Overview to the Short-term Vision Trips: Why Come?
Each year, The Strategy of Transformation works with a limited number of groups and interns from different parts of the world, for purposes of developing VISION. Our goal is to help people see the beauty of God's infinitely creative handiwork exploding all around us. We gain great joy exposing interns to visionary leaders and cutting edge ministries run by Guatemalans who work in the hardest places with the most marginalized peoples. We are inspired and encouraged by examples of God’s presence; from the faithful saints that God uses in gut wrenching poverty of La Limonada where 60,000 people live in a huge ravine, and the 5,000 homeless youth on the streets of Guatemala City, to chaplains of active members of the two largest Central American street gangs, to the ministries for 11,000 scavengers in the city dump, to those who reach out to Mayan villages in the highlands.
Ironically, we are thrilled to bring people to these places of apparent hopelessness and despair. The good news is that there are many shinning lights of inspirational hope and vision. We would like to introduce you to them. Our hope is that through the lens of the missional lives of national servant-leaders, our U.S. friends will get a clearer vision of God in this context.
Groups and interns should travel with the anticipation of seeing our very great God at work… and seeing their own part in that work. He works through tireless sacrificial saints, who against all odds bear witness to the Kingdom of God made manifest in very hard places. The image of the Body of Christ that Paul uses in Romans and 1 Corinthians stresses a two-fold partnership between the diverse parts of the Body of Christ. Paul tells us that the parts "belong to one another" and "have need of one another." At the Strategy of Transformation, we celebrate the "belongingness" and "needfulness" of the diverse parts in the Body of Christ. We believe that well organized and prayer bathed trips for groups or individuals can inspire that new yet age old vision; not only in Global Mission but also in their local church communities.
Henri Nouwen, reflecting on his extensive travels and ministry experience in Latin America, wrote this candid thought a few months before his death:
"It is my conviction that the spiritual destiny of the people of North America is intimately connected with the spiritual destiny of the people in Latin America. I am increasingly struck by the thought that what is happening in the Christian communities of Latin America is part of God's way of calling us in the North to conversion. I even feel that knowing God in North America can no longer be separated from the way God is making himself known in Latin America."
Mother Theresa, when asked about what was happening in India by people she met during her travels around the world, would often simply answer with the statement, "Come and see. Why don't you just come and see?"
These quotes summarize nicely what we want to say to groups from the States who desire to come on short-term projects to Guatemala. We invite you with all of our hearts to COME AND SEE WHAT GOD IS DOING HERE. You and the believers in Guatemala BELONG to one another and NEED one another. It is that Kingdom Vision we look forward to exploring with you.
