“Take A Spiritual Hike,” A Reflection by Sister Amalia Camacho

Sister Amalia, front, with the eyeglass fitting team – l-r, Jane Franz, Ross Fewing, Shawn Lott

SAN JUAN OPICO GENERAL MEDICAL AND EYE SCREENING MISSION

February 13-22, 2010

Whenever I get a chance, I enjoy a hike or a long walk in the woods especially in the fall or early spring. This year, in the season of Lent, I was led into the desert of the Salvadoran community. As I read this reflection “God Is Fire” by Rev. Robert F. Dueweke, OSA in Living with Christ, I realized that the two trips I took to El Salvador this year were meant to be.

A campfire warms you in the cold night air. In silence and solitude you reflect on questions: “Who am I?” Where am I going?” What must I do now?” The campfire dies down, it crackles no more, and there are only ashes….The Lord says, “Return to me with all your heart!”…The gospel gives us the spiritual tools of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting for bringing cold embers back to life…Prayer? Discipleship? Enthusiasm? Joy? Hope? Trust? Perhaps we need to fast from noise and busyness in order to hear God speaking in the silence…to hear God in the cries of the poor and the stranger. As you leave the campfire, what is in your backpack?

My actual spiritual “hiking” trip started in January when I joined Randy Querin, Kathy Garcia and Sister Susan Dewitt to put together a Spanish video on cataract surgery for the people in El Salvador. This video would then be used as a teaching tool for the patients needing cataract surgery. Randy did such an incredible job in the filming and interviews that when we used it with the patients at San Juan Opico in February, the patients were interacting and dialoging with the video as they watched it, nodding, agreeing with a “si” or “aha” and at times answering back . These are the hiking moments of the soul that bring tears of joy and laughter in knowing that someone is being touched by what is being said to them personally. Some of these patients did have to take “hikes” to get to San Juan Opico in order to get some of their medical needs met in some way since means of transportation, for the most part, is unaffordable.

In this particular journey, I was reminded, “My plans are not your plans…” I had no clue that a month later, in February of 2010, I would be taking my second un-planned trip to San Salvador on a medical brigade with a group of PeaceHealth doctor, nurses, volunteers and interpreters plus optometrists and an optician. Most of us were strangers on the journey knowing maybe one or two people in the group at our initial encounter the night before our flight, but this too would soon change.

It was a Friday afternoon the 12^th of February when most of us gathered at a hotel close to SeaTac airport from which we would leave the next morning around 5:15 to catch our flight to San Salvador. Kathy Garcia had a conference room reserved as a working station where we were to gather and start our first phase in this important ministry. As we readied ourselves for our mission to El Salvador, tubs and more tubs, some full, some empty but not for long, waited as we unwrapped, sorted, and started filling them with donated items that came from generous agencies and hospitals.

As the night became shorter and the sun set low, so did our energy as we tried to have every tub filled, labeled and weighing no more than 50lbs. This was just a taste of more things to come when early Saturday morning the Hotel Marriot shuttle had to make two trips in order to load us and as many tubs it could possibly hold to take us to the airport.

Late on Saturday the 13^th, we arrived at San Salvador airport where a bus and a truck awaited us and all the tubs and luggage. An hour from the airport, we settled in at the Carmelite Retreat house that would be our place of stay for a week.

In this spiritual “hike”, there are three memorable markers that will stay with me in this season of Lent as I celebrated Valentines Day, Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), and Ash Wednesday in El Salvador with a caring and loving community “no longer strangers” but our brothers and sisters in Christ. I recall Jesus’ journey of how he was touched and moved by the needs of the people, especially the woman who reaches out to touch him in order to be healed and the blind man (Mark 10: 51-52) who calls out determined to be heard until Jesus sends for him and his sight is restored. I was touched by our lived experiences as well, and I came to see with a new lens when each day and each encounter brought us to tears of joy, tears of sadness, and tears of compassion.

Our mornings started at 5:30 with ringing of bells to wake up some sleepy heads. A wonderful breakfast awaited us every day at 6:00 am; our bus driver was ready to leave at 7:15 on the dot to make our journey to San Juan Opico, where we arrived each day at 8 in the morning, and where long lines of people from the surrounding areas waited in hopes to see a doctor and get some medical attention. We had set up clinic across from the Catholic Church in a building that had multiple uses of space and also served as quarters for the priest. For the most part, poverty is very high and these patients have no means to pay for a visit, so they can only see doctors at the overworked government clinic.

After our long days, “the campfire” continued as stories were shared on the bus and back at the retreat house. God was in the fire of the people of El Salvador; and in this fire, we bonded in ways that when we were ready to leave, one thing was very clear, we were no longer strangers but a community of friends; in this community of friends, we had shared meals, space and stories and supported each other with a hug, word of encouragement, a song, a smile or a joke after a long day at the clinic. Some of us may not have a chance to be reconnected in person, but we will be in one spirit of love and compassion.

Our mission was to bring hope with a healing touch, a hug, a smile and, for some, “ sight” to the blind and poor, yet, my sight was restored. This hike made very clear (no pun intended) to me what it means to truly see God in the face of our brothers and sisters. This is just a small view of what this “hike” was all about but, if you ever have a chance, “take a hike” and be changed.

Sister Amalia Camacho, CSJP