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Maria’s Story 

“I was born in the mountains of Guatemala in 1974, an indigenous Mayan (Kaqchikel) woman. For the last 500 years, since they arrived in 1524, the Europeans have brutally and without compassion deprived surviving Mayan descendants like me of our human rights, devalued us, tried to erase our culture, and tried to take our land. In late 2016, to force me to relinquish my land, they burned my house at 3:30 one morning, with my children and me inside; thank God we were saved. I then had no choice, we fled, and I came to the United States to seek refuge.

 

My life has been very difficult since presenting myself at the border: I have spent a month in detention, I had to wear an ankle monitor (shackle) every hour of every day, the threat of deportation and death hung over me. Each contact with ICE and its paid contractors is a mental torture; encounters with uniformed and armed men reawaken all the past terrors from my life since childhood, including family members kidnapped and killed or disappeared. And the pandemic has been a second looming anxiety, along with fear of deportation, that has laid heavy on my spirits.

 

But the creator God loves us all immensely, including me. In 2018 he guided me through dreams to take refuge in Wesley Memorial Church. Here I have the support of so many people that only God knows about them all, and here I continue to press for my freedom. Faith in God guides us.”