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This is the second consecutive blog featuring Life of Promise Ministries.

In a desert area, surrounded on four sides by mountains, lies the city of Zacapa, Guatemala—also the capital of the Department of Zacapa (Departments being similar to our states in the U.S.). The city itself is not very large, roughly 40,000 people but it is surrounded by several small settlements which add several thousand more people. Stretching away from the city is Zacapa’s rich agricultural farmland, irrigated by wells. There many varieties of melon crops thrive along with strawberries, and banana and papaya orchards.  

But on some sides of the city, the mountain ranges begin, allowing no room for farming. The native Mayan people have been pushed up these mountains, unwanted and rejected by the rest of the population. Their lives are difficult. The roads are bad, clean water supplies and electricity are scarce, and the little good land for growing crops is often fought over by the families trying to eke out a living.

Many of the mountain people are forced back down to the poverty-stricken small villages around Zacapa. The men might find a few jobs in construction where they build structures with cement blocks. Often though, there is no building going on. There is no big industry. Farm work is seasonal and perhaps a few women might be hired to do housework for the small middle class, composed mostly of doctors and lawyers. While the city and towns are built around these professions, they only make up about a sixth of the total population. 


The Zacapa River during Semana Santa (Holy Week). Vendors set up food stands and people gather for family time.

It is into this impoverished, third world setting that Tom and Arlene Richmond first were introduced to Zacapa on a mission trip in 2006. Subsequently they heeded what they believed to be God’s call on their lives—to minister to the people of this area, particularly to the women and children. This year marks the tenth anniversary of their ministry, Life of Promise Ministries (LOP). Recently, on one of the last warm summer days of summer in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, they talked with me about what life is like for the citizens of Zacapa, Guatemala. 

Although Del Monte Foods (no canning done here) and Chiquita Inc. are the main exporters of fruit from the area, fruit picking is seasonal and pays very little.   Arlene explained that the uneducated make up the largest percentage of the population. In downtown Zacapa, many have graduated from sixth grade. That is as much free education that exists. But the surrounding villages are not educated at all and few jobs exist for them. Even when they do land a job, Tom says, the pay is poor and sporadic. He knows of one man who worked in a local hospital for years but often went from January to April with no pay. The hospital didn’t have money in those months, not even for medicine. So their workers continue with the promise of being paid in the future. 

One couple left briefly to pick coffee in Honduras. The villagers were so jealous that this couple could travel to find work, they burned their house down while they were gone. Tom says Zacapa is known for cigar making and cheese, but he and Arlene have not seen evidence that these are big industries or employing many people. Although the area is growing, the growth is occurring among the most impoverished, many of whom are homeless, living in flimsy structures along train tracks or near garbage dumps. 


Maria's home was burned down when she and her husband left Zacapa to pick coffee in another country.

The village of Conevisa used to house Zacapa’s garbage dump.  Fifteen years ago it was covered over and made a settlement for the homeless. About 250 families now live there. The garbage dump workers live in the village which is adjacent to the current dump. When they dig to build a concrete foundation for their homes, garbage is unearthed. Each family has its own working territory in the dump and they spend their days sifting through garbage looking for discarded items that can be recycled. The Richmonds know one man who has been living there and doing this since he was nine-years-old. Residents sell the items they gather to recycling trucks that come to the dump on a regular basis. The garbage companies charge a fee for the people to do this, reducing their miserably small profits to almost nothing. Only a small number of the garbage dump residents are employed outside of it. Most are not.


The Zacapa garbage dump, where men, women and children sort through trash to find recylable materials they can sell.

Drug gangs control the economic and political environment, as is the case in many Central American towns. Brutal initiations into the gangs often result in someone’s death.  Drug addiction keeps people in the fold, and is often the cause of feuds between different gangs.  Weapons trafficking and human trafficking are tragic realities as well.  

Arlene says that Zacapa is known as the wild west of Guatemala and adds that there are also real cowboys in Zacapa—usually mountain men. All of this makes for a lot of crime and unsafe conditions. Especially at night. That’s when the murders happen. It all seems to be out of control but even the political system itself lacks structure. Each town has its own government. In 2018 the mayor of Zacapa as well as the mayors of two nearby towns were assassinated. No one was ever officially charged. The truth never was clear. 

The nation’s military is called upon if things get too bad. Although Guatemala has a better form of government than its Central American neighbors, corruption is rampant. A president has only a four-year term and cannot run again. The wife of a former president is not allowed to run for the office. That inspired one former president and his wife to divorce so she could run for president. She tied with another candidate in 2015—Jimmy Morales who had announced publicly that he was a Christian. The two faced a run-off election. Evangelical ministers got together to pray for a miracle and Jimmy Morales prevailed. 

Though that was encouraging, it is hard for any president to enact much change with the chaos and corruption in the other branches of government. In that election, there were 13 candidates, each representing a different political party. More than half of the candidates were criminals. One had just gotten out of jail. Currently more political parties have emerged. Now there are just under 30. The most popular way to campaign is to bribe the poorer populace for their votes. One candidate dropped food packages from a helicopter. Another gave away a vast area of land on which he promised to help the people build homes. They moved onto the free land but the promised homes never materialized.

That is just the way things go. The federal government gets involved when it will benefit them and at other times not so much. Tom and Arlene illustrated this by citing the government’s involvement in 2017 when a volcano struck near Antigua. That area is the most popular tourist area of the country and the destruction was devastating. However, since tourism benefits the government, the damage was quickly fixed—the towns, hotels, shops and the homes of the artisans all restored.

Meanwhile since November 2020 when hurricanes hit Zacapa, the federal government has done nothing to help the area recover because only the poor were affected. Many were homeless and squatters on the land where they lived. They are of no consequence to the government. “Most everything that has been done for the hurricane victims has been done by missionaries,” Arlene laments.

Political unrest in Guatemala is not new. The nation is still recovering from a 30-year civil war that ended in 1996. Many men who would now be in the later years of their lives didn’t survive. The population today is young as a result. That war began as a rebellion between the leftist indigenous Maya people (gorillas) and the government which began reversing laws that benefited them and taking away the rights of the Mayans. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/latin_america-jan-june11-timeline_03-07) Yet memories of the war are not forgotten and struggles between the Mayans and the rest of the populace continue, all being used and abused by the overpowering drug lords and their related gangs.


The ancient Mayan city of Tikal-- the largest restoration project in all of Central America.

Still, Tom and Arlene say they don’t worry about the dangers.  Despite the fact that their home was robbed once while they were out of town. They don’t go out at night and they have learned where to go and where not to go. “We feel safe because God called us here,” Arlene says. “It has nothing to do with this stuff we’re talking about. It is because God called us. It isn’t safe there. Even with our street smarts, it’s not safe. But God called us, and our desire is to obey Him.”

Tom and Arlene went to Guatemala with the intention of building a facility that would house single women and their children. If you read the last blog which told the stories of three women whom Tom and Arlene are currently helping, https://www.livingletters.life/blog/post/three-womens-stories-our-lives-in-guatemala, you will understand that Guatemalan women in the poorer classes have had few rights over the years and very often fall victim to physical and many other forms of abuse. Many husbands control any money coming into their homes, even if the women are bringing it in. The drunkenness of many fathers and husbands, often leave women and children badly beaten. The Richmond’s hearts longed to reach out to these victims, easing their pain as best they could with practical support and by introducing them to Jesus, the One Who Himself suffered all things to give hope to those who have none.

Early on they purchased a double lot in the city, not knowing then that it would later become part of an upscale development housing doctors and lawyers.  As most homes in Zacapa, theirs is built from concrete blocks and is two stories, each floor measuring 1,850 square feet. The second lot is walled in and contains a patio and yard with a swing set. Sometimes they bring in children from the villages to play, serve refreshments, and end with a Bible story. The Richmond family lives on the first floor and the second floor is currently housing a sewing class, taught by a Christian woman who employs her students to sew clothing for various community needs and thus has developed a useful business that helps the local women to earn a living. This arrangement only came about as Tom and Arlene prepared to come to the states pre-Covid and has been able to continue through their delayed and not-yet-known-date of return. They speak of the blessing it has been to have someone using their home and keeping it up in their absence by these dear friends of theirs, who live close by in the same development.


Life of Promise mission house, Para Vida, during construction of playground for villiage children.

That is how the they view so much of what has happened as their mission building has progressed. Blessing upon blessing. God’s mighty and loving hand intervening when they didn’t know how things would turn out or how this or that would be paid for. God has always provided.

Tom and Arlene say that they have been accepted well as missionaries. They have worked closely with a nearby church as well. The people see that they are helping. On the night before they left Zacapa, now over a year ago, the people formed a circle around the Richmond family and said they loved and appreciated them. “But,” Arlene adds, “we’re still Americans. I think every missionary feels that way. You’re neither here nor there.  But doing God’s work is amazing and fulfilling because the love we have for the people comes directly from His heart.”

My last question to Tom and Arlene was to ask how we could pray for this area of Zacapa. Here’s what they said:

  • Pray for the pastor of the church they work with. He recently took over after his father, the founder of the church, died. Pray for wisdom and strength for his difficult tasks.
  • Pray for the men. It is a macho society and there is so much abuse and abandonment of women and children. There are more single mothers than ever, especially in the villages. The leadership of the men is sorely lacking and is the root problem of most others.
  • Results of Covid and recent hurricanes have made poverty much worse. Pray for these conditions to improve.
  • Most of all, pray for the salvation of the people.

Currently two of my daughters are hosting a fundraiser for Life of Promise Ministries which will last throughout September. To learn more about this Fun Run 2021, click here. Consider becoming a participant or sponsoring one to support the work of LOP.

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