TEACH A PERSON TO FISH

For the past year I have been working with a group of youth - Pastoral Social Juvenil. We celebrated our one year anniversary in October. Their main goal is to serve the poorest in their community. It has been a full year of projects; visiting the sick, making hot meals for the elderly, running a reading program for children, and building homes.
Above is the logo of our t-shirt. They chose the color green because it means ESPERANZA- HOPE. The fish became the groups symbol after a retreat that my co-adviser, Jesùs, and I coordinated, encouraging them to look at their gifts and talents and how the group could best use them to serve the poorest in their community.

Fishes and Loaves

What really happened that day when thousands of people gathered to listen to Jesus and they were hungry? All were fed, but how? I have heard people say that perhaps the greater miracle was that people pulled out what they had with them, all ate and there were leftovers. Lesson learned....

Share what you have

and there will be enough

and then some!

There are so many needs and not enough resources. Some of the people we had helped continued to ask for food and help. We, Jesùs and I encouraged the youth to find ways to empower the people rather then give, give, give by using....

Give a person a fish, feed them for a day

Teach a person to fish, feed them for a lifetime.

The youth helping each other fish

The group with the banner they made during the retreat. Each person traced their hand and wrote the different gifts and talents they had to share. The basket in front holds the fish they caught. During the final prayer each offered their fish while sharing their committment and gifts they will bring to the group.

In the end we challenged the youth to think about the people that they were helping. They too have gifts and talents. What might the people have to share with us?

Visiting the Sick

Who helped whom? The people were so happy to have the youth visit them and we learned much from them through their incredible life stories.

The Pilgrimage

On November 15th we took the youth group on an excursion. First we visited the Cathedral with the tomb of Oscar Romero. Second we visited a park with a wall engraved with many of the people who were killed during the war. The next stop was to the place where Monsenor Romero lived and was shot during the mass. The final stop was at the University of Central America where we met up with thousands of others from through-out the country, North Americans and Europeans celebrating the 19th Anniversary of the death of 6 Jesuit priests and two women.