Retreat Reflection

Wednesday July 22nd Reaffirmation of the Covenant Agreement of Pacific Presbytery and COOPEMULNAGTLE cooperative serving four rural villages northwest of Leon.

"We are warriors. You came at the right time when we needed a hand up in the race against poverty." -Sonia Palacios, member of the cooperative, to Pacific Presbytery 

MORNING

We began the day with play. Today we would fulfill the core purpose of our trip: to renew the covenant agreement of Pacific Presbytery and COOPEMULNAGTLE cooperative, facilitated by CEPAD and Tracey King-Ortega, PC(USA) Mission Co-worker and Regional Liaison for Central America. It would take us all day. So, to begin such intensive work together, we played games and sang songs in a grand circle. Tracey and Anita Taylor, Director of the Nehemiah Program for CEPAD, centered us in scripture with Lectio Divina of Luke 12:29-34. We sang again. We then split into two groups as the cooperative and Pacific Presbytery with the assignment to describe what has happened and what has been done together over the past ten years, a kind of co-history of our partnership.

We had very similar lists, and felt that together we have accomplished a lot since the last covenant agreement five years ago. Some of our accomplishments: the building of an office space, a youth encounter, more frequent visits, a visit to the US by members of the cooperative, an educational encounter, CKDu research, and spiritual growth. One of the most important dates on the cooperative's timeline was the year the cooperative began praying for Pacific Presbytery daily: 2007. Pacific presbytery, in contrast, forgot to name our prayers, as we were focused on our list of "accomplishments". Sonia Palacios representing the cooperative, and Mary Fish representing Pacific Presbytery, gave our timeline presebtations. In conclusion of the cooperatuves presentation Sonia said: "We have this really important partnership, out of which has been birthed a spirit of love, responsibility, respect, trust and empowerment of our decisions...we hope this continues for many more years." -Sonia Palacios, Coopemulnagtle cooperative

Tracey then asked us to identify three things to discuss further in our partnership. We chose CKDu, .. the educational encounter and the new grocery store proposal by the cooperative. We began with the most difficult issue: CKDu. Tracey asked : Was there something more that could have been done or could be done further? What have been our frustrations? It was an emotional outpouring by the cooperative and pacific presbytery of shared grief and frustration. Despite countless hours of research and networking on both sides, very little has changed and people continue to suffer and die and live in fear of the government and sugar estates repression.

We reached no conclusion but shared a very tender time of love and sorrow. Tracey closed our time together with these words: "You are looking for a solution. It's a miracle  that we have been able to talk about the pain and we've formed strong bonds. This is a very different way of our two countries relating to each other." We closed the morning in a prayer by Rev Dr Chuck Robertson "with hearts so full of love we cannot contain it."

AFTERNOON

After lunch we began a discussion of the grocery store proposal. With the $4000 pacific presbytery gave recently, the cooperative opened the store in Goyena--in the office space we built jointly in 2011! We rejoiced in this good news and the progress that had been made in such a short time by the cooperative leadership. So far they have been able to lower the cost of food for the village by 20%. Their target goal of funding needed to have a grocery store of basic supplies is $12,000 or $8,000 more. The cooprerative spoke honestly at pacific presbyterys insistence about the great need for the remaining funds in one lump sum as quickly as possible.

We then began the work of revising the original covenant agreement from 2010. We worked in teams again and evaluated our progress in upholding the values named in the original agreement, answering questions taken directly from the original text:

On a scale of 1 to 5 to what extent have we shared...

•a serving spirit

• commitment

•strong identities

•material resources

•spiritual resources

On a scale of 1 to 5 to what extent have we...

•been connected

•learned from one another

•grown spiritually

•communicated well with one another

•shared Gods gifts

On a scale of 1 to 5 to what extent have we kept our core values of:

•regular visits

•clear and honest communication

•prayer

•worshipping together

•community involvement

•ongoing cross cultural learning

We were remarkably similar in our scores and gave each other mostly 4s and 5s. However what we agreed to improve upon was:

•clearer and more frequent communication (monthly)

•more cross cultural learning esp teaching U.S. culture

•more intentionality around celebrating God together and more Bible studies

•maybe more action around ckdu

Tracey closed us gathered in a circle with this benediction:

Will your heart be open to hear what God will say

Will your eyes be clear so you can follow in Gods way

God is speaking

Listen now

The way is clear

Follow

We ate dinner and worshipped together before going back to our bunkbeds and quite possibly the coldest showers in the western hemisphere.

~Rev. Heidi Worthen Gamble