FRIENDS OF SAN LUCAS
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Mission Statement
"The Friends of San Lucas was created to carry on the legacy of Fr. Greg Schaffer, by listening, responding to, and walking in solidarity with the people of San Lucas Toliman in an effort to alleviate the suffering and dependency created by the ‘process of poverty’.” We recognize that we are to be a bridge, to share with our brothers and sisters in the United States of America who have been associated with our mission, by offering hospitality, and by sharing the culture, struggles, hopes, and aspirations of the people of Guatemala and through this avenue of solidarity provide funding to keep the projects going. As Jesus responded to people and their needs, we believe that it is or mission to respond to the expressed felt needs of the people of San Lucas Toliman and the surrounding area, that form the larger community. We will uphold the Christian Social Doctrine that Fr. Greg weaved through all his decisions and practices.
About This Cause
Mission History/Overview The San Lucas Mission was originally founded as by the Franciscan order in the late 16th Century, with the building of the Mission Church around 1584. In 1958, as the Catholic Church in Rome called for greater involvement of clergy and lay people in world missions, the Diocese of New Ulm responded by launching a diocesan partnership with the Diocese of Sololá, Guatemala. Fr. Greg Schaffer, a diocesan priest from New Ulm, began serving as pastor of the San Lucas Mission in 1962. Perhaps one of the most well-known missions in Guatemala, its long-term devotion has been the enhancement and enrichment of the whole person – spiritually, intellectually, and physically – by addressing both the immediate effects of poverty and its underlying causes. Through listening to the expressed-felt need of the people, the philosophy of the San Lucas Mission attempts to respond, as Jesus did, to the needs of the people. The Mission programs began addressing the needs for housing, healthcare and nutrition, education, and land - all attending to the integral human development of the community. Beginning 45 years ago, San Lucas was a small village of cornstalk homes with thatched roofs, lacking both electricity and plumbing. There were neither health care facilities nor schools and women and children suffered severely from the lack of healthcare, with many women dying in childbirth and children suffering as a result of malnutrition. Education, inaccessible to the majority of the Maya population, perpetuated discrimination against the Maya, who were consequently unable to find employment off of the coffee plantations. Land ownership, with which the people could live and raise their own crops, constituted the gravest of injustices, having resulted in the systemization of land deprivation with huge disparities in rural land ownership. Through the initiatives begun by the Mission, San Lucas is now a village of cement block and stone homes, built by local stone masons and carpenters trained in mission programs. Free healthcare and nutrition programs, including dental facilities and an eye clinic, are also available to the people. Through education, the people of San Lucas have taken advantage of the opportunity to advance. Very proudly, many of today’s Maya teachers, doctors, engineers and lawyers of San Lucas have been educated in the mission’s programs. The literacy rate, around 2.5% when the Mission school began, is now more than 85%. For youth interested in pursuing post-secondary schooling, the mission provides annual scholarships and for others there is an apprenticeship program, through which students gain training in agriculture, stone masonry, carpentry, electricity, and plumbing. With respect to land ownership, perhaps the most significant of the mission’s programs, the San Lucas Mission has undertaken the restoration of land and livelihood to the landless Maya majority - over the last 35 years more than 4000 families have received 3 acre plots of land. In listening to the expressed felt need of the people, the San Lucas Mission has attempted to address situations of injustice, promoting as its base the structural and systemic change that is necessary in addressing the process of poverty and its underlying causes. Shortly after Fr. Greg's death, the Diocese of Solola made a decision to continue supporting the spiritual and sacramental needs of the San Lucas Mission, asking the 'Asociation Action Cristiana de San Lucas' to take over the handling of the legal and financial aspects of the mission. The 'Asociation Action Cristiana de San Lucas is a group legally formed by Fr. Greg, back in 1974, to help govern the land acquisitions and legal aspects of the ongoing projects associated with the mission. At about the same time, the New Ulm Diocese began planning and developing a 501c3 non-profit organization called 'The Friends of San Lucas’. This non-profit organization will be in charge of all of the legal and financial responsibilities in the U.S. associated with the San Lucas Mission, including fundraising, communications with donors, administration of the coffee program, developing the volunteer and visitor programs and other associated obligations, tasks and proceedings previously handled by the Diocese. The Board of Directors of the Association de Action Cristiana include: Dr. Rafael Tun and Raul Lec, co-directors; Margarito Mucia, Julio Morales, Ramiro Coche, Francisco Garcia, Encarnacion Ajcot, Abraham Hernandez, and Pablo Benedicto Zantizo.