By Jim Tackes
Special to The Montana Catholic

I have taken all summer to digest my experiences of my recent trip to our diocesan mission in Guatemala and even now hesitate to put my thoughts down on paper. Words so often feel inadequate when you are speaking from the heart.

A question that is frequently asked of me is, “How have things changed over the last 45 years?” I remember very vividly what Santo Tomas was like when I first established my presence there. I didn’t know anyone. I spoke Spanish very poorly, but then, most of the people only spoke K’iche. I was a threat to the people whose job it was to guard the church, a threat to the coffee buyers who were taking advantage of families growing coffee.

There were no medical services to speak of and no education for 95 percent of the people. I was a threat to groups who had developed their own types of worship over the many years without a resident priest. And besides all this, I didn’t have a place to hang my hat. But I did have a small group of people who were committed to the Catholic faith, and some catechists who were willing to put their lives on the line. The only communication to back home from Santo Tomas was by letter and there were only a small number of villages we served that could be reached by four-wheel drive.

Now 45 years later, this is what I saw: A piece of property on the road as you enter Santo Tomas that was given to us by a lady who had a small coffee plantation where we have our residential facilities for Father Jim Hazelton, the two BVM sisters – Sister Ana Priester and Sister Mary Waddell, and Sheila McShane, as well as guest quarters. There is also a large clinic that serves hundreds of people each week, a facility where plants are grown and processed for herbal medicinal purposes and are made available to people, and facilities where people can meet for a great variety of activities.

Everywhere one looks, there has been change, but let me first of all mention a few things that have not changed: Majorities of the people are still at a very basic poverty level and live from day to day. They are still warm, loving and generous with the few material things they might have. On the morning that I was leaving, a family walked some distance to see me and wish me well. They brought a gift, some fruit, which I’m sure they could have used themselves. I was surprised to find a good number of people who still remembered me and still others (now adults) who had been named after me. Even though I hadn’t used Spanish for all these years, I was amazed that I could still communicate with people on a one-to-one basis. Two people who came to Guatemala during my years there, Father Hazelton and Sheila McShane, are still there. They are totally dedicated to serving these people, as are Sisters Ana and Mary, who joined the mission team in 1986. After only five days at the mission, in some ways it felt like I had never left the place.

Many changes have taken place in the areas of education, health care, growth in numbers of those actively practicing their Catholic faith, a thriving coffee cooperative, use of the native language, K’iche, in liturgies, the presence of the BVM Sisters on our staff, changes in village life, transportation and communication, and growth in population.

Education: What Father Hazelton has accomplished in the area of education is beyond what I would have imagined in my wildest dreams. He began by promoting and facilitating the improvement and development of primary schools in the villages. Once that process began functioning sufficiently well, producing students who then wanted to continue on to secondary education, he made the decision 11 years ago to begin a secondary school. This has now grown to this year’s enrollment of 585 students. The school provides boarding facilities for 100 girls who live too far away to commute. As successful as this might be, Father Hazelton is always scrambling to cover the costs involved. He can always use additional help to eliminate the day-to-day financial pressures.

Health care: Our reaching out to sick persons began with my giving out aspirin, giving shots of penicillin and pulling an occasional tooth. It wasn’t until Sheila McShane and Emma Jean Reis arrived in 1965 that we opened a clinic. Over the years this operation has grown so that today we have a rather sophisticated operation with natives filling nearly all the positions, including a doctor. Sheila was the backbone during the formative years of the clinic. Sister Mary Waddell joined the clinic in 1986 and Sheila returned again several years ago. Each day brings lines of those who are ill, waiting for the clinic to open. I also know few days go by when hard decisions don’t need to be made, when someone’s illness needs treatment that they cannot provide.

Spiritual growth: While spiritual growth is difficult to determine by statistics, there is a variety of indicators that were very obvious to me. Many more villages have their own church buildings and the ones that originally had churches have now expanded to two and three times their original size. I accompanied Father Hazy to several remote villages where churches were filled and many were being married and others baptized. These were places I had to walk to when I was there, one as much as four hours away. This day we were able to drive to them in about 45 minutes, although the road was probably worse than most of you have ever experienced. It was a significant experience for me to see Father Hazy preside at the celebration of the Eucharist using the native language. There were many requests for prayers at each of these villages. Many of these were from family members who have gone to the U.S. to find work to support their families back home. I often wondered if any arrested at the meat processing plant in Iowa were from these communities.

Coffee cooperative: During my first years at the mission, I encouraged and helped the men in one of the villages, Pasac, to work towards forming a coffee cooperative so that they could, as a group, obtain much more for their coffee at harvest time. They were well on the way to doing this when I returned to the States. I learned later that they had been successful. Before I arrived for this visit, I was informed that they were having a celebration while I was there.

I was amazed to find that they had a cooperative office, a large metal storage/processing facility, a big truck to haul coffee and concrete slabs in which they could dry coffee. There were six men still living whom I had worked with during those early years. They now have more than 200 members, including women. Women working as equals with men indicated a huge step into the 21st century.

BVM Sisters: The two BVM Sisters joined the mission in 1986, a time when there was still a revolution in progress. Sister Mary Waddell filled the coordinator’s position at the clinic. She played a significant role in helping the clinic to continue to survive and grow during those difficult years. Sister Ana Priester was key in helping with parish activities and working with women who were weavers, et cetera, at a time when this was also badly needed. It is good to still see their presence there after all these years.

While a few seeds were planted by those of us who started the mission, the people mentioned in this article, Father Hazelton, Sheila McShane, Sister Mary Waddell, Sister Ana Priester and many more have worked long and hard cultivating and watering those seeds. To see some of the fruits now being harvested was very satisfying for me. To see what the mission has become and the many lives that have been touched makes me feel blessed to have been a small part of it.

Heartfelt and generous thanks to Archbishop Hunthausen and the diocese for having extended our diocesan Church to reach beyond our own borders and to touch the hearts and souls of people in one small part of Guatemala.

If you’d like to assist the Guatemala Mission, donations can be made through the Pastoral and Renewal Services Office at the Chancery, phone 1-800-584-8914 (in MT) or 406-442-5820; mailing address: P.O. Box 1729, Helena, MT 59624-1729.

Jim Tackes was the first pastor of the diocesan mission in Guatemala and the constructor of its first buildings, including the clinic, the rectory, and guest house that many still use and enjoy. Clinic director Sheila McShane noted that “he contributed greatly to the mission’s initial beginnings in the years he was here.”


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 24, No. 11, November 21, 2008.