Traveling Together (written for our home church in Chicago)

Greetings from Olinala, Guerrero.

It’s nice and cool here (mid-50s) at night, so we’re enjoying sleeping under the quilt you sent back with us. The boys ask me to read the names on it at least once a day. Thanks again! It’s a wonderful connection to all of you.
Last week our new MCC Mexico representatives, the co-director of MCC Latin America and the whole MCC Mexico team came to Olinala. We spent a lot of time talking about our experiences and how to define community development. What does “good” community development look like? The Guerrero team (we are now 8 adults and 5 children) continues to analyze and refine what we are doing and how we are doing it. We continue to have lots and lots and lots of methodology conversations as well as many opportunities to practice what we preach.
Well it happened again, I went to a meeting and didn’t really “do” anything. This afternoon there was a parent committee meeting at the elementary school in nearby Chiaucingo. They are having problems with their water bathrooms and are interested in building dry latrines. They invited me to the meeting to talk about the dry latrines that we promote. Three of the parents built dry latrines with Martin in March, so they did all the explaining about how the dry latrine works and what the parents and students will need to do. I nodded along in agreement. They knew exactly what they were talking about.
Next they asked what kind of materials MCC would donate to the project. “Well, there have been some changes in the way we work….” I slowly responded. “That’s fine,” replied the principal. “We can take a request for materials to our municipal president.” They proceeded to make a list of the materials they will need and set a date in January to visit him or her. I asked to go along to watch they process.
Prayer Request: Better communication within the MCC Mexico team.