In the Spotlight - Sara Salguero, International Relations and Co-Director of Casa Bernabe

Today, as we continue checking in with our staff on the ground in Guatemala during these uncertain days, we get to hear from Sara Salguero. As directors of Casa Bernabe, Edgar and Sara Salguero carry the weight of responsibility on behalf of the 200 individuals, staff and children alike, within the walls of Casa Bernabe. Sara shares her heart and how she is bearing up under the weight of all of this.

I pulled into the parking lot of CB last Friday and quickly made an SOS Marco Polo call to one of my dearest friends. I tried to hold back the tears but the essence of my message was, “Pray for me…I am really struggling today.”

It had been 2 weeks since Guatemala’s first known COVID-19 case, and up until that point, I had been managing fairly well…not perfectly but functioning without any major breakdowns. But then Friday, its like the dam was starting to leak, and I knew was ready to burst at any moment.

I was worried for my parents. My mom works in a hospital, and I feared for both her and my dad especially…if they were exposed, how serious would it be? Would they be a statistic? Here I am 1000’s of miles away, and I wouldn’t even be able to say goodbye. I was mourning the fact that the tickets we had just purchased only a few weeks before for this summer more than likely weren’t going to be able to be used, and suddenly, I started wondering when the day would come again that I would be able to travel to see my family.

I couldn’t help but think about all the “what if” scenarios if this virus really started to get out of hand down here in Guatemala. We were still only in the 20’s but I knew it wouldn’t be long until that number got even higher. What would it mean for this country? Could our already broken health care system handle masses amount of people falling critically ill?

Secretly, I harbored fear that maybe I was a carrier myself. I had been battling a cold for a couple of weeks and even though my symptoms started prior to even the first known case and even though my symptoms didn’t even match up exactly, the fact that I had developed a cough made me fear that maybe I not only had it but was in fact inadvertently infecting everyone around us. I wanted to stay home but at the same time knew there was so much that needed to be done. Plus I had been checked by a doctor…why when normally I wouldn’t think of this as anything more than a cold, I suddenly was convinced it could be a fatal disease?

But really my deep burden…the one I just couldn’t shake and under whose weight I could no longer stand was for my amazing staff at CB. We had already been without cooks, cleaning personal, and over half of our teachers for a couple of weeks, so much of our staff had to pick up extra work on top of caring for our kiddos. Since school hadn’t been in session, we were having to figure out ways to keep life as normal as possible for the kids/youth, but we also had to creatively figure out ways to keep them busy. I knew my staff was tired, and without knowing how long life was going to continue this way, I feared that it was going to be too much eventually. Most of our staff was choosing to stay on campus even during their off times as to limit chances of exposure, but that also meant not near the kind of rest that they normally would be getting. Our kiddos were starting to panic about the fact that they weren’t getting their usual visits with biological family and starting to fear that their families might get sick and they wouldn’t know about it.

My heart was heavy. I needed to cry but I knew that once I started, I might not be able to stop. I finished my Marco Polo and headed up for our weekly time of worship and prayer. I tried to avoid any straight on eye contact for fear that I might not be able to keep my composure. I gathered with my kids in the middle of all our other kids and staff and the music started. I am not even sure we were all the way through the first song, when the dam broke. The tears poured. My kids looked at one another and at me with the silent question, “Is Mama okay? Why is she crying like that?”

But as I sang these songs amidst this community of people that I had grown to love so deeply, I was broken. Collectively we were all lifting our voices to our Heavenly Father, releasing all of the tension and fear and confusion and worry and sadness that had been plaguing each of us differently throughout the last two weeks. We raised our hands and closed our eyes and let our voices sing as loud as they could…Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!!! Then we gathered in small groups to prayer for one another…for our kids, for our staff, for our country, for our world. We asked God to forgive us our sins and to use this time, however long it might last, to draw us nearer to Him. We prayed to be that city on the hill that Jesus talks about in Matthew.

I wept but then I rejoiced too. I didn’t rejoice because suddenly all the fears that had plagued me for two weeks were gone and everything was fixed. I rejoiced because I remembered that I serve a God who loves us and sees us. I rejoiced as I watched this room full of people whose names may never be famous but to me were heroes everyday…sacrificing so much and expecting so little in return. I rejoiced because the names of these kiddos and youth had been inscribed so deeply on my heart, and I felt honored that in this very moment in time…this moment that is filled with so much uncertainty, I had the privilege of loving them and laughing with them and playing soccer with them and praying with them. These young ones whose lives had already been filled with so much trauma and pain in the past and yet who right before my very eyes were finding freedom in Jesus. I rejoiced because I had that moment. I rejoiced that God saw fit to pluck a young 22 year old out of her very comfortable and ordinary life in the middle of the USA and decided to place her here.

Friends, I am still scared. Its hard living in times where so much is unknown and where life as we knew it only a few months ago feels almost like that was another generation ago. March has literally felt like the longest month of my life. So much inside my home feels the same, but I only have to go down the street to the grocery store where you have to have a mask to enter and tape marks to show you where to stand to know that life is not the same. But we must also find joy in this season. I realize that your home and family isn’t as big as mine is in Guatemala, so you can’t have the kind of prayer times and worship times that we have. Nevertheless make it a part of your days. Turn on your music, open your Bibles, start praying, and celebrate together the things you do have. Talk together about how you want to be better neighbors or friends when the day comes that you can start interacting again. Give each other room to express the things that are making you feel scared and unsure. Pray for those that are on the front lines, who are feeling tired and scared and overwhelmed. Pray for those that are sick in the hospital, also feeling very alone and scared.

But don’t try and pretend that everything is just like it always was when it isn’t. We aren’t doing ourselves or each other any favors by ignoring what is happening and just hiding out in our houses. We can hide from it, but the truth is, there is a crisis happening all over the world, and it is changing life right before our eyes. But we can be better for it. It’s okay for our kids to see us feel frightened because then they learn how to manage their own fears when they feel scared. Its okay for our family to see us feel sad and confused and angry and worried because these are real emotions and learning what to do when we have them is something most families aren’t proactively teaching their kids.

We have something we do in our family when we start to feel like our feelings or emotions are getting the best of us. We breathe, but we hold our index finger under our nose, above our mouths, tight against the outside of our upper lip, and we take lots of deep breaths. It doesn’t always work but it does more often than not. Its like a pause button, where we can gather our thoughts, calm our emotions a bit so we can use our words to express what we are feeling or needing. Maybe this moment in time is one of those refresh moments. Maybe we are learning how to breathe and use our words better.

I certainly don’t have all the answers. I still need those encouraging words from friends and spaces to cry my tears. But I press on and I lean in. Sometimes my prayer is nothing more than just, “Jesus! Jesus help me in my lack of faith! Help me trust You more. Help me to trust instead of relying on my ability to control. Change me to be more like You! Help me love as you first loved us! Help me to see those around me as You do. Help me not to feel so scared. Help me to still choose generosity and kindness and compassion.”

As we say here in Spanish, “Animo mis amados…”

“Be encouraged beloveds.”