Called to Global Solidarity

Seventy-seven members of IHM have now visited Batahola Norte since 2000 when we began our twinning experience. Our short term mission trips have led to further Spanish courses, international business majors, studying abroad in college, possible Jesuit Volunteer International Volunteers, and an increased interest by hundreds in our parish of our twinning community in Nicaragua. Our Hispanic community has become involved by translating letters from the Batahola community. We are working together in our mission of increased education for all of us. Fr. Jan Schmidt, Fr. Ed Burns, Brother Ed Kesler are among the many who have visited the Center. Many of us now see more clearly the face of Christ when we are among our brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Challenges:

Communication needs to be kept up not only with emails but with phone calls so that we are all on the same page. Relationships take time to build. Being impatient never helps build that relationship but meeting together face to face, working together, eating together and praying together does build it. Our challenge has always been to involve more people in the twinning process. Our twinning committee at this time consists of Social Ministries Commission members and those who have traveled to visit Batahola. The sharing of stories is important. We need to share our stories as well as listen to theirs. Our challenge has been keeping a twinning relationship going with both the religious individuals who founded the Center died in 2001.

Email has turned around our communications. We are beginning to share our stories as well as listening to the stories of the people of Batahola. We continue to try to find new ways to involve our parishioners in our twinning process. Our twinning committee is going to work on our prayer meetings to make certain they continue on an ongoing basis and not just when we travel to Nicaragua. Keeping our twinning community foremost in our minds and not being fragmented is a challenge.

Tips to Building a Healthy Relationship:

Prayer is essential. We pray for them. They pray for us. I find yearly trips to visit the Center are invaluable. We have gone each year since our twinning has begun and those from the Center have visited us four times. Keeping the community involved with story boards, telling the story of the Center to all the Commissions as well as the parish is vital.

Have patience in your relationship. It takes time.

Other:

Cultural Centro Batahola was begun in 1983 by Sr. Margie Navarro, CSJ, a former principal at IHM, and Fr. Angel Torrellas, OP, a missionary from Spain. They opened the door of the Centro with the dream of educating children and adults in a safe and faith-filled environment. The Centro is an after school and Saturday educational center with classes in literacy, sewing, cooking, computers, typewriting, cashiering, accounting, cosmetology, natural health, handicrafts, cake decorating, art, music, dance, theater. Presently 700 women, children, and men and attending classes. There are scholarships for the Centro as well as scholarship for primary, secondary, and college students. The Centro has the only library in the area. We are blessed that Fr. Jan Schmidt, Fr. Ed Burns, and Brother Ed Kesler have all visited the Center. As a parish, we are blessed by our relationship with Cultural Center Batahola Norte.