Daysi, Luis, Amanda,Guillermo Ramos

The Ramos Family, who arrived from San Francisco de Asis Parish in El Salvador on a stormy winter night, December 26, 2010, proudly celebrate the success of their daughter, Amanda.  A junior at Olathe North High School, Amanda was chosen to receive an award for outstanding achievement in reading at an Olathe District Awards Celebration, May 8, 2012.

St. Peter’s and the wide Kansas City Salvadoran network welcomed the Ramos Family  and assisted them in finding an extraordinary Salvadoran host family, Ramila and Romeo Vargas, and their sons Romeo and Chris.  Finding housing, jobs, transportation, identification, English language classes, and a safe high school engaged hundreds of hours  by so many dedicated people.

Guillermo worked for the US Embassy in San Salvador for 21 years. He and his son, Luis now have full time jobs at Engineered Air in DeSoto.

Luis also works a second job at Taco Bell, and is taking an ESL course at Johnson County Community College as a prerequisite for continuing his university education.

Amanda Ramos with Dr. Connie Heinen, Olathe North Principal

Daysi has been employed at a night job with Woodley Building Maintenance cleaning the Sprint buildings for over a year. She also attends ESL classes 4 days a week  at the Center of Grace in Olathe. Amanda is thriving at Olathe North. Their ELL program has enabled her to learn English as she pursued grade level classes in biology, geometry, history, and all required classes. She has passed the Kansas Assessment and will be a senior next year.

St. Peter’s travelers to El Salvador are always happy to relay news to Daysi and Guillermo’s families and to the community of San Francisco de Asis, our sister parish for over 20 years .

Nancy Caccamo recently spent several days in El Salvador with The Center for Exchange and Solidarity (CIS) as one of 100 election observers.

The observers came from 12 countries: the USA, Canada, Norway, Venezuela, Germany, United Kingdom, Basque Country, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Australia and El Salvador. They observed the elections in 16 municipalities in 5 departments of the country.

Election Observing in El Salvador

 Here is her firsthand account:

Serving as an international election observer in El Salvador was an exciting, exhausting, at times anxiety provoking, but fulfilling experience.  My team of four arrived at the polls in San Rafael Cedros at 5:00 AM on March 11^th.  It was dark as the Municipal Election Board members brought the boxes containing ballots and the many documents to record results.   The polls opened late with lines of 10 to 15 people at each of the 15 tables that were set up.  Once the process started, it was very orderly, the voters were aware of how to vote from the training they received.  This was the first election in which Salvadorans could vote for individual candidates rather than a party who would choose for them, and the first time voters could vote at centers near their residences.

The polls closed at 5:00 PM and vote counting began.  Five officials at each table counted the votes by hand.  Darkness fell as the vote counting and recording of results continued.  This year also saw a step forward in technology–the results were faxed to central headquarters.  By around midnight, the results from each table had been brought to the Election Board and we were on our way back to the house.  The next day was used to write our report.

Since the Peace Accords were signed in 1992, observers have been present at each election and made recommendations that have improved the voting process.  Would I again volunteer to be an observer?  Absolutely!

       32^nd Anniversary of Martyrdom of

               Monsenor Oscar Arnulfo Romero

Archbishop Romero, an outspoken advocate for human rights, gave his life in martyrdom for the people of El Salvador on March 24, 1980, in San Salvador. He was controversial for his denunciations of U.S. military aid to El Salvador during its brutal civil war, his call for Salvadoran military personnel to disobey immoral orders, and his insistence that the Church be inseparable from the poor. The Catholic Church in El Salvador has officially recommended Archbishop Romero for canonization. He is widely venerated as a martyr in his native country, throughout Latin America, and in the United States.

“A prophet has to disturb society”  (Romero 1977)

Throughout history, the voice of the prophet is one of the vehicles through which God speaks to the community and to the world.  Today we are called to listen to the voice of a contemporary prophet, a voice that emerged from the very Americas in which we live, a voice that calls to our churches to be what God has meant us to be in a world fraught with injustice, lack of compassion, unimaginable human misery, a world racked by violence, greed, fear and idolatry.

“Each one of you has to be a prophet” ( Romero 1979 )

                                “If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.” (Romero 1980)

St. Peter’s and San Francisco de Asis in Mejicanos, El Salvador have been sister parishes since 1989.

Check out article on Romero

http://ncronline.org/news/people/romeros-message-resonates-new-generation-catholic

Join St. Peter’s Parishioners Who Are Building a Bridge to Success

 Immediately following Mass 2/25 & 2/26

The Romero Room

(In the church basement by the nursery)

 We all know that education is the key to progress and self-sufficiency.  However, poverty in El Salvador is often a barrier that prevents many talented students from our sister parish, San Francisco de Asis from learning. St. Peter’s has launched an exciting new initiative, the BECA Scholarship Program.

The Bridge to Education and Community Advancement provides opportunities for members of St. Peter’s parish to sponsor high school and college students from our sister parish. These young people are eager to learn and achieve. They demonstrate tremendous potential as community leaders. 

 The scholarships ($30 to $70 / month) help defray the costs of basic necessities that make it possible to attend school. With scholarship funds, poor students have money for supplies and public transportation.

 Our goal is to remove economic barriers that make it difficult for students who are serious about their education to attend school. Education is the key to empowerment. These promising young students are searching for opportunities to rise above poverty. 

 You’re invited to a BRIEF informational meeting to learn more about BECA, see pictures of our scholarship students and learn their stories.

 This is a link from  Tim’s El Salvador blog to a documentary on the gangs of Mejicanos.

 It features San Francisco de Asis Parish and Father Antoni, parish priest

 Whenever Al Jazeera English broadcasts a story about El Salvador, it’s usually well done. This week’s video on the program Witness titled Life in San Salvador is no exception. From the promo for the documentary on the Al Jazeera website:

In the dusty, rubbish-strewn streets of Mejicanos, a working-class district of San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, Father Antonio Lopez Tercero points to the gang graffiti scarring the walls. Gang violence is one of the defining features of life in El Salvador today….

Witness accompanies Father Antonio on his daily rounds, meeting those whose lives have been most affected by gang life and gang violence – people like Giovanni, a former gang leader who is now expecting his first child and is determined to go straight, and Sonia, whose son was murdered by a gang but who has yet to receive justice.

Fr. Steve Cook, Kathy Woods, Laura Arensberg, Nancy Caccamo, Jenny Coffee, Travis Curran, and James Wagner delivered water filters to the Romero Community.