Some background history

Since 1988 I have been living permanently in Asunción. In ’87, although the dictatorship was still in full swing, the Jesuits asked me to go to Paraguay for a semester, using the Bible to bring inspiration to the young people in the suburbs of Asunción, as all the biblical scholars in the country had been expelled by the dictatorial regime. The advantage was that I was a woman; they didn’t expect anything from me, so it wasn’t dangerous. I lived in the Jesuit house for a month, and then with the Paraguayan Congregation “Evangelical Life”.

We began as Rscj in ’88 with a small “foundation” community of three, belonging to the Brazilian province: Pilar Repullés, Odette Matos and yours truly.

What the Paraguayan people have shown me about Jesus’ God

In Paraguay I try, as far as I can, to live the life of the people, just like the neighbours in our street. With this style of life, closely united to the people’s with all its problems, and with my daily Bible study, I become daily more unshakably convinced that the God of the Bible has a Passion: the People, His People.

When I arrived, I already had a great love for my German people, my “valley”, in spite of spending so many decades abroad. I’m still sad, even after so many years, at being away from my people, but I see that my mission is here now. So I transform that sorrow into love and service for the Paraguayan people. I have discovered in living with them, that they are dearly loved by God, for their desire to put into practice the reciprocity that places the Other on the same level as oneself, and for not being able to do so fully in this world of competition, of “commercial and technological development” and of “progress”.

In these 17 years of living with the Paraguayan people, the Lord has shown me his great Compassion for the small, weak peoples of this world, such as Israel in biblical times, and Paraguay today. Paraguayans have a great capacity for human relations; their human quality and their sensitivity can be compared to the very fine lace that the women here are skilled in making

The NGOs are in despair because the average Paraguayan doesn’t aspire to great things, and so they consider the people extremely “underdeveloped”; of course, in reality they have found a “greater treasure”: simple human relationships, so in accord with the Gospel. There is also the other side: some of the people do have a fierce desire for wealth and power. They represent the flip side of that Gospel quality; they are hugely destructive of the social fabric. It is their fault that there is such an unjust distribution of the nation’s goods; that is Paraguay’s true poverty. In a corrupt judicial system in which there is nowhere to turn to claim one’s rights, a situation of total abandonment, the people seek refuge in an image of God that is sometimes very different from mine; but in their admirable faith they entrust themselves to his divine will and hope in his divine  providence. They know how to wait with dignity, until finally their indignation explodes. Foreigners often interpret it as fatalism, as does a world in which humans try to be the makers and shapers of all human happiness. But our simple people let God be the greatest; they know how to suffer with deep feeling, and they love life, precisely because each day they have to battle anew just to survive.

What that gives me life in Paraguay

The deepest feeling I get from living in Paraguay is precisely this love for the Paraguayan people; there I have met God’s presence and new features of his divine face. They have given me a new focus and a new feeling for life. I see it as my present mission to bring God’s Word to them in their journey through history, to awaken young people’s awareness and identity through courses, workshops, classes, leaflets, articles. Of course I keep on working in a team: with the Jesuits, Christian Life Communities, some NGOs, the Co-ordination of Pastoral Work with Indigenous People, Conferpar, The Institute of Applied Anthropology, CELADEC, etc. I admit that I’m idealistic, they tell me so in a loving way, and I tell them that idealism is needed too, as well as other things. I feel I make my own small contribution to the whole gathering of dreamers who seek and collaborate in the construction of Another Paraguay. For example we are forming a team called “Project for the Country”, since the Government has no National project; I’m in the Culture section with Father Meliá SJ and others.

From the Gospel and from my experience of life, I can see that if we want to change anything, we have to begin by living it ourselves. The “big house” will conform to the pattern of the little houses. The values we want for the new Paraguay will not exist in the big house unless we live them at home. The same is true on the geographical level: I know that the new country we are dreaming about has to begin in its own hinterland, and for many years I have given much time to that. Recently, because journeys are tiring, I have not done so, and I feel that I have been negligent in that. My dream is to go and live in the Interior of this country with the people who are most on the fringe and forgotten.