By C.B.Hanif
The blessings are likely to be mutual once again this month when Monsignor Tom Skindeleski, of St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church in Delray Beach, leads his ninth annual Knights of Columbus father-and-son contingent in service to indigenous people in the rain forests of Guatemala.
“We construct anything from student desks to putting in tile floors for the computer room in the school,” he said. “We put in a section floor of a dormitory one year in which we were able to sleep 100 more students in the dormitory.”
Add to that selfless service the bonding between fathers and sons. “These young fellows have come back totally moved by a Third World experience in which, while they thought they were helping others, they also express how the others have really helped them to come to another understanding of different peoples, different countries, different cultures.”
The school is the Father Tom Moran Education Center, named for the retired priest who, while serving villages around Livingston, in eastern Guatemala, established two-room schoolhouses to start self-supporting educational communities.
Steve Dudenhoefer expanded that effort to the high school now serving 650 students through Ak’Tenamit, a community development organization run by the Maya. “Ak’Tenamit means ‘New Village,’ and that’s what they’re creating after years of civil war ravaged the villages,” Skindeleski said.
The up to 14 travelers, as young as 13, include the state treasurer of the Knights — the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization, with nearly two million members. Lodging is financed by the local parish Knights and a state council grant. The men are asked to cover their airfare.
They give up a week — July 17-25 this year. After an overnight stay in Guatemala City there’s a five-hour bus and boat ride to Livingston, 145 miles away. Then each day it’s 25 minutes each way by motor launch up the river to work — waterways being how locals, including the students, get around.
The Knights are helping the country develop its best resource. Some of those students are becoming trilingual — in their local dialect, Spanish and English for computers. No wonder Skindeleski said the government wants to expand the program of schools and clinics to three other sites.
Barely back from the June close of the “Year For Priests,” an international gathering of priests with Pope Benedict XVI in Rome, Skindeleski will lead yet another group in the path of Brother Pedro Betancourt, who in dedicating his life to service of the poor, ill and otherwise unfortunate, became Guatemala’s first saint.
Skindeleski said the Mayan people have a rich, centuries-old heritage, which they share in their own way despite their material poverty. “Everybody comes back uplifted” as a result of the spiritual and cultural exchange. “Tired maybe. But uplifted by the experience.”
C.B. Hanif is a writer and inter-religious affairs consultant. Find him at www.interfaith21.com
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