and deeper still…

Today is the third day that I am accountable to Angélica.

When my fellow student Emily and left to spend our fall break in Guatemala, we went with the educational objective of visiting Casas de Migrantes to inform our understanding of immigration through Guatemala (aaand also with the intention of seeing some sea turtles). As tends to be true a lot in Latin America, plans changed. And had the prospect of five additional hours on a life-threatening bus ride and an unwelcoming priest not deterred us from our original plan, I would have never been changed by la familia Zamora Chavez.

We met Angélica and her eight-year-old daughter Rosemary in the Parque Central of Antigua, one of the most touristy areas of the country. At first she seemed no different than the countless women and children in bright traditional dress who relentlessly attempted to persuade us to buy their bracelets, necklaces, change purses, and scarves. “¡Conocimos esta tarde! ¿Me recuerda?” After we declined to buy, instead of moving on she plopped down on the bench next to us asked if we remembered meeting her earlier. I squinted and recalled a moment in the afternoon, not unlike a million identical moments on this trip, when I had asked her for directions to the park. We made light conversation, eventually meandering to the topic of traditional Guatemalan food – Emily and I wanted her advice as to what authentic dish we could look for, as we had spent the afternoon passing touristy Italian restaurants and burger joints. Her answer surprised us.

“Les invito a mi casa,” she replied – I invite you to my house.

Fast forward through a great night’s stay at a hilariously cliché hostel to us sitting on the same bench in the Parque Central, waiting for Angélica, who was to arrive at 10 am. As the sun intensified we became unsure as to whether she would actually come – but sure enough, nearly an hour later, we spotted her face amongst the bright colors and Mayan patterns of the working women. Of course we assured her that we had not been waiting long at all, and off we went to the market to buy the ingredients as we had agreed on the night before, Rosemary in tow.

After a chaotic weave through the bustling stands and a traumatic trip through the open-air meat section, we boarded the bus to her pueblo: San Antonio Aguas Calientes. After a short ride we found ourselves walking up her street and through a corrugated metal door into her mother’s house. The house was just as I expected it to be based on my two months of experience so far in El Salvador: dirt floors, a fire to cook over, the overwhelming smell of smoke, electricity and a gas stove, no running water, and a bounty of kids and extended family members (the relations of whom would take months to memorize). We were welcomed enthusiastically by Angélica’s sisters, Telma and Milvia, who immediately invited us to join them in cooking a Mayan dish called Pepián.

From roasting chiles to chopping carrots to making tortillas, the women were eager to explain and include us in every aspect of the dish. It was such a fun community effort that we didn’t even notice as three hours passed and our stomachs were grumbling. When we finally got to sit down and enjoy the meal, we learned that Pepián is typically a dish made for weddings, and felt humbled that the family would go to such lengths on an average day just for us.

As we five women lingered at the table, helping ourselves to more rice and just one more tortilla, the family’s story began to emerge. There was no element that I haven’t heard on a weekly basis here – there is not enough work; the men are in the fields all day earning a minimum wage that can’t even stretch to feed the family; in hard times all they have to eat is tortillas and salt. The Guatemalan public school system is so bad that sometimes teachers don’t show up for fifteen days at a time, so they have no choice but to send their children to private school – which costs 400 quetzales (about $50) a month for each child, which is more than papá can even hope to earn. As I looked around at the kids playing so sweetly and helping their parents in every type of work without complaint, the tías told me that there was no way economically that any of the children would be able to attend school past the second grade. And for some reason, in that moment as I was trying to calculate the impossibility of their monthly budget in my head, I began to understand.

Stories of suffering have an interesting effect. As one moves from memorizing statistics to hearing the experiences of individuals, reality definitely becomes more real and human; but a true softening of the heart and opening to solidarity is taking longer for me that I would’ve anticipated. There are many people here that I have come to have great affection for who suffer much, but I have had a hard time pulling forth as much compassion as I would like to be able to offer. Somehow, entering Angélica’s home in such a natural way – meeting in a park, being invited over, and cooking together – evoked an emotional investment in their family’s oppression that broke through the tension I had been stuck behind and invited me to begin to really get it.

Knowing that migration is an inescapable topic here, we asked whether the family had anyone in the United States. The tías admitted that they had considered sending a family member to work there, but had ultimately decided that it was better for the family to stay together and struggle for every meal than to be apart. I attempted to encourage them that I thought they were absolutely right on – that the family’s unity is the biggest priority and that life in the north isn’t all it’s made out to be. But sitting in their kitchen surrounded by the reality of their material poverty, one cannot honestly encourage a family to stay without acknowledging the structural change that would need to happen to make that a possibility for them. Their daily lucha for survival must have an end in sight, or else we give them no choice but to make terrible familial sacrifices and take the horrific risks of migration.

I told the women that I was honored that they opened their home and their story to me, and that I am committed to remembering their family each day as I will return to the United States and work for the change that is needed to alleviate the pain our country inflicts on this part of the world. And in a way I have never meant it before, I am committed to remembering and honoring their family’s struggle. I am more deeply betrothed to the change I will seek through my work and my life, because I am responsible for more than just myself. I am responsible to those in Latin America whom I have loved and who have loved me so well.

I am now accountable to Angélica. Across national, cultural, and economic lines, I am personally accountable to her liberation.

This story, I believe, is my beginning of Love… of Solidarity… of Kingdom and Community. That it would only continue on and become deeper still.

 

ode to dolores huerta

OUR FIRST STRIKE

from Cesar Chavez’s “The Organizer’s Tale” (1966)

 

Our first strike was in May, 1965, a small one but it prepared us for the big one. A farmworker from McFarland names Epifano Camacho came to see me. He said he was sick and tired to how people working the roses were being treated, and he was willing to “go the limit.” I assigned Manuel and Gilbert Padilla to hold meetings at Camacho’s house. The people wanted union recognition, but the real issue, as in most cases when you begin, was wages. For grafting roses, they were promised $9.00 a thousand, but they were actually getting $6.50 and $7.00. Most of them signed cards giving us the right to bargain for them.

We chose the biggest company with about 85 employees, not counting the irrigators and supervisors, and we held a series a meetings to prepare the strike and call the vote. There would be no picket line; everyone pledged on their honor not break the strike.

Early on the first morning of the strike, we sent out ten cars to check the people’s homes. We found lights in five or six homes and knocked on the doors. The men were getting up and we’d say, “Where are you going?” They would dodge, saying “Oh, uh … I was just getting up, you know.” We’d say, “Well, you’re not going to work, are you?” And they’d say, “No.”

Dolores Huerta, who was driving the green panel truck, saw a light in one house where four rose-workers lived. They told her they were going to work, even after she reminded them of their pledge. So she moved the truck so it blocked their driveway, turned off the key, put it in her purse and sat there alone.

That morning the company foreman was madder than hell and refused to talk to us. None of the grafters has shown up for work. At 10:30 we started to go to the company office, but it occurred us that maybe a woman would have a better chance. So Dolores knocked on the office door, saying, “I’m Dolores Huerta from the National Farm Workers Association.” “Get out!” the man said, “You communist … Get out!” I guess they were expecting us, because as Dolores stood arguing with him, the cops came and told her to leave. She left.

For two days, the fields were idle. On Wednesday, they recruited 35 Filipinos from out of town who knew nothing of the strike. They drove through escorted by three sheriff’s patrol cars, one in front, one in the middle and one at the rear with a dog. We didn’t have a picket line, but we parked across the street and just watched them go through, not saying a word. All but seven stopped working after half an hour, and the rest had quit by mid-afternoon.

The company made an offer the evening of the fourth day, a package deal that amounted to a 120% wage increase.

Dolores Huerta in 1965.

 

 

america ferrera as Dolores for something or other…

 

me as Dolores Huerta for Halloween in El Salvador.

 

Dolores, that my life and spirit will resemble yours! Thank you for being a woman worthy of being looked up to.

 

reflection from the silence

(adapted from a letter I wrote to Sarah Knie… thanks, Sarah, for helping me reflect!)

 

Now that we are halfway through the semester, we had the privilege of going on a silent retreat for three days in Parque Imposible, the biggest national park in El Salvador. Amidst all the noise and busyness we are constantly bombarded by, these days of silence were very welcome and needed. During this time, I went on a long hike alone through the jungle to ask the Lord in myself: “What have I learned here so far? And how might I use the rest of my time to the fullest?” My mind would wander to places I’ve been, people I’ve met… and once in a while to whether that growl was a puma that might eat me. At the end of the trail, I came to a lookout high in the mountains. There were enormous birds soaring in slow motion, dancing around the valley. I was all the way up at the height of the clouds, and when I looked to the left, clouds were rolling in between two peaks as if they were coming onstage from behind the curtain. In the time that I stood there, the basin far below all the mountain peaks began to fill with the clouds’ heavy white mist.

            I imagined that behind the mountain curtain was the mysterious figure of God, exhaling breath to fill all that empty space. I imagined that God was filling my cupped hands, my hollow body with that breath – that my heart was opening to be filled with more love for the people I meet here – that my stomach was expanding to make room for more rice and beans and tortillas.

            I would like to be able to articulate some beautiful lessons learned and remaining objectives in order to justify my time here as productive, but the truth is really more like my experience watching the clouds roll in. I came here to enter the reality of the Salvadoran people – including their material poverty, and suffering, and enormous spiders, and scorpions on bedroom walls. It’s still hard, but my Spanish has GOT to be improving. And other than that… just to ask the Lord to use this experience to firmly plant seeds in my being for a growing perspective on how my lifestyle might reflect compassion and awareness for how the rest of the world lives.

            I suppose my concept of SOLIDARITY has really been brought down to earth. It really makes sense now that solidarity is just putting yourself aside to accompany people in their suffering. When I think about the abstract values of solidarity, loving the poor, and loving your neighbor, I realize now that we can combine all of these spiritual imperatives into a really natural human experience if we just move in with the poor and fall in love with them. It is very easy to advocate for and remember the needs of those we love, and to be by their side through pain. Padre Jon Cortina, a famous Salvadoran Jesuit priest, wore a stoll (Catholic thing you wear while giving mass) that said:

EN ESTE PUEBLO, ES FÁCIL SER BUEN PASTOR

(In this community, it’s easy to be a good pastor)

He truly knew and loved the people who are oppressed as his family, which made even risking his life for them feel natural… easy.

            I really do feel the Lord slowly breathing into me. Nothing new or different in the way the Spirit interacts with me here – it has always been faithful to lead me to new passions and ideas, which feel like where I am supposed to be. Of course I’d love to hear a voice, have a grand realization, or hear some absolute confirmations that I’m on track – but I feel content and loved and at peace that I can trust the still voice that guides my heart toward what is good and my mind toward understanding… the voice that is never fully separable from ME because it is speaking from its dwelling place in me.

            I am really looking forward to being fully present to the rest of my time here, open to the people and lessons that I will encounter. And I feel very fortunate to have the luxury in life to be able to be in a place where my objective is solely to learn and to love.

 

this one’s for the fam!

I am here to learn and grow; but I promise I am having fun too. My entries have all been quite serious, so I just wanted to throw up a few pictures and stories for Mom & Gram, who like that kind of thing!

We had a lot of fun watching the U.S. vs. El Salvador soccer game a few weeks ago, in a mixed group of Salvadoran students and students from the States. We projected the game on the wall, ate a lot, and were all thoroughly disappointed when the States won. The next week, when El Salvador played Costa Rica (apparently a huge rivalry), we could hear the cheering from the stadium two miles away from our houses! Apparently those games are INSANE – people throw bags of urine onto the field when they don’t like a call?! People get ROWDY. As fun as it would be, I will not be attending a soccer game. (fotos 1&2)

We’ve been eating lichas (lychees) at lunch sometimes – soooo good. Mari, one of the Salvadoran scholarship students, gets a huge kick out of calling them “Katis” because she thinks their spiky outsides resemble my hair. It is so not normal here for a woman to have short hair. And Mari is ridiculous. (foto 3)

We spent a day at Lago Cahuatepeque, an absolutely stunningly beautiful crater lake. The water was so clear and refreshing. (fotos 3&4)

The 15^th of September is Central American Independence Day. Betsy and I went outside to watch the parades, for which we have heard bands rehearsing outside for almost a month at every ungodly hour imaginable. The parade was really funny. Kind of like a parade in the States… it sounds exciting, but then you get there and realize it’s weird and you’re just sweating in the sun. The battalions of girls marching and dancing in heels was definitely impressive. (fotos 5&6)

My new favorite spot is the Panadería just a few blocks from the casas. They have an overwhelming selection of delicious bakery. It’s so nice to sit there and enjoy a 20 cent cup of coffee and 40 cent treat. And really fun to try the weirdest looking stuff… it never looks like you think it will. Bep and I went there and had a Blanco y Negro… my favorite thing yet. (foto 7)

I am still enjoying the time and learning so much, and can’t believe I’ve already lived here for over a month! I still have a lot of time left, but this month has really flown. I miss home dearly and have a renewed appreciation for the beauty of my neighborhood, my family, mi novio, my church community… also toilet paper, bikes, and technology that works. I’m loving the adventure and will be really ready to set some roots down when I return. (If I don’t die from hypothermia upon setting foot outside the airport.)

This upcoming week we will be living in the rural, impoverished campo with families. Can’t wait to fall in love with the people there, and enjoy the beauty of hard work and the land; and to learn profound generosity from people who don’t even have enough to sustain their own families. Bring it on, scary huge spiders! You’re not gonna bring me down.

Paz y Amor,

Kati

 

reflection on martyrdom

We talked about the definition of a martyr in Liberation Theology class today. A martyr is defined as a witness, someone killed for the potency of his or her testimony, ideas, and work; either religious or political. Here in El Salvador where martyrs are remembered with zeal, the Salvadoran definition of martyr expands to include those who have been killed as innocent victims of unjust politics and unjust war. For most Salvadorans, this is not a historical idea – this is a memory of their friends and family dragged from their homes by military death squads or massacred by the hundreds along the river due to misplaced and haphazard accusations of involvement in “subversive” (a.k.a. any) organizing in their communities. It is a vividly remembered and traumatically recent lived history.

Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit priest who was targeted to be killed during the war but happened to be out of the country when the death squads came for him and six others, tells us that the poor today reveal the meaning of the cross to our faith and worldview. The conditions of the poor and marginalized reveal to us the ugly truth about what our world is really like. As we remember the suffering of Jesus and our favorite martyrs or historical heroes, we must also look to the suffering of humanity – in this way the poor and suffering are a mirror for the story of our spirituality and inspiration. Sobrino points our attention to the ‘crucified’ people of today, the ones that bear the crushing weight and burden of the world’s structural sin.

Out of respect for the truth of this teaching, I would like to expand my definition of martyr even one step beyond the Salvadorans. I want to see it include all those who have been killed by the weight of society’s injustices and inequalities. I want it to include every man, woman, and child who died in slavery; in starvation; due to contaminated water; due to lack of access to health care that they could afford; due to violence or drug addiction caused by structural deficiencies in urban public schools and a non-rehabilitative prison system; due to faulty levees breaking during a hurricane; due to gender misunderstanding; due to obesity-related health complications caused by living in a neighborhood with no reasonable access to fresh produce and healthy food options; due to factory accidents and slaughterhouse injuries caused by an unsafe workplace and emphasis on production and profit over people; in migration forced by agricultural subsidies and unjust economic policies. I would include every Iraqi and Afghani, every Vietnamese civilian lost at the hands of my country. And I would count all of the victims who have lost their dignity and their lives with no access to a trial at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. I’d count every potential life lost through abortion, or at the hands of the death penalty.

If we recognize the overwhelming presence of continuing martyrdom all around us, we can quickly see that the organizer or the activist or the spiritual person or the Christian community is disturbingly involved in these causes of innocent death. This is where Sobrino connects for us that the most relevant question at hand, more so than any personal theological or ideological claim one can make, is whether or not we are complicit in continuing to produce these ‘crosses’ for our brothers and sisters. It becomes our responsibility to fight to wash the blood off of our hands that did the work that earned the money that paid the tax dollars that funded the School of the Americas that trained the Salvadoran military men who murdered the priest because he was speaking up on behalf of poor and marginalized. It becomes our utmost priority to halt injustices that endlessly repeat the cycle of Jesus’ suffering and assassination at the hands of unjust policy and disproportionate power of the elite.

How might we express our faith in Christ by working for the liberation of the people He most adores, the poor and forgotten, right now? How might we express our good will through action and not just words of good intention? How might we transform our concept of LOVE from sentimentality to self-sacrificing action?

 

i cut hair now.

i’m preeeetttyyyyy proud of the haircut i performed on the inherently beautiful Bridget Garrity last week. she is now all the rage in our group of tourist-looking, hiking footwear-sporting, sweaty group of blindingly white exchange students.

pictures below… you’ll have to imagine the ‘before’… she had long hair. i was really nervous lopping off huge pieces, but i feel a lot more confident in my ability now… so if anyone wants a free haircut, i am now officially in the business.

thanks for the haircutting scissors, mom  :o)

 

a few words about Monseñor Oscar Romero

Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero’s face is everywhere in El Salvador. In the city you can visit the chapel in which he was martyred by the Salvadoran military (funded by the United States) in 1980 for speaking out on behalf of the poor who were being massacred and disappeared en masse during El Salvador’s Civil War. You only have to begin to drive out of the city to find neighborhoods of increasingly extreme poverty, at which point you will see Romero’s face appearing more and more on murals and T-shirts. He is truly a cultural icon, and the poor of El Salvador put their hope in his words in a way that is only rivaled by the way Americans put their hope in their military.

Romero is one of the early champions for Liberation Theology, which is a call for the Christian’s involvement in history and advocacy for the poor. He originated the idea that the church needs to have a “preferential option for the poor” (although arguably Jesus beat him to that one). I have been so captivated by his teachings, and especially the way he is so alive in the hope of the people in the hardest circumstances in this country. I will let him speak for himself:

This is the mission entrusted to the church,

a hard mission:

to uproot sins from history,

to uproot sins from the political order,

to uproot sins from the economy,

to uproot sins wherever they are.

What a hard task!

It has to meet conflicts amid so much selfishness,

so much pride,

so much vanity,

so many who have enthroned the reign of sin among us.

The church must suffer for speaking the truth,

for pointing out sin,

for uprooting sin.

No one wants to have a sore spot touched,

and therefore a society with so many sores twitches

when someone has the courage to touch it

and say: “You have to treat that.

You have to get rid of that.

Believe in Christ.

Be converted.”

JANUARY 15, 1978

The world does not say: blessed are the poor.

The world says: blessed are the rich. You are worth as much as you have.

But Christ says: wrong. Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, because they do not put their trust in what is so transitory.

JANUARY 29, 1978

The guarantee of one’s prayer

is not in saying a lot of words.

The guarantee of one’s petition is very easy to know:

how do I treat the poor?

Because that is where God is.

The degree to which you approach them,

and the love with which you approach them,

or the scorn with which you approach them –

that is how you approach your God.

What you do to them, you do to God.

The way you look at them is the way you look at God.

FEBRUARY 5, 1978

I had a privilege of visiting the chapel where he was martyred – a very chilling experience. Photos below, including one of the nun who gave us the tour – who is quite literally the smallest Sistah I have ever seen. I invite challenges on that one.

Also of note is the picture of Romero’s typewriter. On that very typewriter he wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter, asking that he stop the flow of weapons and money from the United States to the oppressive Salvadoran military death squads during the Civil War. Clearly his request was answered in a quite different way when he was later killed based on orders that trickled down from the United States, but the way that his image and words live on in the people here more than justifies the historical worth of his voice.

 

SOLIDARIDAD

Solidarity =

you are me.

your pain is my pain.

if it’s good enough for your family, then it’s good enough for me.

i didn’t realize that crying in front of strangers; braving a cold shower; using a dark and stanky outhouse that made me shudder; or getting soaked in the rain and eaten alive by fire ants would be the divine assortment of glowing spiritual moments i came here seeking.

but we were told something very wise. we were told to be attentive to when we feel powerless: to be fully present in desolation, fear, frustration, depression, loneliness, uncertainty, discomfort, and worry. we were told to embrace it as a privileged moment of grace – for it is the closest we will get to the feeling of powerlessness of the poor. over the past few days i have become increasingly convinced that this is an essential truth.

for are the poor not the ones who can truly know faith and community? 99.5% of salvadorans responded to a national survey by saying they believe in GOD. the family we met today in la comunidad las nubes thanks GOD every time it rains, for there is no potable water that reaches their community so high up on the volcano. rain means another spell of survival. it is their most vital provision and it is completely outside of their control, yet it has faithfully sustained them.

how does this family’s realidad compare to that of the average family in the united states? faith is not optional here in el salvador; it is integral to survival. in u.s. culture, so convinced that we have earned every possession and luxury that we have, religion becomes an extracurricular activity. examining and seeking truth and meaning is completely optional. and with the exception of the occasional tragedy, we can mostly live the illusion that denies our complete dependence on forces outside ourselves without disturbance. if the kingdom, community, interdependence, and love is now; then this brings even more light to JESUS’ words: ‘it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of GOD.’

gustavo is a salvadoran man who lives in poverty but spends his days hiking up the volcano to accompany the people in the community more impoverished than his own. gustavo defines solidarity as caminar con la gente, estar con la gente (to walk with the people, be with the people). he even goes so far as to equate the entire gospel message to this simple action. he references JESUS’ affinity for walking from place to place to just be alongside the people in the the most authentic and broken realities, and he practices it.

i am becoming increasingly convinced that accompaniment is the most important of spiritual duties. yet social change through political transformation is also critical. the family in las nubes had great faith in GOD as their provider and trust and thankfulness in gustavo for accompanying them, yet also expressed that the recent governmental change was their hope for an eventual change of their impoverished condition.

i will be continuing to explore the calling of solidarity during my time here, as well as the mystery of balance in the essential intersection of solidarity in faith with political action for change on behalf of the poor and marginalized.

 

saludos de el salvador!

we are finally here! i just wanted to post some pictures, showing the life we have now entered here in san salvador. our houses are very nice, the community is wonderful, and the food is delicious. the cold showers will be a harsh but welcome transformation. poco a poco viene la vida simple, verdad?

our schedule is very busy and orientation actually lasts 8 days (whoa). we are learning a lot. through yesterday i was very much on the verge of tears with the weight and loneliness of missing those i love back home. however, today i feel much stronger and accompanied in my experience by the other members of the community. i look forward to strengthening my independence and my relationships through the distance, and finding my accompaniment and strength in God when i can’t rest my head on the chest of those who love me most. i shared with the group last night that i desire to have manos abiertas – open hands – to hold what i have and those i love gently and without control, and to be open to receive new experiences and growth. i have faith that this will happen here.

the pictures below show our ridiculous yet manageable amount of baggage leaving the airport in milwaukee (yeah 70-gallon pack!), the group here at the casa, and all of us sitting in casa romero (the main house) for orientation. then i have a few shots of me with my house, called casa ita. please note the fact that my walls are white and bare – and everyone else brought pictures galore to hang. (i am counting on YOU to send me some pictures or cards so that i can have a wall that loves me! please help!)

then there are some pictures of betsy in her house, casa silvia. both of our houses are named for women martyrs during the salvadoran civil war of the 80s and early 90s. the final picture is of me with ita ford, the martyred american maryknoll sister for whom my house is named. i am really coming into loving the short hair as i imagine myself looking like her, and learning to see out of the eyes of someone who loved so strongly that she was seen as a threat for her great work.

we will have a lot of stories and role models like that here. can’t wait to share more with you all. until then, abrazos y besitos. les amo mucho!

kati

 

reflection on baptism

on sunday, august 16, just three days before the departure that led me now to sit lonely on my new bed far from home, I was baptized into Jesus’ discipleship movement in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. due to the weight of this commitment and the cloud of loving witnesses present from my dear church community, I chose to write and read aloud public vows. i would like to share them now.

baptismal dedication: public vows

thank you, Lord, for bringing me into this most lasting of communities. thank you for the opportunity to take part in the tradition of baptism to express my faithful allegiance to you and the teachings of your Son. this allegiance is so strong that it demands to be undivided, breaking all other allegiances: allegiance to country, money, family, or lifestyle. thank you for demanding much from and giving much to your followers. In my limited understanding of the cost of dying to oneself for the sake of others, let me express my desire for continuing inner conversion to renounce the following -

Father, for your sake I renounce to You and my greater community:

All private wealth and property

All positions, titles, and power

All weapons, violence, force, and control

All judgment and bitterness toward others

All numbed and domesticated religious practice

All allegiance and submission to this country

All participation in systems of domination, exploitation, patriarchy, and oppression

All hope and belief in a system of truths other than the one Christ taught

All values of culture and popular society

I repent of selfishness and sin, and pray for continuing inner conversion and submission to your process of repentance, forgiveness, and outpouring of self. I know that I approach this process as a child, Lord – your power and good gifts are what will accomplish this ongoing work in me. Thank you.

Gal 3:26-28

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.