2021 SOS Theme
2020 was a difficult year for the world, for our organization, and for the Maya of Guatemala. Before the COVID Pandemic set in, SOS made its 65th trip to Guatemala on our Vision/Surgical Mission in February 2020. We served almost 750 people in the vision clinic in the first week and performed almost 90 surgeries (cataract and pterygia) the second week. Our surgery team returned home just weeks before everything shut down.
Since our that mission, the pandemic set in and unfortunately SOS has not been able to return to Guatemala. While this is sad for us and some of us here have gone through some very tough times, the pandemic has been very hard on the indigenous Maya that we visit on all of our missions. The local government issued “stay at home” orders, closed all roads going in and out of Joyabaj, and closed the vital community open market where the Maya purchase food and many earn an income selling the produce of local growers. Consequently, many families soon faced starvation.
You may not hear about how SOS has helped during this crisis on your local news, but you can read about some of the things we are doing HERE.
SOS is a ministry of presence, our community of supporters and missionaries know we work to help our Maya neighbors and we share their experiences. We have marched with them side by side in joy filled parades and now we feel the suffering they are enduring.
Pope Francis knows the impact of doing for others out of love:
“…our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people, people often overlooked. People who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines, or on the latest television show, yet in these very days are surely shaping the decisive events of our history. Doctors, nurses, storekeepers and supermarket workers, cleaning personnel, caregivers, transport workers, men and women working to provide essential services and public safety, volunteers, priests, men and women religious, and so very many others. They understood that no one is saved alone… How many people daily EXERCISE PATIENCE and OFFER HOPE, taking care to spread not panic, but shared responsibility. How many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers are showing our children, in small everyday ways, how to accept and deal with a crisis by adjusting their routines, looking ahead and encouraging the practice of prayer. How many are praying, making sacrifices and interceding for the good of all.” - Pope Francis, Meditation in the Time of Pandemic (27 March 2020)
“Each of us can discover in Joseph – the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet and hidden presence – an intercessor, a support and a guide in times of trouble. Saint Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation. A word of recognition and of gratitude is due to them all.” - Pope Francis, With a Father’s Heart (8 December 2020)
SOS has adopted this as our 2021 theme, a line that Pope Francis mentions:
“EXERCISE PATIENCE AND OFFER HOPE!”
In 2021 we are patiently waiting to be with our Maya brothers and sisters again and we are excited and hope filled about all the work and planning that is being done. SOS strives to be like St. Joseph, “a daily, discreet and hidden presence” to those we meet.
Stay tuned as we continue to communicate about upcoming activities, special events, and plans for 2022!
Our Lady of Guadalupe... Pray for us!
St. Joseph... Pray for us!
Bl. Stanley Rother... Pray for us!
Martyrs of Quiché... Pray for us!
Maltiox! (“Thank you” in Maya Quiché)