The only drawback of partnering with the parish in La Libertad for five years is that they don’t have a parish school. Ixim has connected eight schools in the Archdiocese of Omaha with eight schools in the Diocese of Huehuetenango. These schools provide ongoing financial support through dress-down days and other activities. For our group to get a sense of the ongoing impact of the relationship between our two dioceses, we had to make another stop.
Taking a turn off the main road on the way back to Huehuetenango, we climbed up and over a beautiful ridge and down into the town of Ixtahuacán. The parish of San Ildefonso Ixtahuacán has a long history of support from the United States, beginning with Maryknoll Fathers, Brothers, and Sisters, who worked in the parish and founded the school seventy-three years ago. After Maryknoll missioners left in the seventies and eighties, a space was open for more support, which has come from Ixim since the early 2000s.
One project we support is the parish school, which was another worksite for our mission team. After a cultural presentation from the students, our community team taught in classrooms from kindergarten through middle school while the medical team applied fluoride to the teeth of the entire student body—almost 350 students. Myrka Gonzalez, a nurse from St. Leo Parish in Omaha, switched with ease from her role of working in our medical clinic to fluoride application. Showing how valuable of a nurse she is, Myrka has been willing to jump into any task over our week of work from taking vital signs to teaching about diabetes and hypertension to treating the ulcered foot of a patient to supporting our telehealth clinicians. Myrka is the ideal of a flexible missionary.
Following lunch with the school staff, we visited another project that was supported by Ixim: the parish’s water filtration plant. In addition to over 9,000 home water filtration systems across the diocese, Ixim helped build five water filtration plants that provide the service of inexpensive access to clean water in the populations around the main parishes. The staff of the water plant were very proud to demonstrate the upgrades they had made to their processes over the ten years since Ixim helped install the system. We finished our tour with a free sample of the bagged water they distribute during parish and school events.
Fr. Rodolfo, pastor of San Ildefonso Ixtahuacán, celebrated mass for us in gratitude for all Ixim has done for his parish. He assured us of his commitment, and the commitment of the school and water plant staff, to making our support have a lasting impact on the community of Ixtahuacán. He also hoped we might stay a little longer than a day when we get the chance.
Rodrigo Lopez, a parishioner from St. Frances Cabrini Parish in Omaha, is on his second core mission trip with Ixim. He was very impressed with the work in Ixtahuacán. Often when missionaries travel again, they begin to notice more details about the work that’s been done, having already experienced some of the activities and travelled many of the same roads. Rodrigo was intrigued by the possibilities of bringing some of the successes in Ixtahuacán to our partner parish of La Libertad. For many Iximeros, the two week core mission experience is just the beginning of entering deeper into our relationship of solidarity that was demonstrated so joyfully by Fr. Rodolfo and his parishioners.
