October 15, 2006

Walking the Talk about Loving Children

A dialogue between Patty Coleman and Julianne Stokstad

Patty Coleman is the co-founder, with her late husband Bill, of VAMOS! a volunteer organization that has grown to manage 81 different programs to feed, educate and empower the poorest of the poor in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She preached this joint sermon with Patsor Julianne when she visited San Rafael for the annual fiesta and fund-raiser for Every Dollar Feeds Kids.

JS: In celebration of Children's Sabbath we're going to talk about loving children today. Patty, it is an honor to have you with us because you and Bill and your love of children has inspired our Every Dollar Feeds Kids program. I hear it all started when you went down to Cuernavaca, Mexico about twenty years ago. It sounds like you did just what Jesus told the rich man in our scripture to do, you gave up all your possessions and went down to live among the poor, to discover the spirit of the poor. I wonder if you could tell us how you came to do this?

PC: Bill and I worked in the Civil Rights movement in the south for 23 years, and we had been writers in Catholic education. We had worked with soup kitchens; we had always worked with the poor and had a love for the poor. I think it was through this experience in our own country of working with the poor and seeing the qualities that they had, especially in the Civil Rights movement, of non-violence, of loving and caring. Bill and I came to write a book which said, "God believes in me." We say we believe in God, but God believes in me. We came to believe that, that God believed in us, and that we were to follow the Gospel, as Julianne said, we just sold our business and went to Mexico with just a very simple idea. That was that we would try to learn from the poor. That was what we were there for, and we had no idea that VAMOS would grow so large and would be this kind of thing. I think we thought that we might go back to the United States in a year, but something happened. We fell in love. We fell in love. We were in love with each other but we fell in love with these poor people. It was just not walk into love or calculate into love, but we literally fell in love with these poor people as we went around with them, with the Catholic sisters that were with us, and there was just something so magical. If you don't mind, I'll tell a really quick story about that.

One woman I had taught to read, although my Spanish was terrible, and she would laugh and say, "You know, I can understand everything, and you can read everything, but you don't understand what you're reading." So Bill and I were in what they call Christian-based communities, and one afternoon my friend Modesta decided that she was going to read from the Bible. She was in her 80s and she's still alive. She said, "Today I will read." And she opened to the reading for that day, and it was where Jesus went into the synagogue in Nazareth and took out the scroll of Isaiah where it says, in part, I will truncate it. In part it says, that the good news be preached to the poor.

Bill was always a great question asker, and he said, "Modesta, why do you think that he says that the good news will be preached to the poor?" And she said, "I don't know, but I've been thinking that it's because we're the ones who listen." Yes. This very simple woman who'd never been to school says this, and Bill said, "Why do you think that you're the ones to listen? She said (the other women were just looking to see what she was going to say), and Modesta said, "I don't know but I've been thinking that if you had everything that you needed, you might not know that you need God."

What wisdom! She said that and then she got a little more brazen. You know, in these communities, as poor as they are without water or electricity, sewage, it's almost impossible to describe to you. You've seen some little pictures. But they are able to transcend then and to become so wise.

So she said, "I've been thinking that for the rich people, you say how hard it is for them to enter the kingdom because it's so hard to let go and let God be your guide. And we have to do that, so we're really the blessed ones. We don't have to let go. God has already seen to it that we let go."

So Bill and I were walking back on the dusty roads, back to the bus to go to our house, and we thought, yes, this was the right place. God did lead us here to this place to learn from the poor. And I'd like to leave that today as something to dwell on.

Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian writer, said one time that "the poor and the homeless are our teachers," and I do believe that. I think that each one of you, who has been to Cuernavaca and been among our poor children, and among our poor people, came away with that realization that we have a lot to learn, and these people are for us, our teachers if we will but listen.

JS: I'm interested particularly in the children. Could you tell us a little bit about what the children in Cuernavaca have taught you, and what they have to teach us.

PC: Once again, those who've been there have seen their gentleness and kindness. Perhaps I thought in the beginning that it was because they didn't have any toys to fight over, that they were so kind. But we often see a four-year old taking care of a baby brother or sister. They always share. If they have a piece of bread, they'll break it in half. This is all spontaneous. It comes from not only being dependent on God, but also being dependent on one another. So they are very, very unselfish. That strikes me so much. We never have any discipline problems in any of our projects with the children. It amazes people. A psychiatrist came down one time, and he said, "Your children are so much healthier mentally than our kids back home in the United States with all the temptations and all the stress and strain that we have." So that's what I really learned. These are truly the children of God, and certainly they know what the kingdom of God is because they are living it. If they have just one little tortilla, they will split it and put a little piece of chili on there and offer it to their brothers and sisters.

JS: One of the things that struck me when we were visiting in Cuernavaca was their great joy. If you look at the pictures Bob took, if you look at their faces, you see in their eyes a joy that is sparkling from their soul. Do you see this as an expression of the kingdom of God?

PC: This is the kingdom of God shining through. I have a friend who works in Russia, and he came back after taking a lot of pictures, and he said, "There's such a huge difference in the children of Mexico and the children of Russia, who are so downcast and discouraged, and living in hovels, and abandoned by their parents, and don't know culturally why these things would be." But I think there's a deep faith in the Mexican people, and often we hear talk about Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is a sort of mother to them. So therefore, they even decorate with bright colors like we had last night, or the colors we have on. No matter how poor they are, they will come with bougainvillea. If there's a funeral, they will just come with a wreath of flowers, and they always manage to be happy, to embrace you, to kiss you, to put their arms around you. They're very spontaneous. The children are happy. They're not hungry when they come to us. They get a good meal and some vitamins, and they get to learn. They're just so happy and so innocent with it all.

JS: Mother Teresa said that, "America has the greatest poverty, spiritual poverty, in the world," and I just want to say that I'm deeply concerned for all of our children growing up here in this culture. The spiritual poverty among the rich can be quite great. As you said, there's so many temptations, so much cynicism, so much consumerism to buy into. Our children learn so early to compete instead of to cooperate, and sadly, I must say, faith and church seem to be the last thing, the lowest on the priority list for so many people in this county. We have great selfishness and great violence especially among the youth.

The recent Amish tragedy has deeply touched my heart and it represents the worst possible situation, innocent children being lined up and shot execution style in school. In this horrible story, I saw a little bit of the Kingdom of God and that is the response of the Amish people to this tragedy. Two hours after the horrible murders, Amish people went to be with and enfold with love Marie Roberts, the wife of the murderer. They were there for the next days providing her love and forgiveness. There were forty-seven Amish people at this funeral of Charles Roberts. Think of that.

This Amish response is a model for us. It's a lived model, right here in our own country of the kingdom of heaven. We don't have to go to Mexico. What we have to do is simply take the Gospel seriously, and take our faith and our teaching to our children very, very seriously, because when we live this faith as a community, we provide the strength for each other, such that in hard times we can go to our faith and the model that Jesus gave us and live it. It is truly a harder challenge for us to do this in our affluent consumer culture. In this way, our comforts and our material things are a burden. We are good people, but we are busy and we get distracted. I don't think there's anything more important because I think the cost is our children's lives in the future.

What final words of wisdom do you have, in light of these things, to us?

PC: I don't know that I have any more words of wisdom, but perhaps somebody out there might have a question that I didn't cover, that you would like to hear before we close.

Q: What is the meaning of VAMOS?

PC : It's a very silly thing actually. We were up in Vermont at the time, and this gentleman who's ninety-four years old, we were all grieving over what we saw on our trip to Mexico. We decided we'd start a little non-profit and we were searching for names. We didn't really speak Spanish, and one word we knew was "vamos" which means, "let's go." So we took it like a shoehorn, and we said, "Vermont Associates for Mexican Opportunity and Support." (Laughter) There we are, and there it worked out. That was it.

Q: Twenty years, do you have stories of children who were at the beginning of that who are now adults that are bringing back.

PC: Yes we do. We do have some who have gotten through college, actually. Some who are parents already. Many of the children who come through the process of education will stay on when they get to be 13, 14 years old. They will begin to sort of, as teachers too, auxiliary teachers, and we keep an eye on them in order to give them more education, because the only education you can get in Mexico, which is not really most of the people we work with. We work with approximately 10,000 people in all our projects together. I would say it's just a handful who can go to school. But the only free education is through Sixth grade, so we do find some of the young people who show promise. We do try and get them further education, and we have seen some marvelous things happen.

JS: Thank you for that note of hope, because the last word is one of hope. There is hope. Each child represents hope, and I just thank you. You bless us and inspire us all once again. Thank you so much. (Applause)