabbath rest for us. To me, the YAV program is all about promoting Sabbath values. We know that weekday values like being useful and accomplishing things are important, and YAVs are useful and accomplish things during the year. But coming from our culture, which celebrates these achievement values as the most important ones, I love the way that the YAV program is set up to let volunteers live into the importance that God puts on Sabbath values: stopping the constant hurry in order to pay attention to life; investing in relationships; living in a just way that lets not only you but the whole creation rest and be renewed; taking time for prayer; and aligning what’s most important to you with what you spend most of your energy doing.
As we talked with the YAVs, we asked ourselves, What do we need to rest from this year? For some it was from guilt, for some from busy-ness, for some from pressure to have the latest gadgets. And what do we need to rest into this year? We rest into relationships with those who are different from us, into a deeper grasp on what is important in our lives, into a deeper understanding of what God means to us.
This year’s five YAVs in Guatemala got immersed in Guatemalan culture and community by living with host families, and they served with love and learned a lot about themselves and their faith. They were involved in efforts to address root causes of poverty by providing quality education and in efforts to work toward a culture of nonviolence.
Andrew teaching a piano lesson in an after-school program. In Guatemala there is very little emphasis on the arts in education.
Laura Amlin, who had several years’ experience as a bilingual kindergarten teacher before coming to Guatemala, worked with Common Hope’s education program. Guatemala has one of the lowest-quality educational systems in the Western Hemisphere. Alongside Guatemalan teacher co-workers, each day she spent a half hour in each classroom of a public school modeling interactive reading lessons for students—part of the work to contribute to improving teachers’ abilities to provide a quality education for the low-income families that send their children to public school. She’s felt confirmed in her call to be a teacher and is going on to study for a master’s in teacher training.
Andrew Jamieson, who studied music composition, came to Guatemala wanting to offer his gifts of music without being in a bubble isolated from real people and real lives. He worked at Open Windows Foundation, which has a large library (scarce in Guatemala) filled with kids reading and with a variety of after-school programs also intended to focus on helping provide a quality education. He’s teaching piano and recorder and leading a choir. He’s also become part of the music group at his church. Andrew has discovered that his future music studies and music career don’t have to be lived in a bubble but with faithfulness can be used to contribute to a more just world.
Katherine Curles came to Guatemala after finishing seminary and simultaneously working at a Presbyterian church in the United States, ready for a life-changing experience. She describes her year as a mountaintop experience with some craters (including appendicitis!). Katherine taught English and music at a nonprofit school that works to provide low-cost quality education for lower-income families, and she created strong relationships with lots of kids. She’s in the midst of job searches for when she returns.
L-R: Juli Smith, Katherine Curles, Tina DeYoe, Laura Amlin, Andrew Jamieson
Tina DeYoe, also a seminary graduate, wanted to serve as a YAV while continuing to figure out how to serve the church and the world. She’s worked with Nuevos Horizontes, an organization that runs a shelter for women who have been victims of violence and a day care for children of low-income single working mothers. She’s led dance and other activities to help the women to de-stress and modeled loving relationships with the kids at the day care. This has fanned the flames of a passion for working with victims of violence and she hopes to continue in this work back in the United States.
Juli Smith came to Guatemala wanting to serve in communities of need. She held several positions, including serving and being with participants in a lunch program for low-income elderly people, translating and guiding several visiting groups from the United States, and helping out at Cedepca, a PC(USA) partner, in various ways. She’s enjoyed the spiritual discernment aspect of the program and will participate in the YAV program again next year at San Antonio (a great combination of serving internationally and nationally).
What a life-changing experience it is to be in another culture that is less consumed with consumerism, where we’re often less productive and in-control than we’re used to in the United States, and where we experience different forms of living out our faith. Thanks to the YAV program for serving these YAVs, and to these YAVs for serving people in Guatemala!
Marcia Towers
The 2011 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 286
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