Finca life is difficult; the history of these plantations overflows with stories and evidences of injustices. The people who had lived on and worked Finca Santa Teresa, several miles south of San Lucas, discovered the relative powerlessness of those who do not own their own land. Unable to comply with the impossible workload demands of the finca’s new owner, they entered a long, legally complex labor dispute in the middle of 1997 – and lost.

     They were fortunate to receive a settlement, a severance pay that allowed these ninety families to purchase a pasture far to the south of Santa Teresa. This is a temporary dwelling; the Parroquia has purchased for them and is developing an area of land to the north of San Lucas. It will be quite a while before that land, called El Rosario, will be ready for habitation. The pasture, with its intense, low-altitude heat, will be home to this community for at least a year and a half.

     They named their new land Santa Teresita. Within two weeks, they erected houses, planted corn and flowers, and did what they could to make this land livable. While the matter was in court, the law did not allow them to seek other work; after the settlement, they hired themselves out to various, scattered jobs. The parish, the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging, and people acting on their own assisted this displaced community in the purchase of the pasture, the construction of houses, and the provision of food.

     On Wednesday, September 3, 1997, the people of Santa Teresa made their final exit from the finca. With the statues from their chapel, the saints who had always accompanied them, they processed from Santa Teresa to Santa Teresita.

     I was honored to participate in this procession. I participated in their leaving an old, familiar home for an unknown future. I participated in their paradox; they were leaving comfort and apparent stability, yet they were straining toward a freedom that had always been a dream, the freedom of owning and living upon their own land.

     I share this story of their departure from Finca Santa Teresa in order to celebrate the goodness and beauty of the people of this community.

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     Shortly after 8:00 a.m., overflowing pickups arrived at Santa Teresa, driving up from the south, from the pasture that has become Santa Teresita. These pickups were filled with people returning one last time to land they had only recently been able to call home.

     When they entered the finca, the people roamed through the abandoned property. When they set up their new houses in Santa Teresita, they took from their old houses at the finca absolutely everything they could: roofs, walls, pipes, pilas (used for washing clothes), firewood, everything. There was not much left to the residence area of the finca except foundations, concrete block walls, and piles of rubble.

     Many families headed to the foundations and concrete skeletons that had supported their homes. Some sat, some slowly wandered, and some looked for nails, bolts, wires, anything that was left to take. One man took a hoe and dug up two water pipes that lay beneath the road in front of the chapel, thirty to forty feet of pipe that would be useful at either their temporary location at Santa Teresita or their future home in El Rosario.

     The young children played, helped their parents, sat around, and watched. Overall, they were fairly excited by this new venture. They were too young to fully understand what was happening to their families.

     The youth gathered together to talk and to look around at the finca. They knew very well what was happening. This experience was surely forming them in their movement toward adulthood. They will remember both finca life and all that has taken place to bring them and their families a new life of hopeful freedom.

     The adults mostly had somber looks on their faces. Parents and grandparents, these are the people who have sown and reaped crops, families, memories, and traditions throughout this land, this land that had never been either legally or securely theirs but which had supported them all their lives. They received life and its lessons upon this land and passed them down to their children and to their children’s children. They now spoke little, except to discuss the practical matters at hand.

     Eventually, everyone congregated in the large, screened patio at the entrance of the chapel.

     The service began with song, followed by several scripture readings. One reading was taken from the beginning of the book of Genesis: God had given the land to the people he had created so that they might nurture it and be nurtured by it. Father John Goggin spoke about the land, how the land had blessed the community, how they had blessed the land by their presence, their work, their children, and their lives. They had cooperated with God in the use of this land. Father John also spoke of the hope that this will continue in their new land.

     They prayed a litany of the saints, asking the prayers of all the holy ones who have gone into eternal rest. It began with the apostles and moved through many of the saints and martyrs of Christian history. The last two saints were predictable but nonetheless emotionally powerful: Santa Teresa, pray for us; Santa Teresita, pray for us.

     Several members of the community spoke. These were elders remembering the old times, speaking of how the plantation had started with few people and no coffee processing capabilities, of how some women sold items by the roadside to try to earn a little extra income, of how life on the finca had progressed over the years they had lived and worked there. They recounted how blessed they were to have shared life together in this place.

     Following the service, all of the people gathered in front of the chapel to be photographed as a community, a community only moments from leaving their homes of many years. Many tears flowed. Many hearts were torn. The situation, the absolutely unjust labor expectations of the finca’s new owner, told them that they had no choice but to leave, but their memories and emotions would not and could not be expected to allow that truth to make the leaving even remotely easy.

     Everything from within the church had already been placed onto a pickup, which now left for Santa Teresita. All that remained were two platforms, one with a statue of Jesus the Nazarene and one with statues of Joseph and Mary with Santa Teresa between them. With these statues, the community slowly processed through part of the finca. The elders walked at the front; one carried incense. They processed as far as the main house, turned around, and made their way to the finca’s entrance.

     At the entrance, the entire group stopped. This would be their formal and final farewell, their last steps out of what had been home. They prayed. They prayed for the land and for themselves. They prayed in thanksgiving. They prayed with anticipation.

     Slowly, the procession crossed the threshold of Santa Teresa and moved out into the highway. Making their way slowly to the south, toward their new and hopefully only temporary home, the people sang songs of life, of praise and thanksgiving, of faith and salvation.

     As they walked, the spirit of the group slowly changed from the sadness of leaving to the excitement of anticipation. Moving away from the painful and toward the hopeful, they became a joyful procession with song, laughter, and spirited discussions.

     This first stretch of walking lasted an hour, ending at the small town of Santa Cruz Quixayá, where that community rang its church bell enthusiastically in welcome and solidarity. These people, too, had once been a finca. They, too, have moved toward freedom.

     From Quixayá, everyone piled into pickups and rode quickly down to just north of Finca San Julián. While waiting for all to arrive, the people gathered and rested under a large ceiba tree, the national tree of Guatemala. Once everyone was there, the procession resumed, moving through San Julián and into the pasturelands beyond it.

     This last stretch of road grew quite hot. Away from the mountains and into the pastures, there was little protection from the sun. Most men were sheltered by their sombreros; many women wore cloths over their heads. Mothers broke off large banana leaves to shade their children from the sun’s harsh rays.

     Despite the heat and the sun, the excitement of the people grew. Their destination was near.

     Thirty minutes past San Julián, Santa Teresita appeared to the left of the highway, its distinct structures of hastily but well constructed houses a welcome sight for the walkers. Still singing, the procession entered the land and wound its way through the houses to a low area near the river.

     Under large, lofty trees, all came to a final rest, setting down the platforms with their statues and quickly erecting an altar adorned with the candles, flowers, and incense which accompanied and led the procession from its start. Here, under the shade, in the coolest part of their new home, they celebrated Mass, offering to God and thanking him for who they are as a community and where they would now be able to live.

     After the liturgy, Father John blessed children as parents brought them to him. Antonio Sabúc, a leader of the Catholic community there, spoke on behalf of the people. He thanked the parish for all of its assistance. He thanked Father John for his dedicated work with them. He thanked Father Greg Schaffer, who was at that time in the United States raising money for the acquisition and development of El Rosario. He thanked all who had accompanied the procession and had helped in the celebrations of this day.

     For the people of Santa Teresita, home changed its name and its face. With this changed home, however, has come a new hope. Hope for a vastly more independent life has increased and has been this community’s strength as they accepted their loss in court, pulled down their old houses and built new ones, and made this final exit from the finca.

     Their journey is not over; they continue to walk together with hope toward and into the future.