"I couldn't stop thinking about it," Paneitz said. "The fact that extreme poverty exists and exists very close to us. By flight just two hours away people are dying and starving. You'd think we'd be better neighbors than that." On a trip to Oregon, sitting around a campfire, he shared his vision with a man named Aaron Colvin to start an organization to help these people. The two packed what they could, hopped in a van and drove all the way to Guatemala. And thus began the organization Long Way Home. "We both believe that in 2009 there is no valid reason why every child can't have an education, a place to play and food to eat," Colvin said. "For a child in Guatemala, in small rural towns such as San Juan Comalapa, where the remaining indigenous Mayan reside, many children don't receive an education past elementary school. They work at home or in the fields all day and eat some tortillas at night just to survive." In just four years Paneitz and the staff and volunteers who have since joined to help have built an educational and recreational community park that includes a soccer field, basketball court, community kitchen, botanical garden, tree and plant nursery, volunteer quarters, playground, outdoor classroom and a house made out of used tires and trash. They have planted 40,000 trees and the park receives approximately 2,000 visitors each month. They also build stoves, water tanks and compost latrines.
After serving in Guatemala in the Peace Corps for a year, Mateo Paneitz couldn't bring himself to go back to his former way of life in America
Long road home: Local man devotes life to helping the poor in Guatemala
By BRITTONY LUND
The Lufkin Daily News
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Caption: Mateo Paneitz, center, and other Long Way Home staff members relax after a hard day of work. Paneitz began Long Way Home three years ago with the goal of ending the cycle of poverty for the poor in this Guatemalan community and eventually in the world.
In a small, rural farming community high up in the mountains of central Guatemala a Lufkin man works hard to change the cycle of poverty which plagues the farmers there.
After serving in Guatemala in the Peace Corps for a year, Mateo Paneitz couldn't bring himself to go back to his former way of life in America. Every day he'd get up, go to work, go home and all the time couldn't get the poor, suffering people to the south out of his heart and mind. He felt useless living his life while they couldn't escape the hardships of theirs.
"I couldn't stop thinking about it," Paneitz said. "The fact that extreme poverty exists and exists very close to us. By flight just two hours away people are dying and starving. You'd think we'd be better neighbors than that."
On a trip to Oregon, sitting around a campfire, he shared his vision with a man named Aaron Colvin to start an organization to help these people. The two packed what they could, hopped in a van and drove all the way to Guatemala. And thus began the organization Long Way Home.
"We both believe that in 2009 there is no valid reason why every child can't have an education, a place to play and food to eat," Colvin said. "For a child in Guatemala, in small rural towns such as San Juan Comalapa, where the remaining indigenous Mayan reside, many children don't receive an education past elementary school. They work at home or in the fields all day and eat some tortillas at night just to survive."
In just four years Paneitz and the staff and volunteers who have since joined to help have built an educational and recreational community park that includes a soccer field, basketball court, community kitchen, botanical garden, tree and plant nursery, volunteer quarters, playground, outdoor classroom and a house made out of used tires and trash. They have planted 40,000 trees and the park receives approximately 2,000 visitors each month. They also build stoves, water tanks and compost latrines.
Paneitz and the three staff members who live with him share a tiny house in the community. They live on $700 a month and get by with the help of people in the community who often stop in to give them chickens, baskets of corn or whatever they can to help. For the first two years they lived without water or electricity in a place 7,500 feet up in the mountains where the temperatures are often below freezing.
"If you're going to help poor people you should have some idea of what they're going through," Paneitz said.
His mother Janet Paneitz, who lives in Lufkin, said although she worries about her son and misses him she is also very proud of him.
"As a boy growing up Matthew was always a champion for the underdog," Paneitz said. "He definitely had the kindest heart of my three sons so I am really not surprised by the direction his life has taken."
She said she thinks her son is a very special person to do what he has done and work so hard to help others even at the cost of his own comfort.
"Matt has never required a lot of possessions," Janet Paneitz said. "Things are just not very important to him. That has helped him live with limited luxuries like running water and reliable electricity."
Long Way Home is currently in need of donations and volunteers. Paneitz said he can use anyone, regardless of skill. His job is to find out how each volunteer can best help.
Mike Wisniewski, a member of a student organization called International Impact at the University of Illinois, took eight students, two leaders and six new group members to Guatemala last year to help Long Way Home. He said though he's served on numerous such trips seeing the living conditions of the people was hard for him.
"It really made me feel grateful for all that I have, but at the same time I feel guilty for living my life the way I do with all my luxuries while people in nearby countries live with so little," Wisniewski said.
He and the students saw families without stoves cooking on pans over open fires on the floor of their kitchen. They saw families share a hole in the ground with other families as a bathroom.
"Some families use one full size bed for five people," Wisniewski said. "While at my house there are seven beds and four bathrooms all with constantly running water for six people."
He said the students took away some very important lessons watching the farmers work so hard all day every day.
"They saw how people could be happy not from their material possessions but instead from strong relationships they have with family and friends," Wisniewski said.
Paneitz hopes once they've established programs and trained enough staff and volunteers Long Way Home can spread out around Central America and eventually reach Africa. He has no plans to quit any time in his lifetime but will devote his life to this mission, knowing he'll never find peace if he ignores the suffering of others.
Colvin said watching poverty every day is hard but gives both he and Paneitz the motivation they need to not give up.
"Mateo, he is a leader," Colvin said.
"His devotion to the project, his wisdom and his passion has inspired a community, inspired his staff and hundreds of volunteers from around the world. And he is just getting started."
To find out more information about Long Way Home or to find out how you can volunteer visit them online at www.longwayhomeinc.org or call 972-243-0347. You can e-mail Mateo Paneitz at mattpaneitz@longwayhomeinc.org. Send donations to P.O. Box 815186, Farmer's Branch, TX 75381.
