There is a deep connection between our work as volunteers and visitors and the work of those in more permanent pastoral ministry. Those in pastoral ministry means Fathers Greg and John, Fathers David and John Francis, the catechists, the directors of Catholic Action and Charismatic Renewal, the project heads, and so on. Our work is always both an extension of and a participation in their work. What we should be doing is intimately linked with what they are already doing – and what they want to be doing.

     Even the work of those whose lives are consecrated to full-time pastoral service, the priests, is subject to the direction and will of the broader faith community. The priests here understand this well and are faithful to employ its truth in all they do.

     Seeding and weeding with the reforestation project is an opportunity to participate in Toribio Chajil’s ministry of teaching the stewardship of creation. Construction is a link with Lucas Xirúc’s concern for adequate facilities in which his neighbors can live, receive health care, etc. Tending the herbs in the medicinal garden is to affirm Victor Chajil’s vision of natural and traditional health promotion. Sorting and roasting coffee beans is an involvement in the great effort to allow average farmers the means to support their own lives, free of domineering corporate interests. Surveying and digging water lines is a participation in making life both livable and enjoyable. Going to Mass on a finca or in another community is a building of the larger Body of Christ. Even writing this book is an opportunity to participate in Father Greg’s appreciation of reverse mission, educating those who support the parish on the causes of and solutions to the process of poverty while celebrating with them the goodness of the people of San Lucas Tolimán.

     The volunteer program is a self-starting program. Nobody tells us what to do. We look for service opportunities and become involved in them as much or as little as we want. Our consciences are our primary sources of accountability. Thus, it is easy to just do what we want to do, on our own, with no connection to the larger picture.

     Remaining connected may be elusive, but it is essential. We are never to pursue our own agendas. To do so, to be outside of the church’s pastoral ministry to, with, by, and for the poor whom we came to serve, would make us the ones living in poverty. Entering into the pastoral picture, we find the richness of Jesus in the people we serve, in our fellow servants, and in ourselves.