By David Myers

Southwest Kansas Register

When Colombia native Luz Betty Gordon came to the United States more than 20 years ago, she was brought to a youth gathering where it was assumed she took drugs.

"I was told, ‘I thought since you were from Colombia, you smoked marijuana,’" she said.

"I was offended! [Back home] I never noticed my friends or classmates doing drugs. I never saw anybody smoking marijuana. We were always in a group. Our parents trusted our friends and their families. We would protect each other from things like that. We trusted our friends."

From her home in Great Bend that she shares with her husband, Don, and a family of friendly pets, Luz Betty spoke of her life in South America as being deeply spiritual and steeped in Catholic tradition.

And it was a life in which helping the less fortunate was ingrained into society, something the country’s "drug cartel" reputation has overshadowed.

Luz Betty was reared in an upper-middle class home with a maid. Having a maid in Colombia, and later in Venezuela where the family moved after Luz Betty graduated high school, means something entirely different than it does in the United States.

"We have a lot of poor farmers called campasinos," Luz Betty explained. "They live too far away to send their kids to school."

Middle- and upper-class families will sometimes "adopt" one of the children of the farmers, often a girl, who will serve as a maid in their home. In return, the child will be given a salary, full schooling, room and board, and will become, in essence, a member of the family until they leave, usually at age 17.

"The parents trust the other parents to let their daughter work for them," Luz Betty said. "We learned to respect the maids. They were part of the family."

Luz Betty attended private Catholic school first with the Presentation Sisters -- "They wore those big habits," she said, raising her hands above her head -- and then with the Nazarines. Her high school years were spent in a private school where students were required to take part in Alfabetizacion.

"It’s a class that all students must attend," she said. "Students go to small barios [poor areas] and teach reading, or how to balance your checkbook, etc…. In our spare time, instead of partying, we were teaching people how to read."

After high school, Luz Betty, her parents and brother and sister, moved to Venezuela where her father, his parents and brothers were from. There she attended Santa Maria University in Caracas and spent five years studying to become a pharmacist. She also worked in the "Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones" in the virology department. She assisted in the search for an encephalitis vaccine.

At the urging of her cousin, who then lived in Great Bend, Luz Betty came to the United States expecting to earn high wages as a pharmacist.

Once she arrived in Great Bend, Luz Betty was told that to become a licensed pharmacist in the United States, she’d have to "go to the University of Kansas for two more years, and take classes such as gym and history," she said, shaking her head. "It would have cost me $5,000 per semester."

Instead she attended Barton County Community College where she studied to become a medical technologist, and for 20 years now has worked in the laboratory at Larned State Hospital.

Luz Betty had another reason for moving to the United States. While on her first visit here, she met a young man who made her heart leap. On Dec. 20, she and Don will have been married 25 years, and despite being of different race, religion, nationality, and language (a cousin acted as interpreter when they first met), the two have thrived.

"The marriage ceremony was very interesting," Don said. Father Chuck Mazouch and Rev. Bill Hickerson both presided over the ceremony. It was one of the first mixed-faith weddings in a Catholic church in Great Bend.

Their honeymoon trip to Dallas, Don explained, included a spin-out on an icy Kansas road, getting lost on highways, and a bevy of generous strangers who helped the young newlyweds along the way until they ended up by chance at Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The location gave Luz Betty an up-close and personal lesson in U.S. history.

After more than 25 years in the United States, Luz Betty said that one of the things she misses most about her former home in the capitol of Venezuela is the noise.

"In Caracas [30 square miles large with a population of 4.6 million], it was so loud," she said, smiling. "Here it is so quiet, like a hospital! I miss the noise."

Despite the large populace, she said the pace was much slower in Caracas. "There, time goes slowly. Here it’s too fast. There you go to a friend’s house to have a cup of coffee, and you spend hours talking.

"There were family reunions almost every month," she added. "Our parents and friends’ parents were ready to take us to different towns close to the city as mini vacations, or on weekends at the beach, or countryside to enjoy the freshness of the trees, flowers, birds or be far away from the noise of the city."

Her fondest memory of life in Colombia?

"Christmas. It’s the best memory I have," she said. "Starting on Dec. 16, we had a novena for the Baby Jesus. Each night we’d go to a different house. There would be fireworks, music, the teens would dance … adults would have a small glass of wine. It was like the Baby Jesus was in each house. It was beautiful."

Luz Betty’s father was a business owner; her mother died seven years ago. "I owe everything to my parents. My mother was a very kind and beautiful lady.

"She dropped her duties to sit with a friend, or us, or to listen and advise anyone in the best way she could," Luz Betty added. "We called her our confidant because she never discussed other people’s problems and we feel her prayers were answered when she prayed for us. God has been blessed by her. I called her ‘the pope’ because she was always at the window with her beautiful hand blessing us."

Don recently retired as case manager from his job at Sunflower Training Center (now Sunflower Diversified), which trains people who are developmentally disabled. Besides working at the hospital, Luz Betty has taught English as a second language courses through ESSDACK educational services for two years. Once a week, she teaches Spanish to Father Ted Stoecklein, and English to seminarian Luis Diaz. She also teaches the First Communion classes. Fifteen years ago she started the Adult Center in Barton Community College, which teaches English and English reading skills to Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

"Now I love those Mexicans!" she said with a wide grin. "They are such neat people. We teach them about the novena of the Baby Jesus, and they teach us about Las Posadas [a traditional Mexican festival which re-enacts Joseph’s search for a room at the inn.]"

Luz Betty goes to the Chapel of Central Kansas Medical Center each Sunday at 6 a.m. to open the Blessed Sacrament, where she and others praise the Blessed Sacrament with music, song and readings.

Don and Luz Betty also take part in another tradition, this one brought to the United States recently by a young Mexican woman, Marisela Poblano. It’s a tradition she hopes will spread.

"It’s a custom to make dinner for Jesus," she explained. "Once a month people go to a different person’s house with covered dishes. We sing, play guitar, and read the Bible. The owner of the house fixes a place on the table for Jesus, and a plate of food is set for him. It’s beautiful."

When asked if she had had difficulties getting acclimated to her new life after first arriving in Great Bend, she smiled and said, "I blend with people very easily. I see no status. I get along with a janitor or a president. It makes no difference to me."