‘John was standing with two of his disciples, when he saw Jesus walking by. ‘There is the Lamb of God!’ he said. The two disciples heard him say this and went with Jesus. Jesus turned, saw them following him and asked ‘What are looking for?’ They answered ‘Where do you live Rabbi?’ ‘Come and see he answered’.’ (John 1: 37-39).
There is much to learn from this short passage from John’s Gospel. Jesus’ response to John’s followers when asked where he lived is quite telling. He doesn’t try to explain his situation to his two enquirers but invites them to go home with him and find out for themselves. What is clear is that their visit to Jesus’ home had a profound impact on them. I often wonder what it would have been like for the two. What would they have seen? Who did they meet? What did they talk about? Jesus knew that the best way he could give them an insight into what life was like for him was to ask them to come and experience his home for themselves. CAFOD’s Connect2 project offers a similar invitation to you to get to know some of the people we are working with in one of the following countries: El Salvador, Brazil, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia or Rwanda.
The first parishes, in our Diocese, to sign up to CAFOD’s Connect2 are Ss Mary and Joseph, Pocklington and Ss Leonard and Mary, Malton. Both parishes have decided to get to know our partners in the small rural community of Puentecitos in El Salvador. During the next few years, through regular communications, the parishes will get to hear about what is happening to people in the community of Puentecitos and about how their financial support is making a difference.
Puentecitos means ‘Little Bridges‘ and is situated in the western corner of El Salvador near the border with Guatemala. The river Metal meanders through the village and there are several bridges and footpaths to cross. On a clear day, if you climb the hills, you can see the Pacific Ocean.
Around 1,000 people live in Puentecitos. A quarter of children under five suffer from malnutrition. Three quarters of homes have no electricity or running water. Three out of four house are built from mud bricks and average family income is equivalent to just £18.00 a month. Despite its beautiful landscape, Puentecitos is in one of the poorest regions of El Salvador. The local economy depends on subsistence agriculture (people grow food to survive). Education is limited. There is a primary school in the village, but older children must walk two miles to the secondary school in Guaymango town. A lack of employment opportunities for young people has fuelled migration.
CAFOD’s work focuses on four main areas;
- Agriculture: helping farmers to improve their crops, care for the environment, cut costs, and learn from each other.
- Reducing the risk of disasters: by identifying areas at risk of disasters like floods and mud slides, helping communities to develop evacuation drills and planting crops to stop soil erosion.
- HIV and AIDS: treatment and counselling for people with HIV, raising awareness about prevention in parishes and schools.
- Creating peace: helping to heal the scars of civil war and build a more just society through legal aid, advocacy and human rights education.
Parish communities here in Middlesbrough Diocese will also be able to tell the partner they connect with something about themselves. CAFOD volunteer, Stephanie Winter from Malton recently sent this message:
‘Greetings from Malton to the community of Puentecitos! We are so pleased to be connected to you and hope we will learn more about you, your country, your way of life, your hopes and dreams.
Malton is a small town in North Yorkshire situated half way between Scarborough on the coast and York which is a very historic city (some of us joined in the Anniversary service for Archbishop Oscar Romero in the beautiful York Minster in March). We are near to the beautiful, rugged North Yorkshire Moors and the gentle country of the Wolds with many charming villages, historic houses and abbeys set among farmland. There is a weekly market where the farmers bring their cattle and sheep to be sold. Once a month, there is a farmers market where the farmers sell other products like meat, chickens, cheese, butter, cakes, bread, jams and chutney. It has been necessary for the farmers to diversify in this way as they have suffered after the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, and other epidemics as well as the economic state of the country.
Our parish of St Leonard and St Mary’s is small (about 500 parishioners) but serves a wide rural area. Recently, Polish people have come to live here along with those from the Philippines and India. Many of them work in our care homes for the elderly and some at the Bacon Factory. We have benefited from their presence among us. We have a small Catholic school where the children work and play hard! Our CAFOD group consists of about 12 people. We meet together for prayer services and try to raise awareness and money for CAFOD’s projects. During our outdoor service in June, we will be praying especially for you as we begin to get to know each other. We are hoping to raise some money by having a plant stall. We ask our parishioners to share some of the plants from their gardens, plant a few more seeds or split some of their bigger plants so we have many flower and vegetable plants to sell. We are also going to have a quiz and some of the questions will be about El Salvador so that more people will find out about your country.
We look forward to hearing about you and seeing some pictures maybe of your community.
With our good wishes and prayers.’
Would you like to accept the invitation of CAFOD’s partners to ‘Come and see’? Your parish can sign up to Connect2 by
visiting www.cafod.org.uk/connect2 or contact David or Carol Cross on (01904) 671767 or e-mail middlesbrough@cafod.org.uk for further information. We would be happy to come along and speak to the people for your parish about Connect2.
You may also think about joining with a neighbouring parish or school and connecting to one of our partners. There are many possibilities.
David Cross