On March 19, 1982, thirty years ago, Jacobus Andreas Koster (“Koos”) and several other Dutch journalists were killed in El Salvador.
Their experience opened them to faith as mine has here in Central America, first in El Salvador and now in Honduras. Being with the poor opens up a way to Christ and to conversion.
Koos Koster wrote of his experience:
“If you want to see Christ in the world, you must go to Latin America.”
“Of all the friends I have lost in Latin America, Monseñor Romero was the most mourned for. Jesus did what he said and Romero was cut from the same cloth. Two weeks before his death, I heard him talking in the cathedral about the politics of the Kingdom. This has completely worn me out in this dark hour…. It seems as though the God of history has removed his hands from El Salvador … over us hangs a kind of darkness of God which from time to time throws me into the abyss.”
But I have found in the midst of suffering and even killing, there are signs of the resurrection and signs of hope.
The other day in the remote village of Las Delicias, Concepción, Copán, an eighty three year man showed me, with great pride, an image of Archbishop Romero on his house altar. He mentioned that he once met him in El Salvador. But his pride showed me the hope Romero’s death has given millions here in Latin America.
walk the way 