{"id":292612,"date":"2011-07-28T13:12:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-28T11:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/from-guatemala-the-focolare-a-school-of-inculturation\/"},"modified":"2024-05-13T20:43:28","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T18:43:28","slug":"from-guatemala-the-focolare-a-school-of-inculturation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/from-guatemala-the-focolare-a-school-of-inculturation\/","title":{"rendered":"From Guatemala: the focolare, a school of inculturation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Like all focolarine<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/a>, Lina Velasquez lives in a focolare, the heart of the wider community. She lives with five others on the outskirts of Guatemala City. In her country too, people and ethnic groups have met serious conflict with much suffering, pain and, at times, discrimination. <\/em><\/strong> How is it living with other focolarine \u2013 a Guatemalteca ladina, which is another ethnic group, a Nicaraguan, a Mexican and a Salvadoran \u2013 a world in miniature. . . ? What helps inculturation among you? <\/em><\/strong> The love among us, with the measure that Jesus asks of us, that is, being to be ready to give our lives for each other, even in small everyday things. At times, out of love, it\u2019s better to stay silent, at times it\u2019s better to say what\u2019s in our hearts. It helps me a lot to understand that the other person is different from me and so there is something for me to learn from everyone. I can be a person, someone who loves, not an \u201cindigena\u201d who wants everyone else to understand her. The inculturation among us is a witness to those who know us and a contribution to the elimination of discrimination. I feel fortunate to have a calling that unites us and that is mutually enriching.   What work do you do?<\/em><\/strong> I\u2019m a teacher at a school for \u201cladino\u201d and indigenous children. This helps me to love everyone without distinctions, without prejudice, without the fear of being who I am. Each morning we toss the dice of love<\/span><\/strong><\/a>. It\u2019s a very original toy that we use with the children: each side of the dice has a sentence, like: \u201cLove everyone\u201d, \u201cLove your enemy\u201d, \u201cLove each other\u201d , \u201cMake yourself one\u201d, \u201cBe the first to love\u201d \u201cSee Jesus in your neighbour\u201d. We all try to live the sentence that comes up each day. It also helps me, because when I don\u2019t take part, the children ask me: \u201cWhy do you say we have to do it, but you don\u2019t live it?\u201d One morning, we tossed the dice and the sentence that came up was: \u201cLove your enemy\u201d. Precisely on that day, the father of one of the students reprimanded me saying things that simply weren\u2019t true. As I listened to him, I asked Jesus to help me forgive him and to see this \u201cenemy\u201d with new eyes, even if it cost me some effort to do so. The next morning that father came up to me and I greeted him with a nice smile. He was so surprised and he came closer to me and said: \u201cTruly, I am heartily sorry and I ask you to forgive me. Today I realized that you are a real Christian person, and capable of understanding me.\u201d<\/em> From then on his attitude changed. Some of the parents don\u2019t know me, especially when I\u2019m wearing my traditional dress and, mistaking me for the cleaning lady, they don\u2019t allow the children to greet me and embrace me. But the children are learning to love, even me, and they take this discovery home with them. It\u2019s a freedom which I wish all indigenous people could experience, those who don\u2019t wear their native dress and try to hide their origins. I\u2019m glad to be working in this school, because I feel that I\u2019m helping to form new people, that I’m able to love without prejudice, because they feel that they are children of God, and that each culture has great richness to offer to others. <\/em><\/strong> Your language is Kaqchikel. Is it still spoken today? <\/em><\/strong> My parents didn\u2019t speak Kaqchikel, but my grandparents did, because they had never learned Spanish. The majority of the people in my community speak it among themselves, but never in the city because they are ashamed. Now with the Education reforms in Guatemala, the young people have begun to appreciate the language and also the precious indigenous culture. I\u2019m doing my Master Degree on it, so that I can know it well and help my people to understand that the values I live can be a gift. I\u2019ve realized that the spirituality of unity must reach my people in my language, so that they can understand it better. <\/em> <\/p>\n

S<\/strong>SA<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interview with Lina Velasquez, a Kaqchikele focolarina, one of the indigenous Maya groups of Guatemala. An experience of inculturation and of learning how to discover the richness of every culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}