Update from Yalahui

Dear Friends,

During the first week in September 2012, a group of Armonía friends visited Yalahui, a village in the mountainous region of Oaxaca, Mexico, in order to set up a health clinic for the villagers.

Prior to their arrival, Irene, one of our resent graduates (and a 'Yalahuian' herself),visited this small village and started preparations for the health clinic under the guidance of Saúl and Pilar.

Irene and Leo, one of our university students, stayed in Yalahui to finish orchestrating all the logistics for receive the group which consisted of doctors, nurses and an optometrist from different parts of the world - USA, UK, Australia and of course, Mexico. Along with their skills, the visitors brought thousands of prescription eyeglasses!

Everyone did a wonderful job and the community was very loving and gracious toward our guests!
Armonía was able to serve around 600 people over two days, as well as acquaint ourselves with most members of the Yalahui community.


We look forward to posting a subtitled interview we did with Irene and letting you know more about Armonía's work.

Clinic at Yalahui

Dear Friends,

Over the past 24 years we have been blessed with an annual visit by a volunteer healthcare team consisting of members from the US, UK, and Mexico. This week, a multinational team composed of GPs, pediatricians, optometrists, and dentists will form a temporary clinic in the small mountain village of Yalahui, Oaxaca. The Orangewood Presbyterian Church of Orlando organises the annual trip in cooperation with Armonia, assessing the local needs of the community and what the group can provide to meet those needs.

We were invited to the village of Yalahui again this year by a former Armonia student who studied with us in Yalalag. Visiting the village will help us form even greater bonds with the local community and provide Irene, one of our resent graduates, an opportunity to give back to her hometown.  She is currently in Yalahui with other students getting everything ready and will help host the clinic along with several other members of Armonia. Our clinics will see more than 500 people each day!

This year we will have two clinics in the City of Oaxaca and three in the mountains. A main focus of the team is eye care. This involves allocating thousands of eye glasses to visually impaired residents. Since the team has been provided with a list of requirements, they can offer accurate prescriptions for complicated lenses.

This annual visit (during the first week of September) provides an excellent time for other volunteers to visit Armonia!

Irene's Graduation

Excellent news - Irene has finished her Human Resources and Administration Technical degree and turned in her dissertation! Soon she will also receive a legal professional license.


She continues to teach the children at the Santa Cruz Community Centre and has also begun to carry on a few administrative tasks for the Armonía Indigenous Mexican Students Programme.  She is now 21 years old and wants to, in the next couple of years, convert her technical degree into a Business Development Engineering degree at the same university.  She knows she can continue to hope and dream for her future and her community’s future, trusting that God will continue to be with them.

Irene's Story
Irene comes from Yalahui, a remote village in the highest mountains of Oaxaca.  At fifteen, she decided to start the equivalent of her GCSEs by enrolling in one of the few Secondary schools available in the region.  She was a good student in previous years, but had also become a bit mischievous, so her parents were unsure about her leaving Yalahui.  Nevertheless, they chose a school in Yalalag for her to continue with her studies - it was far, but had recently acquired a very good student reputation.

Five years earlier, after their little shack of a home was almost entirely destroyed by a storm, Irene’s father left Mexico searching for work in the US.  And just prior to her journey, he had returned from the US, after living there for eight months.  He had been deported on both occasions.  We, at Armonia, have seen many young men take this route in life, moving back and forth illegally between the US and Mexico, because they believe they have no other choice. We try to offter them another choice through education and a supportive christian community, providing them with an opportuinity to find diginified employment in Mexico. This also provides hope for the future of our country.
Fortunately, Irene was able to convince her father to stay in Mexico for long enough to accompany her on her journey to enroll.  In 2006, Irene joined the Armonía Students Programme in the Oaxacan village of Yalalag beginning her first term in August.

Disappointingly, however, in January 2007, Armonía had to leave Yalalag, due to a very corrupted municipal government.

Irene continued studying and earned good grades, but was having a very hard time with other students.  Once Armonía had left Yalalag, she was made to live in an ‘improvised’ student room that was being built in the middle of the forest of Yalalag, away from the normal school small residence. Irene was constantly threatened by other girls, and remembers feeling very scared in the middle of the night when men from the village would get drunk and walk towards her lodging.  They would yell at the girls that were living there and throw stones at their windows.  One day, Irene and her friend, Lola, decided to leave Yalalag and find Armonía.  So, over a weekend, without telling their teachers what they were up to, the pair travelled to the city of Oaxaca and visited Armonía's student house.

Shortly after that, Irene visited her parents in Yalahui, only to find out that her father had left the country again.  Although she was very saddened by this, she convinced her mother to visit Armonía with her so that she could be enrolled for the following term. Subsequently, Irene finished her Secondary studies in Oaxaca with Armonía and after completing her year of service, she moved to the Armonía Mexico City Student House.

Irene remembers how much she cried when she found out that her Dad had returned to the US again, and how she promised herself she was going to accomplish her commitment, finish a degree and work as a professional, just as she had promised him. She also remembers that Armonía made that “unbelievable” idea seem a real possibility and she was not going to let that opportunity go. What a joy it was to have not only her Dad, but her whole family come to her graduation ceremony this past June!

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Our New Administrator

Dear friends,

My name is Irish Sirmons and I am the new Armonia UK Trust Administrator!

Although I was born in the U.S., I currently live in the ‘wilds’ of Essex, England with my husband, Ryan.  We have lived in the UK for almost five years and in Europe for nearly seven.  Along the way, we picked up our little dog Charles in Naples, Italy, I graduated from University College London with an MSc in Information Sciences, and Ryan has been assigned to the Little Baddow United Reformed Church as a Pastor on Student Placement! Throughout our travels we have encountered many faith groups and families which we hold in our hearts and prayers (without whom we would not be enjoying our current livelihood).  

Though my work background is in information management and information technology, I’ve been accepted by the University of Essex to study an MA in Wild Writing.  This amazing course will allow me to study literature and the environment whilst (hopefully) improving my creative writing skills.

I am an active member of the City of Portsmouth Women’s Athletic Club.  I throw the hammer, shot put and discus for the team as we compete in the Southern Athletic League and UK Women’s Athletic League Division 2.

I am very excited to work with Armonia (UK) Trust. As soon as I met Eidi and Saul in London for my second interview, I knew that I wanted to join the Armonia family. Ryan and I want to live our ministry as Saul and Pilar have done over the past thirty years.

Please let me know if you need any information pertaining to Armonia UK.  I will be managing our website, the UK contact list, mailings, schedules and donations.

All the Best,
Irish

Hola, we have returned!

Dear friends,

After a long period without using this blog, and although we have communicated through e-mails and letters, we look forward to using this resource more --- with more news, more ideas as well as with our gratefulness and prayer petitions. 

As we go into the presidential elections on Sunday July 1st, we ask you to please have Mexico in your prayers. As you have probably heard or read in the news, during this last six year presidential term things have worsened in our country, with more poverty and more corruption, and especially through the terrible problem of the drug cartels.

We believe we have a good chance to improve the situation with one of the candidates, however, since it wouldn’t be appropriate to make a political statement in this blog, we just ask you to please have Mexico and Armonía in your prayers this weekend. As we also do this - we read this passage on Isaiah 58:9-10.

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.”

We also have some very good news - and we will write more about this during the next few weeks:

• Irene, who comes from Yalahui in the high mountains of Oaxaca, and Lola who comes from the Chinantec region of San Juan Petlapa, both graduated from their university technical degrees two weeks ago.

• Lupe from Chichicaxtepec, one of the most remote villages in Oaxaca, and Alejandra, who also finished a university degree in Psychology this month, and who comes from Jalalpa, one of the most neglected and impoverished areas in Mexico City, are in Germany at the moment. They are part of an International Camp, called Baucamp, with a wonderful ministry called OJC (Offensive Junger Christen).

• Eight students from Casa Margarita and Oaxaca and the University Students from Mexico City have had a two week Seminar with Saúl and Pilar.

• Seven students from High School are graduating this Monday and five of them will become Older brothers for the Student Residence in Oaxaca.

• We are having friends from Florida visiting us in July, August and September.

• The foundation for the second student residence in Oaxaca has been layed, 

  --- and so much more news!

Last but not least we are delighted to introduce the new Armonía UK Trust Administrator to you, Irish Sirmons, who we have asked to also introduce herself to you on a blog post.

We look forward to hearing from you soon, and trust you are having a good Summer!

With love,

Eidi Cruz