By Michael d’Esterre

Guatemala – a riddle in its own right – continues to teach me even though the mission adventure is far behind me now. I cannot help but reflect once in a while on the differences between the way they live and the comfortable life we live in the United States.

There is no way to clearly explain everything I encountered in Guatemala. What I learned I am still processing and some of what I learned I have forgotten. It is difficult to take what one learns in another environment and apply it to one’s own. This was especially true for me of what I will dub the “Guat-Shock.”

The Guat-Shock is an event which I will always treasure because of the challenges it presented: not being able to understand their language, being a different skin color, completely different living styles, “poverty,” worship of God; these are a few examples of the many that made it a difficult, yet rewarding experience.

When I signed up to go on the mission trip, I really did not have any idea why I did other than God calling me to. I did not know what to expect, and even though we had many people describe what their experience was like in Guatemala (thank you to all who offered us insights), we still were not prepared for the shock of what life is like in Guatemala.

Many of us struggled throughout the trip trying to understand how these people could be happy with what they have. I remember one in our group sharing one night with us, how he saw some families with TVs and other gifts from different countries, and he pointed out, “that sure they will accept these gifts but they do not really make them any happier than they were.”

This really struck me. Here we are, all trying to send money and things to the people of Third World countries, so they can have what we have and it does not really make them happier! Sure they need basic needs like food, drink and decent living and health arrangements, but do they really need TV and other commercial products that we so commonly use?

I would like to share an excerpt from my journal, which I kept while on the trip. It is the last page before we returned home. “We were uncomfortable being there in a place where people had so little. I think commercialization has programmed us to think we need so many things, and that is why we feel uncomfortable with less staring us in the face. It is a feeling of wanting them to be comfortable, but in reality it is us who want to feel comfortable and not have our consciences plague us by the feeling that we have more than we need.

Society wants us to feel a need for things and that feeling saturates us so much that we place it in others as well. They are perfectly happy with less, so should we be satisfied with less?”

I share this reflection because it really struck a chord with me. I do not believe we should stop giving to the poor, but what I realized while in Guatemala is that, more than anything, they desire love. Sometimes all that takes is acknowledging them as part of the human family.

I would like to end with a challenge to all who read this. If you cannot make a trip down to visit our brothers and sisters in Christ in Guatemala, write a letter of greeting to the mission and the people of Guatemala. Ask Father Hazelton to share it with the congregation after Mass. Let them know that you care about them. Let them know that they are loved by Christ – through you.


Michael d’Esterre, a junior majoring in psychology at Carroll College, was among the pilgrimage group that visited the mission in May of last year. A group of students from the University of Missoula/Christ the King Parish will visit the Guatemala mission this May, along with Father Jeff Fleming.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 24, No. 4, April 18, 2008.