A Visit From “Chavo”
by Erin Hahl, House Leader
On the eve of May 13, 2008, Salvador Delgado, the community leader from Queretaro, Mexico, arrived via an international enculturation meeting in Montreal. Chavo, Salvador’s more common and preferred name, spent three weeks in and around Tacoma in an effort to building solidarity and strengthen ties with L’Arche Tahoma Hope and the Western U.S. Region. While Chavo came to us with minimal English and we received him with an almost reciprocal amount of Spanish, it didn’t take long to get to know him and his gentle spirit. Chavo spent his days in an assortment of ways. He
often joined the Farmhouse for morning breakfast and tea, worked almost daily on the Farm, and spent a good chunk of his time mixing with other members and parts of the Tacoma and Seattle communities. Through the help of gestures, translators, and some creative forms of communication, Chavo shared with us about his community back home.
L’Arche in Queretaro was founded in 1999 and consists of one house, made up of five core members. In addition to the home, community members take part in activities together, such as baking break, growing a garden, and gathering daily for prayer. The life there, he said, is simple and is full of many of the same joys and challenges found within the walls of our homes and programs here in Tacoma. Chavo’s presence was felt throughout the community during and after his visit. He brought with him a very playful and tender spirit, which enabled the often broken conversations to be a little more fluid. It wasn’t uncommon to see him joking with core members, to catch him on the Farmhouse lawn participating in a badminton tournament, or to hear him joining the house in a song and dance number. Chavo went back to Queretaro with a few extra English words in his pocket, and both parties left the experience feeling a deeper sense of connection and a stronger sense of belonging to the international body of L’Arche.
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