Guatemala trip eye-opener for Zionsville Christian Church youth group

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From left: Jim Wilkinson, Annie Evans, Emily Condrey, Gloria Vicente Par (missionary), Melissa Wilkinson, Maggie Quick, Catie Dimiceli, Alex Nelson, Logan Witt, Weston Estep, Brandon Quick, Grant Hall, Maggie Ganey, Felisha Stewart, Mike Nelson. (Submitted photo)
From left: Jim Wilkinson, Annie Evans, Emily Condrey, Gloria Vicente Par (missionary), Melissa Wilkinson, Maggie Quick, Catie Dimiceli, Alex Nelson, Logan Witt, Weston Estep, Brandon Quick, Grant Hall, Maggie Ganey, Felisha Stewart, Mike Nelson. (Submitted photo)

By Mark Ambrogi

Annie Evans gained a fresh perspective as part of her Zionsville Christian Church youth group trip to Guatemala.

“I was out of my comfort zone but I learned so much about what being a global citizen is ball about and how my life is so different,” the 15-year-old Evans said. “I’m so privileged to be in the situation I’ve been in for my entire life. It was an amazing experience to learn about a culture so very from own with a whole different set of problems. Thinking about problems that are your own and how I can solve them was eye-opening.”

Evans, who will be a junior at Culver Girls Academy, was part of a ZCC youth group mission trip. There were eight adults and 16 students from ZCC divided up in two visits. Evans was in the first group, which returned June 26. The group was let by ZCC youth pastor Jim Wilkinson and wife, Melissa, who were there for two weeks and returned July 5.

Wilkerson said the mission trip was a People to People pilgrimage, as part of Global Ministries.

“It’s a new kind of mission trip where we go down and try to establish relationships with groups in certain areas,” Wilkinson said. “We met with a lot of different groups and looked on how to develop a partnership where we’re learning from them and they’re learning from us. We might see some things we can do to help them and they may see some things to help us. It’s more of partnership.”

The ZCC group, which also helped with some jobs and activities, were guests of Ecumenical Christian Council of Guatemala, body which oversees human rights issues. One group Wilkinson said they are interested in helping was Mayan Weavers.

“It’s a group we felt in the area we live people identify with craftsmanship and handmade things are appreciated and we live in a community which can afford those kind of things,” Wilkinson said. “They’re trying to give women work and income for the family.”

Wilkinson said they could work with Weavers on raising funds for their own building.

“They could send their goods up here for us to sell,” said Wilkinson, adding the Weavers and ZCC could benefit from sale proceeds.

The ZCC groups also learned about Guatemalan’s violent history. The group visited the National Police Archives, which had documents regarding human rights violations during the Guatemalan Civil War, which ran from 1960 to 1996.

“The sub-government group was investigating things that maybe the government was not looking to be uncovered,” Evans said. “They found this warehouse in 1997 and there was 80 million documents and they’ve only gone through a third of the documents.”

Wilkinson said there was an estimated 250,000 Guatemalans that were killed or went missing during the war.

The ZCC group’s bus driver, a former teacher, talked about how teachers were targeted because of their political beliefs.

“He said he had to go into hiding for periods of time and said they would pull teachers out of the school that he was in and they would find the bodies the next day,” Wilkinson said. “At that time it was dangerous to be a teacher because of the opposition they had against the government.”


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