The start of the year

A letter sent to St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Ames, Iowa, which is the sister parish of the parish of Dulce Nombre de María in Dulce Nombre, Copán, Honduras

As Lent begins, I’d like to send St. Thomas Aquinas parish our heartfelt prayers and thanks for you continuing solidarity with our parish, Dulce Nombre de María. You were especially remembered in our prayers at Mass on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.

January is not a very busy month in the parish because many of our parishioners are involved in the coffee harvests, which for many is one of the few ways to earn cash. Some people work their own lands, but many work on the lands of large coffee farmers. Work is hard, especially if it is cold and rainy. The pay is minimal – for a five-gallon bucket of coffee berries, a worker usually gets 30 lempiras, about $1.25; most can harvest about 5 buckets, though a few can harvest up to 8 or 9.

The parish has two manzanas of coffee – about 3.5 acres. (One manzana was purchased with a gift from St Thomas.) We have had three harvests and are awaiting the fourth and final harvest in a week or so. The coffee berries mature at different times and so there are several harvests. More than 400 parishioners came out to help with the harvest. It was great to see such participation. This will help the parish even though coffee prices are low this year.

The parish's coffee land

In February classes begin throughout the country. With the help of St. Thomas 125 students were given partial scholarships in the alternative program Maestro en Casa, in which students study at home and listen to radio programs to prepare themselves for weekend classes. Two of these students will do an accelerated program for two years of primary school, 61 will be studying the equivalent of junior high school, and 62 will be studying high school.

The sacramental life of the parish continues, even during the coffee harvest. There have been a good number of baptisms in several communities and there are an increasing number of sacramental marriages.

On the first Sunday of Lent we expect to have 55 catechumens participate in the Rite of Election, leading up to their baptism at the Easter Vigil.

Pastoral formation begins in earnest this month. This week there is a training session for the leaders of youth groups in the parish, a parish assembly for catechists, and a formation session for Delegates of the Word, those who lead Sunday Celebrations of the Word in their communities since the pastor cannot get around to the fifty or so communities.

The pastor, Padre German Navarro, usually has at least four Masses each Sunday. In addition, he tried to visit each village once every two months for Mass, which usually means two Masses at least five other days. Since feast day celebrations are special occasions for the communities, he often has more. Last Saturday, the feast of Our Lady of Suyapa the patroness of Honduras, there were more than six Masses.

Church in Plan Grande, dedicated to the Virgin of Suyapa

Ash Wednesday Padre will preside at five Masses. Delegates of the Word will receive ashes at these Masses to distribute at Celebrations in their villages.

During Lent, most villages have Stations of the Cross each Friday, often in the streets. On the Friday before Holy Week, we will celebrate a parish-wide celebration of the Stations of the Cross in Dulce Nombre. Since one of the concerns of the diocese is care for creation, we will have an ecological slant to the Stations.

During Holy Week, the parish will send out missionaries, two by two. These parishioners will visit homes in different villages, encouraging people to participate in the life of the church, especially at Easter.

During Lent there will be retreats in each of the eleven sectors of the parish, led by the sisters who live in Dulce Nombre. There will also be a youth retreat on the Tuesday of Holy Week.

In the communities, the faith is sustained by Sunday Celebrations of the Word, visits to the sick especially by the communion ministers, weekly meetings of the base communities, and religious education of children and youth. There are also about 12 active youth groups, one charismatic renewal group, and one married couples group. There are eleven active communion ministers and 14 in formation.

As deacon, I continue many of the formation activities that I have done for years, especially training catechists and working with youth leaders. I also accompany the formation of the current communion ministers and assist in the formation of the new ones. I also assist the pastor in our formation activities with Delegates of the Word and community church councils.

I try to visit communities two or three Sundays a month for a Celebration of the Word with Communion. I also assist at Mass each Sunday, almost always preaching, and assist at a few other Masses during the month. I have baptized a good number of infants and children, most often during Mass but now more often after Mass. I have also interviewed a number of couples in their final interview before marriage.

I also visit the sick, usually bringing them communion. Because there are more than 25 sick or aged home-bound persons in one town, with only one minister, I have begun to visit there once a month, trying to visit five persons each time.

I also try to keep in contact with the coffee association in El Zapote, especially now as they prepare their crop to send coffee to the US. I also am working with a project to bring English classes to children and youth in Plan Grande with a Honduran friend who has an English school in Santa Rosa de Copán.

The parish, as you can see, is going forward, step by step. There are plenty of challenges. The area is poor and so donations and offertory collections are small. St. Thomas’s quarterly donations go a long way to cover basic parish costs.

This January has seen more rain and colder weather. This makes travel really difficult at times. At least once a community called the pastor to tell him that the road was inaccessible. At least once I got stuck in the mud; but people helped me out.

We go forward, seeking to show signs of God’s reign in our midst.

Pray for us, as we pray for you.

In the works

There are several possible projects in the works in the parish of Dulce Nombre.

The first is going along rather swiftly.

In January when Fr. Jon Seda came from St. Thomas Aquinas in Ames, he was accompanied by a young man who had graduated from Iowa State a few years ago and had visited Dulce Nombre in 2011.He had interest in initiating a direct marketing of coffee from some small coffee producers in the parish.

He spoke with two producers from different villages who provided samples. I insisted that what I considered important was that the producers organize themselves and that some investment be made in their work. I think this is the best way to proceed since it does not make the US partner a mere buyer and helps the local coffee producers work together.

A month later one of the men told me that he had 15 small coffee producers interested. They later met and formed themselves into a cooperative, with officers – though only with 14 members, since one had gone to the US.

A few months later I sent samples from three of the coop members to the US contact. He had them toasted and taste-tested by a small organization that toasts and distributes coffee. The quality of the samples was very good and there is interest in buying from the coop.

There are many steps to be taken to get this really going, but they are meeting and I am helping them with some contacts to help them get official recognition as well as put together a plan of action to maintain and improve the quality of the coffee.

Next week four of them and I are going to visit La UniónMicrofinanza which does direct marketing of coffee.

The second possibility is in process.

A few months ago someone donated a manzana (1.68 acres) of land planted with coffee to the parish. The coffee, of the newly-developed OBATA variety, had been planted in August of last year. It thus won’t give a decent yield until the 2016 or 2017 harvest.  The parish also has the opportunity of buying a contiguous manzana planted with OBATA and is hoping for some financing.

Coffee obata

Padre German’s idea is to use the yields of the coffee to finance the parish’s formation process, as a way to become a little self-sustaining.

Each month a sector from the parish is going out to weed or fertilize the fields or to enclosed the land with barbed wire (to prevent cattle from entering the field.) This year corn has been planted in the field and so this should help generate some funds or, at least, provide corn for the parish’s meetings.

Corn and coffee 

The third possible project is still in the discussion phase.

A US non-profit is interested in starting a medical clinic in the Dulce Nombre area and is seeking the cooperation of the parish. They propose to assist funding for a number of years with the plan of helping the clinic become self-sustaining. I think they also see this as a way to help local medical professionals, many of whom are unemployed.

I hope this comes to fruition since I think this might be a good way to involve some of my friends and acquaintances who are in the medical professions.

There are probably other possibilities which I’ll see when I’m living out in the parish, but that will have to wait a few months.