Experiences
Videos
Children's reading list
Reading list on Religion and Society in Latin America
List of suggested readings on Guatemala, Mayans and the church in Central America
Use the links to learn more about each book or video from online booksellers, including reviews and information about the author. If you choose to buy a book through Amazon.com, a portion of the purchase price will be donated to the Mission-Maya Quiche partnership.
Videos
- Precarious Peace: God and Guatemala. "Two-part video documentary that details the involvement of churches in Guatemala’s long and tortuous peace process. The first part (40 minutes) looks at how churches were able to break through the logjam of armed conflict and initiate the peace process. The second part (32 minutes) looks at the current religious landscape through four vignettes: a poor Pentecostal congregation on the outskirts of Guatemala City, a traditional Evangelical school in heavily-Mayan El Quiché province, a conversation with Mayan Christians who find nurture and identity in their traditional spirituality, and a Neo-Pentecostal politician."
Produced by Presbyterians Rudy and Shirley Nelson from Albany, New York. For churches and groups in Mission Presbytery, this video is available from the San Antonio Resource Center. - Evangelical Committee for Service and Support of Maya Quiche Presbytery (CESSMAQ). Twenty-minute professionally produced video describes CESSMAQ's work, including the coffee replanting project and interviews with community organizers. English and Spanish, with subtitles. This video is available from all of the Mission Presbytery Resource Centers.
Children's reading list compiled by Kathryn Worley of Heartland Presbytery.
- Abuela's Weave. Omar S. Castaneda, Enrique O. Sanchez. "Esperanza is worried that her Grandmother's facial birthmark might frighten away potential customers when they go to market to sell their fine woven goods. This leaves the burden of the family income in Esperanza's hands. In his illustrations, Sanchez brings the woven designs of the people alive. A favorite!"
- Trouble Dolls. Suzanne Simon. "Aspects of the Mayan culture are represented in this title through food, games, crafts, traditions and legends. Six little dolls are included with the book with ideas to engage the reader, dolls and book together celebrating Mayan life. A favorite of this family. All ages."
- Once When the World Was Green. Jan Wahl. "An original tale inspired by the jacaranda tree and the Popul Vuh. Harmony among all creatures is woven into the story. Illustrations reflect La Ruta Maya, near the Yucatan, Belize and Guatemala. "
- Is Latin America Turning Protestant? : The Politics of Evangelical Growth. David Stoll, University of California Press, 1990. Historic and recent trends in Protestant growth, including the role of North American and indigenous missionaries, and reformation and liberation theology in the Catholic Church. Includes a chapter on Guatemala, including The Word ("El Verbo") Church, former President Efraín Rios Montt, and activites in Ixil, Quiché.
- Power, Politics, and Pentecostals in Latin America. Edward L. Cleary and Hannah Stewart-Gambino , editors, Westview Press, 1997. "Today over forty million Latin Americans classify themselves as Protestant, of which the overwhelming majority belong to some form of Pentecostalism. The rapid dissemination of Pentecostal beliefs has produced vibrant alternatives to traditional dominant culture and changed relations within the family, locality, and workplace. This volume introduces broad issues in the Pentecostal movement, including gender relations, political power and organization, and inter-Pentecostal and ecumenical relations, and includes a chapter focusing on patterns and development in Guatemala."
Protestantism In Guatemala: Living in the New Jerusalem. Virginia Garrard-Burnett, University of Texas Press, 1998. "Guatemala has undergone an unprecedented conversion to Protestantism since the 1970s, so that thirty percent of its people now belong to Protestant churches, more than in any other Latin American nation. To illuminate some of the causes of this phenomenon, Virginia Garrard-Burnett here offers the first history in English of Protestantism in Guatemala, focusing specifically on the rise of non-Catholic Christianity in relation to Guatemala's ethnic and political history. Garrard-Burnett finds that while Protestant missionaries were early valued for their medical clinics, schools, translation projects, and especially for the counterbalance they provided against Roman Catholicism, Protestantism itself attracted few converts in Guatemala until the 1960s. Since then, however, the militarization of the state, increasing public violence, and the "globalization" of Guatemalan national politics have undermined the traditional ties of kinship, custom, and belief that gave Guatemalans a sense of identity, and many are turning to Protestantism to recreate a sense of order, identity, and belonging."- The Soul of Development: Biblical Christianity and Economic Transformation in Guatemala. Amy L. Sherman, Oxford University Press 1997. "Field study and national survey of 1000 rural Guatemalan households. She offers persuasive evidence that, in Guatemala and throughout the region, religious world-views significantly influence economic life. Sherman explains how the change in attitude and behavior that accompanies conversion from animism to a Biblically orthodox world-view has improved the domestic welfare and economic status of many families. Further, she asserts that this new attitude, sympathetic to democratic-capitalism, has created a "moral cultural soil" in which freedom, personal empowerment, an enhanced status for women, and a desire to get ahead can be nurtured."
- God and Production in a Guatemalan Town. Sheldon Annis, University of Texas Press, 1989. Research on "the difference in work ethic and cultural values between the Protestants and Catholics in one [Guatemalan] town, and how they are divided in every aspect... For instance, in weaving blankets, the Protestants made lovely, organized patterns which utilized logical color arrangements for aesthetic efficiency. The Catholics used a riot of color in their weaving, producing a beautiful and unique work with each one." Annis also provides of detailed discussion on economics of sustenance farming and household industries, highlighting differences in evangelical (protestant) and Catholic families.
- Guatemala, Never Again. This report gives a sad account of 150 thousand deaths, 50 thousand missing persons, 1 million internal displaced persons, 100 thousand refugees and 200 thousand orphan children, resulting from Guatemala's forty years of war. Three out of four victims of war were indigenous people.
- I Rigoberta Menchu (An Indian Woman in Guatemala). Rigoberta Menchu, E. Burgos Debray, Thetford Press Ltd. 1984. Autobiography of the 1992 Nobel Peace laureate. "This is my testimony. I didn't learn it from a book and I didn't learn it alone... My personal experience is the reality of a whole people."
- Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes. Robert McAfee Brown, Westminster Press, 1984. New Perspectives given on key Biblical passages.
- Liberation Theology: Essential Facts About the Revolutionary Religious Movement in Latin America and Beyond. Phillip Berryman, Pantheon Books, 1987.
- The Scandalous Message of James: Faith Without Works is Dead. Elsa Tamez, Crossroad Publishing Co. 1990.
- A Guide to Liberation Theology for Middle-Class Congregations. Charles H. Bayer, CBP Press 1986. Delves into the implications of liberation theology for the "unpoor".
- Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. Stephen Kinzer and Stephen Schlesinger, Doubleday 1982. Details the 1954 coup which involved the CIA and the United Fruit Company. Very helpful for understanding current reality.
- Gift of The Devil: A History of Guatemala. Jim Handy, South End Press, 1984. Very readable.
- What Prize Awaits Us: Letters from Guatemala. Bernice Kita, Orbes 1988. Letters from an American nun who lived in an isolated Indian Village from 1977-1983, some of Guatemala's worst years.
- Sons of the Shaking Earth. Eric Wolf, University of Chicago Press 1959.
- Inside Guatemala. Tom Barry, Inter-Hemispheric Education Resource Center, 1992. Guide to politics, the economy, society and the environment.
- Guatemala: Eternal Spring Eternal Tyranny. Jean-Marie Simon, Norton 1987. Text and images (powerful) of life for Guatemalans during the Cerezo term - 1980s.
- Searching for Everado: A story of Love, War and the CIA in Guatemala. Jennifer Harbury, Warner Books 1987. A Harvard-trained attorney and US citizen recounts her quest to learn the truth about her Guatemalan husband's death.
- In the power of the Spirit: the Pentecostal challenge to historic churches in Latin America. Eds. Benjamen Guierrez and Dennis Smith, AIPRAL and PCUSA(WMD) 1996. Thirteen essays - good background material on church growth in Latin America.
- Widows. Ariel Dorfman, Penguin Books, 1983. A timeless story, written as a novel, of how some widows in places like Guatemala are not content to simply mourn the "disappeared," but challenge the system that causes this suffering.
The Guatemala partnership team solicits your prayerful support and encouragement of the partnership, its projects, and the Mayan people of Guatemala. If your congregation or group is interested in a "Minute for Mission" or a 20-minute video presentation, contact the partnership team.
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