May 2010 - Clarksville Family Magazine
May 2010 - Clarksville Family Magazine
May 2010 - Clarksville Family Magazine
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Feature<br />
Most of us living in<br />
comfortable <strong>Clarksville</strong><br />
enjoy the many amenities<br />
of luxurious living. We<br />
enjoy garage door openers,<br />
garbage disposals, bathtubs<br />
and microwaves. When<br />
shopping for a place to live we<br />
expect running water, indoor<br />
plumbing and air conditioning.<br />
To most of us, those are not<br />
luxuries, but an essential<br />
selling point of any piece of<br />
real estate.<br />
To most of us, running water,<br />
indoor toilets, and schooling<br />
for our children are basics.<br />
However, not all people in the<br />
world enjoy such luxuries.<br />
This isn’t a surprise to us.<br />
We see it on the news; we<br />
REAL ESTATE, SCORPIONS AND A MISSION: HOW<br />
CLARKSVILLIANS ARE HELPING GUATEMALAN FAMILIES<br />
by Pamela Magrans<br />
read about it on the Yahoo<br />
homepage. There are many<br />
who would call our basic<br />
necessity a luxury.<br />
La Toma — a Guatemala<br />
community and some<br />
<strong>Clarksville</strong> volunteers<br />
Far south of us, in Central<br />
America, rests the country of<br />
Guatemala. It borders with<br />
Mexico on the north and El<br />
Salvador and Honduras on<br />
the south. The entire country<br />
is slightly smaller than the<br />
state of Tennessee. The<br />
country has been plagued<br />
by revolution, poverty,<br />
low literacy and lack of<br />
health care. It is hard for<br />
most of us to imagine living<br />
in the conditions that many<br />
Guatemalans<br />
live in.<br />
However,<br />
for a few<br />
Clarksvillians,<br />
imagining<br />
it was not<br />
enough.<br />
A group from<br />
Salem United<br />
Methodist<br />
Church<br />
began a local<br />
ministry called<br />
Saints Alive.<br />
The ministry<br />
is a local<br />
mission work<br />
camp where<br />
youth work<br />
on homes in<br />
Montgomery<br />
County.<br />
However,<br />
members<br />
6 <strong>Clarksville</strong> <strong>Family</strong><br />
of the church wanted to do<br />
more and to reach out and<br />
help on a global scale. So, in<br />
2004 Salem United Methodist<br />
Church organized their first<br />
mission trip to Guatemala.<br />
They left amenities behind and<br />
boarded a plane bound for<br />
Guatemala. Their destination<br />
was an area about four hours<br />
from Guatemala City, a rural<br />
area called La Toma. Over<br />
the past six years, they have<br />
helped build two schools, a<br />
parsonage, a medical clinic<br />
and six homes.<br />
Myranel Bryant has<br />
participated in the Guatemala<br />
mission trip four times. “Once<br />
you have been to a third world<br />
country and seen the poverty,<br />
you realize how very blessed<br />
you are, even if you are just<br />
considered middle class (or<br />
lower) in the U.S. We have so<br />
much in comparison,” said<br />
Myranel.<br />
Salem United Methodist<br />
Church has since teamed with<br />
several other churches in an<br />
effort to expand the services<br />
they can offer to the people in<br />
the La Toma area. Myranel and<br />
her husband recently returned<br />
from a trip in March where 20<br />
team members from seven