Report on 25th Anniversary Mexico Trip, Oct 19-26, 2025
In this special edition of Jubilee Updates, we report on the experiences of the 25th Anniversary Jubilee Delegation to Mexico, October 19-26, 2025. When we travel to the Jubilee Circles in Mexico, we join one another to make real our solidarity and reject hyper-independence. Together we reaffirm our resistance to patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, and accumulation as we focus on our Jubilee work that goes a better way.
While this special edition presents some highlights, much is missing. Missing are the conversations, the hundreds of images as we walk streets or ride in rural countrysides, the gestures, the occasional tears, the frequent laughter, the love of solidarity, and those moments that powerfully challenge us to consider the unfamiliar. These articles are mostly my perspective (Lee Van Ham). Other delegates have their own perspectives.
Suggestion: take your time with this newsletter. The snail’s slowness is a good speed for all that’s packed into this Update. And the snail’s spiral suggests we can read and circle back. (I’m borrowing the snail image from the Zapatistas. See below)
Why Delegations to Mexico Are Important
A few days after the Delegation ended, Angelica (San Mateo Jubilee Circle) wrote:
It was a great joy to see … everyone.… What a wonderful way to celebrate JEM’s 25th anniversary! And how good it was to be able to sit down and talk about the meaning of the Jubilee in our lives and in our ministry. This brought a refreshed perspective and I think it encouraged us all to keep moving forward, because there is still so much to do!
And Edman (Tapachula Jubilee Circle) wrote:
May our good God continue to weave connections between our two countries and unite us ever more closely with the same vision, that of the kingdom of the divine Ruach [the Hebrew word for Spirit].
The perils of our planet go beyond what humanity is heeding. Bullying authoritarians make it worse. As a result, our lives are threatened along with our descendants. Also, our pets and the woods in which we walk, the gardens we tend, and the waters where we play and fish. The air needs a cleaning, and the best soils are getting thin. We go to Mexico to learn more about better ways, to renew our belief that another world is possible. Solidarity in this belief leaps ahead during Jubilee Delegations to Mexico.
***From San Cristobal to You***
The Zapatista Movement of Indigenous Peoples Expands
“Zapatismo” has gone far beyond Mexico. The spirit, thinking, and way of living that these Indigenous people brought out of the jungles of Chiapas has gone throughout Mexico, into Latin America, Europe, and North America. It has much to offer us, to offer the world.
Throughout the life of the San Cristobal Jubilee ministries in Chiapas, there have been Zapatistas. The Zapatistas model a genius for living sustainably apart from the systems of government, capitalist economics, Western healthcare, and public education. There is so much to learn from them. Even in only two hours of walking with our guide around their vocational campus, our Delegation was greatly impacted. Located on the edge of San Cristobal, Chiapas, this school trains its students from Zapatista autonomous communities in community living, regular reflection and analysis, and types of work useful in the Indigenous communities from which they have come.
It was January 1, 1994, when the world learned about Zapatistas—Indigenous peoples who came out of the mountains and jungle of Chiapas to briefly occupy the city of San Cristobal to protest NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). Why? Because in that agreement between Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, Mexico agreed to allow private ownership of vast communal lands where Indigenous people had lived for centuries. Corporations wanted access to some of those lands because of their mineral wealth (Chiapas is one of the poorest Mexican states, but richest in mineral resources.) Some years later, I heard one young Indigenous man say, “NAFTA is the latest tool of genocide.” indigenous people were forced to move from lands they knew and go deeper into the highlands.
The Zapatistas are about so much more than what this brief article tells. One of their slogans is “Another World Is Possible.” Their disciplined movement offers a future for all species centered in Earth’s ways. Given the widespread unraveling across many sectors of life, it’s worth our time to read and learn about Zapatistas through online sources. We can learn more about living differently in a world where radical alternatives are essential.
Zapatistas live in autonomous communities that resist the federal government and capitalism by showing better ways to bring fullness to their lives. They are self-governing. They have their own systems of healthcare, judicial review, and education. Women and men have equal responsibility in all decisions. Decisions happen in radically democratic processes. These autonomous communities are called caracols (Spanish for snails), in part, because their decision-making and way of life are slow. They want it that way. They minimize hierarchy and prefer spiral decision-making (another reason for the spiraling snail/caracol) to linear ways and are in no hurry to come to conclusions. Taking time and spiraling helps to get everyone included and offers time to reflect and reconsider.
The campus we visited is most often referred to by its acronym CIDECI; it is also called the University of the Earth. Here students come from the many caracols to learn what is useful to their community and to engage in regular times of reflection and analysis. Our young guide’s vocation was leather work. He made the handsome boots he wore. He took us to building after building on the campus, each one dedicated to a particular vocation. He also showed us the dining hall and the building where students meet for reflection and analysis about life and what’s happening in the world. They learn analytical thinking, and to understand the kind of commitment it takes to live in Earth community with others and all of nature. Spirituality is integral throughout the campus. A two-hour visit leaves one wanting to know more about Zapatismo.
Living Sustainably by Recognizing Connections
Between Cosmos and Earth
Marcos was introduced to us by Gloria Gonzales (Nahuatl) of the San Cristobal Circle. He described for us the cosmo-vision that guides him and his people. They enter into the grandness of that vision through ceremony and through life practices, all of which pulsate with the Sacred. For them, it’s not about believing in the Sacred, but recognizing that the Sacred is everywhere—within, among, and beyond. He speaks Tzeltal, the language of over 200,000 Mayan people in the highlands of the state of Chiapas, as well as Spanish and other dialects.
From the beginning of our time together, Marcos addressed assumptions visitors often have about him and his people. He told us that he had a doctor’s degree and that what he was wearing was not a costume, but his everyday dress. Then he proceeded to tell us how his dress symbolized the cosmo-vision that guided him. He concluded with the rosary. Though not visible in this photo, it hangs like a long necklace around his neck. It is a Mayan, not Catholic, rosary and its many metal, quarter-size symbols connect cosmos and practices of life.
Marcos also led us in an abbreviated version of a core, sacred ceremony that takes many days when his people do it. It includes drinking posh (an alcohol from maize) at various times. So he served each of us a taste.
The importance of living with a consciousness of life within a cosmos stands in strong contrast to a secularized life that is focused on consuming and acquiring. His people actively pursue that consciousness through conversations about their cosmo-vision, through practices of daily life, and most especially through ceremonies in which their children also participate. The ceremonies are not a hurry-up and get them done kind of thing, but a training of their hearts and consciousness over many days. Marcos shared with us some treasures of his people. We saw clearly that his spirituality was not separate from life. prompting us to consider how what we heard from Marcos is or is not true for us.
Connecting Urban and Rural Living
Visit to a Woman-Owned and Operated Coffee Farm
One of the Alter-Nativas ministries (part of the San Cristobal Circle) of Isai and Lindsey Mercer-Robledo bridges the urban-rural gap that is a seedbed for so much economic inequality, prejudice, and rampant misunderstanding of cultural differences. Our van traveled an hour outside of San Cristobal to visit with Samária López Jimenez on her coffee farm. It had just rained, so after parking the van on the surfaced road, we walked through mud and moist underbrush until we came to Samária’s kitchen. Isai and Lindsey had met Samária at markets in the city. Soon they worked together to live their convictions that urban and rural living need to be connected. It is another way that a solidarity economy focused in relationships is being enacted by Alter-Nativas.
After coffee and breakfast on a simple outdoor table, we all pitched in on the work to grow mushrooms. Well, actually, we did only one step in the process that takes a few weeks. Samária will take it the rest of the way.
Then, with machete in hand, Samária walked us through the bush-like coffee trees all around us. Coffee beans were just beginning to ripen to a shiny red. She explained the long, careful process and hard work of going from bean to mug.
Lunch time! We walked to another building in the community of people living and working here. There we took turns turning the crank on a small grinder that turned soaked maiz into the masa for tortillas. Samária kneaded the masa (see photo), took a ball of it into her hands, and shaped a perfect tortilla. Each of us took a turn at a skill that looked so easy when we watched her. But, as we learned, it takes some practice. A wood fire had been started and we laid our tortillas on the small metal sheet over the fire. We tended our tortillas and when done, added the fillings. Yum! What an extraordinary day!
***From San Mateo to You***
Committing to Put the Earth Charter into Action
Groups Connecting to Consider Earth in All Decisions
Human societies suffer from the wound of disconnection with Earth, the humus of our own being. Disconnected, humanity has created systems that seek to improve on Earth’s systems that so skillfully generate life. In this century, Jubilee is one of many efforts to rediscover the natural human place within Earth’s bioregions. The Earth Charter provides a strong universal, ethical framework for all efforts to live OneEarth ways. Its four pillars and sixteen principles show a deep, ethical and spiritual appreciation for Earth. [The photo below: OneEarth Jubilee, Earth Charter signing.]
In 2000, the Earth Charter was presented to the world as a new millennium began. The Charter had been nearly a decade in coming together and included the inputs of over 5000 people. A lot has happened since the Charter first came out, but because Charter news is absent from public media, we need to read about it online. The Charter and Jubilee (JEM) are both in our 25th year. It happened that JEM’s Delegation to Mexico was in Puebla at the time of that state’s ceremony. That presented an opportunity that David Delgado of the San Mateo Circle made happen.
The state of Puebla is the first to embrace The Earth Charter to guide its decisions. The well-attended ceremony on the campus of Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla, the state’s oldest and largest university, included representatives from the governor, from other state offices, from the university, and from non-government organizations. David Delgado, Director of Attention to Civil Society and Religious Organizations in the Puebla state government, combined his sense of ministry with his job in arranging for JEM to be in this ceremony. His work is one of many ministries of the San Mateo Circle.
Though ceremonies can be quite rote, this one was not so. There was a sense of solidarity to make real the Earth Charter across sectors of society. We can hope that the implementation across the state will be authentic and energetic. Jubilee’s four Circes embrace the wisdom of The Earth Charter along with the biblical Jubilee as we renewed our dedication to have Earth at the core of our work.
Little time elapsed before United Religions Initiative (URI) jumped into action and included this ceremonial event in the updates it sends to its Cooperation Circles (CCs) around the globe. The update said: “As part of a statewide adoption of the Earth Charter in Puebla, Mexico, OneEarth Jubilee CC was invited to join the governor, university and a number of NGOs by sharing its commitment to carrying out the sixteen principles and four pillars as defined in the Earth Charter. The day after the official signing ceremony for the adults, younger members of the CC created individual Earth Charters to add their endorsement.” The photo below shows children holding their Earth Charters.
The creation and signing of the children’s Earth Charter was the program-of-the-day for the regular Saturday gatherings of children in the Dan Swanson Cultural Center. The San Mateo Circle plans a theme-story with commentary, a craft, and a meal (hamburgers in this case because the kitchen staff offered U.S. food as part of having U.S. guests). During craft time, children completed a few sentences of commitment to do no harm to Earth, added some flower petals, and signed their names.They were quite pleased; and all the adults with them.
25th Anniversary Delegation’s Conversations
How Has Jubilee Changed Us? And What’s Ahead?
Each day was so full that we had to wrestle the clock for times of reflection. We did get to hear some moving stories from those in Mexico and those traveling from the U.S. In some cases the worldview of Jubilee has become for us a whole new way of following Jesus.
When we spoke of what’s ahead, many ideas flowed. We see the humanitarian needs around us and understand that many of these needs result from the faulty economic, political, and religious systems in the world. We understand that Jubilee ministries care for life and Earth in both personal and systemic. These conversations made us hungry for more of this kind of sharing together in days ahead.
How do we fund the ministries we envision? It’s a question that bedevils us. But just as certainly, we are looking at our own resources, expressing willingness to find new sources, and prayerfully trusting that there are ways we cannot see. It’s possible that the Spirit is working to bring to us people and funding sources who will meet us and work with us to benefit people and change systems through Jubilee. You, readers, may know of sources who would like to consider the opportunity to participate financially in such a resonant collection of ministries offered by Jubilee. Do be in touch.
****
And there’s more. But this newsletter is long enough. If you want to be part of the next Delegation, let any of us know. Your query will encourage us to get the next Delegation into future plans.
