Nicaragua Partnership in Pastoral Counseling

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The Center for Pastoral Counseling of Virginia is in partnership with a small group of pastoral counselors based in Nicaragua. Kenneth Brown, an American Presbyterian pastoral counselor living in Nicaragua, Madlyn West, a Nicaraguan counselor, and Norma Martin, a Nicaraguan Moravian physician work with a community which was severely traumatized by the massive destruction from Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Among the ways we currently offer support are:

serving as a consultation resource for clinical issues, particularly with post-traumatic stress and domestic violence
providing specialized toys for play therapy
financial support through voluntary contributions
maintaining regular contact with the counselors.

The Nicaraguan counselors enrich us with their insights and perspectives, and continually enlarged our awareness of the world. We believe this relationship will continue to grow and that its mission benefits us all as members of a global community.

Reflections on a Visit to Posoltega

Kathleen Weaver Kurtz

The small village we visited lies several kilometers from its original site, one third of the way up a volcanic mountain. Its neat grid of housing plots contrasts with the irregularities and idiosyncrasies of the original. Gone are the banana and papaya trees, the chickens, goats, and pigs, the small garden plots that provided food to supplement the meager income of the villagers. But those losses shrink in the face of the greater loss.

Five years ago during hurricane Mitch the crater lake at the top of this old volcanic mountain filled with water during days and days of rain. Finally part of the rim collapsed. Water flooded down over the mountainside, picking up mud, boulders, and trees as it moved. Several villages stood directly in the path of the oncoming gigantic avalanche. Villagers hearing its approach thought it was helicopters coming to rescue them. Instead it was the avalanche decimating everything in its path. No family here was left untouched. Some people lost all the members of their immediate family. It was not uncommon for persons to have lost 40 or 50 members of their extended family. Many of the survivors were severely injured by the boulders and trees carried along with the flood. Of the 16,000 people living in the area 2,500 died, most of them from the villages that lay directly in the path of the avalanche.

Such events seemed hard to comprehend as we drove into the village under a brilliantly blue, sunny sky. At the church the pastor opened the iron gates to let us in. Kenneth Brown, a Presbyterian missionary with a doctorate in pastoral counseling, Madlyn, West, an unemployed Nicaraguan counselor, and Norma Martin a Nicaraguan Moravian physician made this trip twice a month. Wayne and I had been invited to accompany them so I could observe the work they are doing and give feedback.

While Madlyn and Norma were occupied elsewhere, Kenneth gathered the women and pre-teen children for a group session. The group began with the reading of the story of blind Bartimaeus from Mark 10. After a brief discussion Kenneth asked for volunteers to act out the story. The usual mix of eagerness, reluctance, and coaxing produced a mostly female cast, a “Bartimaea,” instead of Bartimaeus and a “Jesusa,” along with a motley crew of disciples, mostly females as well. A red handkerchief bandana became a blindfold for Bartimaea, and a black plastic trash bag her cloak. After a trial run the children acted out the story again, with great enthusiasm. Bartimaea, whose name was Mercedes, broke out of her timidity and called increasingly louder to Jesusa, asking for help. Perhaps it was this that empowered her later to tell her story.

Kenneth, picking up on the openness of Mercedes, began asking her some questions. While we couldn’t understand what was being said, it was clear that she was talking about what had happened to her four years ago. I noticed that she started cracking her knuckles, and twisting her hands as she spoke. Kenneth moved closer to her, creating more intimacy, yet at the same time including the group. Beside Mercedes sat her cousin, a boy about the same age. He listened intently, but said nothing. When Kenneth tried to include him he responded with monosyllables or just looked down at his hands. The more Mercedes spoke, the faster her words came. Several of the older women added information or clarified details, creating a supportive community of witness around her. While Mercedes was the focus, she was not isolated, but held, in a very palpable sense, by their encircling presence and attention.

Kenneth asked Mercedes and her cousin to act out what had happened to them, along with an older woman whom Mercedes choose to act as her mother. The “mother” took the two children by the hand, and the three began running. The woman fell down. Mercedes pulled her up, and they ran on, only to have the woman fall again. This time the two children went on alone. When they had reached the picnic table at the end of the room the boy dived under it, clearly wanting refuge from the memory. He crawled out a bit later and helped act out the story for a second and third time. Then Mercedes told her story again, also for at least the third time, words simply pouring out. As Kenneth continued to talk with her, her voice began to break, and a few tears fell. She wiped them away, but was obviously feeling deep emotion. Kenneth hugged her and held her quietly for a prolonged, silent embrace.

This whole intervention lasted probably an hour and a half. Until the last half an hour when only a half dozen or so of the older women remained, confusion reigned in the room. Children ran in and out, talking, yelling, arguing, changing chairs, chasing each other, banging the door, bringing in food, getting water from a pitcher on the table. Babies cried. Mothers disciplined children. I marveled at Kenneth’s ability to stay focused in the midst of all the seeming chaos.

Kenneth told us later that this was the first time Mercedes told her story in the group. She remembered in exquisite detail her experience of four years earlier although she had been only six. As the flood wall approached, her mother grabbed her hand and that of her cousin and ran with them. She fell, and Mercedes pulled her up. They continued running, only for the mother fall again. This time she insisted that the children go on, leaving her behind. Mercedes survived because she grabbed onto a barrel floating by; her cousin caught hold of a tree limb. Her mother did not die, but Mercedes had been separated from all her family for a time.

As I reflected on the morning I was struck by the strong parallel between the acting of the story of Bartimaeus and Mercedes’ telling of her story. In the drama she overcame her initial shyness and called out boldly and persistently to Jesus to have mercy on her--an interesting word play because her name means mercy. During the remainder of the session she, with increasing boldness, “called out for help” by telling and retelling her story, accepting the help of others, and allowing us all to share in a very intimate, painful piece of her life. She made herself vulnerable just as Bartimaeus did, and was equally persistent, sustaining concentration much longer than one might expect from a ten year old. Kenneth’s willingness to block out and disregard all the confusion around him paralleled Jesus’ disregard for those that would have distracted him from the work he was called to do. Kenneth’s warm acceptance must have felt like the mercy Mercedes needed. The long-ago story of Bartimaeus came to life again in that dusty, concrete-floored room in Posoltega, the volcanic mountain with its barren scar clearly visible through the window.

It was finally lunch time. I joined Wayne on the porch where he was surrounded by a bevy of little girls watching him eat his lunch with great fascination. Not being able to talk with them directly I fell back on my mother’s favorite “church entertainment” for small children—tracing hands. Kenneth supplied me with sheets of typing paper. I got out my pen, put the paper on the bench and took the nearest available hand and traced it No words needed to be spoken—everyone caught on right away. I traced hand after hand, the children waiting patiently for their turns. Off to the side Norma pulled out a ziploc bag of crayons, and the children started coloring. They spent more than an hour coloring hands and then adding flowers, houses and other objects to their papers. As I watched the children work I began to notice significant things in their drawings--placement of objects on the page, a house with a minuscule door and windows, butterflies, crosses, colors chosen. Clearly this activity was becoming more than mere entertainment. The children were expressing thoughts and feelings in a language I didn’t need to have translated. I was also struck by another realization. When children draw pictures of themselves without hands it usually indicates the child’s sense of powerlessness and helplessness. I had unwittingly chosen an activity that both emphasized and employed their hands.

His second group over, Kenneth joined us, and inquired whether we would like to walk with him to visit someone in the village. I couldn’t resist the opportunity, in spite of the heat. We set off with a number of the little girls accompanying us and made a quick visit. On our return, instead of the loose cluster in which we had walked before, we found ourselves one long row, all holding hands. Little Yayoska walked between Kenneth and me, pulling our hands together so that they touched from time to time. Once or so she jumped, letting us swing her. I was reminded of my son at that age, delighting in jumping so he could swing from my husband and my hands, and trying to pull us together. It seemed to give him a sense of safety and well-being. I imagined that for Yayoska, Kenneth and I represented parental figures, and that making our hands touch gave her a similar sense of well-being, because she did it repeatedly. Neither of us commented or resisted. I think we both know it was important to her.

The sun was nearing the horizon as we said our goodbyes. We departed, dusty, hot, and tired, but also energized by the profound and moving experiences of the day. These people who have lost so much, and have been traumatized in major ways, still have within them life, joy, and the graciousness to welcome strangers into their lives. Resurrection is happening for them in slow, but sure ways. The smiles, the laughter, the nurture and support they offer to each other evidence their growing hope--vibrant green blades of life pushing through a hard and barren ground.