I’ve decided I want to write up our trip to Guatemala in as much detail so I can share it with other people. I figured someone out there might want to read about everything that happened. I like telling stories, but I can't tell all my stories to every person I know, so this is a good way for me to get these experiences in a form that other people can consume. Also, it gives me a way to share some of the amazing things that I saw God do with as many people as possible.
Notes on the account: since this is for other people to read, I've left out a few things, mostly just jokes that only make sense if you were there or some of the random conversations we had while we were there. I didn't include much description of the scenery either, mostly because there is no way I could do it justice in words. For an idea of what we saw while driving around Guatemala, see my Flickr photo albums. I also made a small identity change to a couple of people involved in the Pre-Trip portion, since they asked that I not share their identities with the public at large. I want to respect that request.
Other than that, there isn't much I didn't include. Because this is my account, I figured you'd want to hear my voice and my thoughts on the stuff that was happening. So almost everything that happened while in Guatemala is here.
One other thing: my memory isn't perfect, but I did my best. I tried very hard to get all the details correct or at least note when I wasn't sure about something. I know I got the big things right (like what days we went where and things like that), but some of the other stuff I might remember incorrectly. If I did get something wrong, I apologize.
I hope you enjoy.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Pre-Trip: A Story about God's Provision
My story actually started back in late February when God told me that I needed to go on a trip to Guatemala that I’d heard about at church. They'd been talking about missions at church and they had just announced the trip. Something in my heart stirred (read: the Holy Spirit) and I just knew I should go on the trip. That night, I e-mailed Alex Rodriguez saying I would come to the meeting to get more info. That was February 26th.
The meeting was supposed to be the next week, but was canceled because of snow (I think). Instead, Stacy (Alex’s wife) called me the afternoon of March 2nd to give me the info about the trip. She went over what we might be doing, who was probably going, and how much it would cost. After we talked, I told her I needed to talk to Ed (my husband) to make sure he was okay with me going. I also mentioned that I really felt like God wanted me to do this. Later that day, after a talk with Ed, I sent Stacy an e-mail confirming that I wanted to go ahead and commit to going on the trip.
That night I was still a little unsure though. I mean, it was a lot of money and Ed wasn’t sure where it would come from. I was worried that I’d misheard God and that He didn’t actually want me to go. That night in bed, I prayed, asking for God’s assurance and peace that he wanted me to go on this trip. He gave me both immediately. With that peace resting on my heart, I said, “Okay God. You want me to go, so I trust that you’ll provide the money.” It had happened in the past every other time I'd gone on a trip. God was always faithful to provide, so I knew He would be again this time. Still, I wasn’t prepared for what He did next.
The next day, a good friend and her husband called us and asked if they could borrow a backdrop kit of Ed’s for some photos she needed to take for a class. We said sure, so they made plans to come pick it up that night (I promise this has a point).
That evening, they stopped by while Ed was out. I got them the backdrop kit and we took some time to chat. Right before they were leaving, I mentioned that I had two questions for them. One had nothing to do with this trip and I don’t even remember what it was anymore. The other, I told them, was that I was getting ready to go to Guatemala in June on a mission trip. Before I’d even gotten the statement out completely, my friend started laughing. Confused, I asked her what was so funny. Instead of answering, she told me to just go on and ask my question. Still confused, I obliged.
I told them I was going on the trip and that it was expensive and that I needed to raise money. I mentioned that I was going to sell coffee (among doing other fundraisers), so if they wanted any or knew of anyone that wanted some, to let me know. Basically, I told them I was going to hit them up for a little support, if they could spare it. Key words here: a little.
By the time I was finished talking, both my friend and her husband were laughing again and I was frustrated and even more confused. I didn’t understand what was so funny. I asked them to tell me, so she looked at her husband and said, “You wanna tell her?” So he did.
It turns out that one of the things they do is regularly contribute to missionaries. It also turned out that the missionary that they had most recently been contributing to had met her funding goals. Because of this, they were looking for a new person to contribute to. In fact, just the previous night, they’d been praying asking for God to lead them to a new person they could help. And here I was, needing some help to pay for a trip to Guatemala.
At first, I thought this meant that they just wanted to help out a little bit, you know a few hundred dollars or something. Turned out, they had something a little different in mind.
They asked how much and when the trip was. I told them. The husband did a few quick calculations in his head head (he’s good with math) and then said, “Yeah, I think we can do that.”
Bug-eyed, I asked, “What?”
They then proceeded to tell me that they would send me a check every week until my trip was paid for. Since it was four months out at that point, that meant that they would be covering the whole cost (minus spending money). I was, understandably, speechless.
We got the final details worked out and they left, after giving me the first check. It was the most astounding thing I’d witnessed up to that point.
All I can say about it is that it was completely God. To have that happen in that way is something only God could have orchestrated, and I am forever grateful.
The meeting was supposed to be the next week, but was canceled because of snow (I think). Instead, Stacy (Alex’s wife) called me the afternoon of March 2nd to give me the info about the trip. She went over what we might be doing, who was probably going, and how much it would cost. After we talked, I told her I needed to talk to Ed (my husband) to make sure he was okay with me going. I also mentioned that I really felt like God wanted me to do this. Later that day, after a talk with Ed, I sent Stacy an e-mail confirming that I wanted to go ahead and commit to going on the trip.
That night I was still a little unsure though. I mean, it was a lot of money and Ed wasn’t sure where it would come from. I was worried that I’d misheard God and that He didn’t actually want me to go. That night in bed, I prayed, asking for God’s assurance and peace that he wanted me to go on this trip. He gave me both immediately. With that peace resting on my heart, I said, “Okay God. You want me to go, so I trust that you’ll provide the money.” It had happened in the past every other time I'd gone on a trip. God was always faithful to provide, so I knew He would be again this time. Still, I wasn’t prepared for what He did next.
The next day, a good friend and her husband called us and asked if they could borrow a backdrop kit of Ed’s for some photos she needed to take for a class. We said sure, so they made plans to come pick it up that night (I promise this has a point).
That evening, they stopped by while Ed was out. I got them the backdrop kit and we took some time to chat. Right before they were leaving, I mentioned that I had two questions for them. One had nothing to do with this trip and I don’t even remember what it was anymore. The other, I told them, was that I was getting ready to go to Guatemala in June on a mission trip. Before I’d even gotten the statement out completely, my friend started laughing. Confused, I asked her what was so funny. Instead of answering, she told me to just go on and ask my question. Still confused, I obliged.
I told them I was going on the trip and that it was expensive and that I needed to raise money. I mentioned that I was going to sell coffee (among doing other fundraisers), so if they wanted any or knew of anyone that wanted some, to let me know. Basically, I told them I was going to hit them up for a little support, if they could spare it. Key words here: a little.
By the time I was finished talking, both my friend and her husband were laughing again and I was frustrated and even more confused. I didn’t understand what was so funny. I asked them to tell me, so she looked at her husband and said, “You wanna tell her?” So he did.
It turns out that one of the things they do is regularly contribute to missionaries. It also turned out that the missionary that they had most recently been contributing to had met her funding goals. Because of this, they were looking for a new person to contribute to. In fact, just the previous night, they’d been praying asking for God to lead them to a new person they could help. And here I was, needing some help to pay for a trip to Guatemala.
At first, I thought this meant that they just wanted to help out a little bit, you know a few hundred dollars or something. Turned out, they had something a little different in mind.
They asked how much and when the trip was. I told them. The husband did a few quick calculations in his head head (he’s good with math) and then said, “Yeah, I think we can do that.”
Bug-eyed, I asked, “What?”
They then proceeded to tell me that they would send me a check every week until my trip was paid for. Since it was four months out at that point, that meant that they would be covering the whole cost (minus spending money). I was, understandably, speechless.
We got the final details worked out and they left, after giving me the first check. It was the most astounding thing I’d witnessed up to that point.
All I can say about it is that it was completely God. To have that happen in that way is something only God could have orchestrated, and I am forever grateful.
June 11, 2014: Wednesday - Traveling to Guatemala
Finally, after months of preparations, the day we left had arrived. I don’t think you really want to hear about my packing or getting up the morning of the trip, so I’ll leave that out and start with getting picked up by Jillian.
She got to my house at 6:00 a.m. with her mom. We loaded my stuff into the car, I said goodbye to my husband, and off we went. It’s not a far drive from my house to the airport, about 15 minutes, so we got there a little early.
Jillian and I unloaded our bags and sat down just inside the doors to the terminal to await the arrival of the others. We were only there a couple of minutes before Hugh showed up, coming from another part of the airport. He’d gotten there and come in another door, but decided to come looking for the rest of the group.
Not long after that, everyone else began arriving (by everyone else I mean Heather, John, Will, Stacy, and Dominic. John's brother Ben was meeting us in Houston and Alex was already in Guatemala). We took a few minutes to write luggage tags and put bright purple tape on our bags so we could easily see them, then it was time to get in line to check our bags.
The wait was going to take a while, so we decided to put all of our nearly 20 bags off to the side of the check in counter. Hugh sat with them while the rest of us got in line and waited. Eventually we got through the line. Just as we were getting to the counter, John, Will, and Hugh grabbed all the bags and pulled them over to us. This caused a little commotion because one of the people at the check in counter only saw us pulling over our bags, not us waiting in line. This made him question whether we'd butted in line or not. We assured him we hadn't and after a moment, he let us proceed to get checked in. Once we checked all our bags, we headed through security then on to our gate.
It was on the way to the gate that we first learned that our flight was going to be delayed. Initially, it looked like the delay would only be by about 30 minutes. This worried everyone a little, since our layover in Houston was only about an hour long, but we thought it might be okay. Then we got another look and realized that we’d been delayed by nearly an hour. This was extremely worrying since that meant we definitely wouldn't have enough time to get to our connection. If we missed our connecting flight, that meant we might wind up not getting to Guatemala until later that night. Stacy told us that that would be bad.
This was the first time, but certainly not the last, that we were very grateful to have John Ryan with us. As soon as we got to our gate, he went up to the counter and started explaining the situation to the two women there. He stood at the counter, insisting that they keep working, until they got something worked out. It was something like 30 minutes later when they finally arrived at a solution.
Turns out that the United people called the Houston airport (several times actually) and found a way to get us an extra 15 minutes so that we could make it to the other gate and on the plane. We didn’t find out until we boarded the plane to Houston that this happened because they canceled a flight to Philadelphia. We’re pretty sure that John’s insistence on them figuring something out is what got the flight canceled. Which is hilarious. And another big God thing. Once more, His hand was very evident on this trip, and we hadn’t even left St. Louis yet.
The actual flight to Houston was uneventful. We sat on a plane while it flew. That’s all.
Once we landed in Houston, we prepared for our sprint to the next gate while the plane taxied. As soon as we reached our gate, we stood up and the flight attendant asked that everyone else on the plane let those with connecting flights get off the plane first. Hugh picked up Dominic, the rest of us grabbed all the carry-on bags, and we took off so we could get all the way to the other side of the airport in time. Our trek to the other gate involved a tram ride past two stops, Hugh carrying Dominic on his shoulders, and practically running down a few moving sidewalks. Still, we made it. In fact, we weren’t even the last people to get on the plane.
Once more, the flight to Guatemala was just that: a flight. The funniest thing about the flight was that despite it getting delayed and us getting delayed by nearly an hour in St. Louis, we actually got to Guatemala City a little before we were scheduled to get there. Let’s say it together now: God thing!
After getting to Guatemala City, it took us a bit to exit the plane. Once we accomplished that, we met up with Ben Ryan (John’s brother) and headed to baggage claim. On the way, we had our first experience with Guatemalan bathrooms. It actually wasn’t that bad. It’s a little weird not to flush toilet paper, but it didn’t smell like I was worried it would. Of course, that could have just been because I have almost no sense of smell.
Anyway, once our bladders had been relieved, we made our way to baggage claim. When we got there, Stacy found some men with a cart to help us with the bags since we each had two checked bags with us plus carry-ons, what with all the donations we’d brought. They piled all the suitcases onto the cart into a huge pile, then we went and stood in line to have our bags checked for customs.
While we stood in line, Stacy told us that often what would happen is that the people checking the bags would go through the stuff and then decide you had to pay them a certain amount of money before you could keep going. John told us a similar story from one of the last times he was in Guatemala when they had to pay to get through customs too.
Despite this being the usual practice, when we got to the head of the line, the guy looked at our pile of bags, took our papers, and waved us around the search. This allowed us to completely bypassed the place where we were going to have to pay who-knows-how-much to get into Guatemala. This was sort of a big deal and another example of God’s provision.
Once we got through customs, we headed outside to find Daniel and our ride. I’m not sure if Daniel was waiting for us or if he pulled up not long after we got outside. Either way, he was there and we headed straight over to the van.
Stacy got worried though, because Alex was not there. We found out that his car broke down again (something that had happened a few days before also) so he couldn’t actually make it to the airport. Instead, we were going to meet him and pick him up somewhere just outside the airport.
While we figured all this out, the Guatemalan men who helped us with our bags finished loading them and it was time to pile into the van for the four hour drive out to Chiquimula. I initially thought that this was going to be pretty stressful for me. I am not a people person. I am friendly and I can carry on a decent conversation (barring small-talk of course), but I don’t do well in large groups, especially large groups of people that I don’t know well. Since that was exactly what this trip consisted of, I was nervous. Up to this point, we actually hadn’t had much down time for talking or getting to know each other. Now we were going to be stuck in car with each other for four hours. Talk about scary.
Turns out, my fears were unfounded. The drive was a lot of fun. The people who had been to Guatemala before pointed out interesting things and told stories of previous trips. We also just chatted and started getting to know each other. We introduced ourselves to Daniel and his daughter Mary Kathleen (known mostly as CeeCee). There was much joking and laughter.
About half-way to Chiquimula we stopped for lunch/dinner (linner?) at a place called Sarita’s. Unfortunately Jillian and I made the mistake of ordering burgers instead of actual Guatemalan food. While she and I may have ordered the same thing, I can’t help but point out that while we both got teased, she got teased more. In fact, dinner marked the beginning of the week-long teasing session of Jillian. I’m not entirely sure why, but everyone decided she was the perfect target for quite a bit of friendly teasing.
Lunch was also where we first got a real taste of what Daniel is like most of the time. Which is to say, he is a giant goofball who loves teasing people and making jokes. His favorite target was Jillian, but he teased all of us. It led to a lot of laughing throughout the week, which was awesome.
After we finished eating, we piled back into the van and continued the drive to Chiquimula. We got slowed down a bit due to a huge mudslide that closed down part of the road. But other than that, I think we made pretty good time.
After dinner my memory gets a little fuzzy. I don't remember exactly when we got to Daniel and Brandi's house. I think it was after dark, but I could be wrong. I know we unloaded the car and introduced ourselves to Brandi and the other kids (they have three kids. Levi is their oldest son, then CeeCee, and finally their youngest son Uriah) at some point. We put our stuff in our rooms, but beyond that, I'm not really sure what went down after we got there. I do know eventually we went to bed though.
She got to my house at 6:00 a.m. with her mom. We loaded my stuff into the car, I said goodbye to my husband, and off we went. It’s not a far drive from my house to the airport, about 15 minutes, so we got there a little early.
Jillian and I unloaded our bags and sat down just inside the doors to the terminal to await the arrival of the others. We were only there a couple of minutes before Hugh showed up, coming from another part of the airport. He’d gotten there and come in another door, but decided to come looking for the rest of the group.
Not long after that, everyone else began arriving (by everyone else I mean Heather, John, Will, Stacy, and Dominic. John's brother Ben was meeting us in Houston and Alex was already in Guatemala). We took a few minutes to write luggage tags and put bright purple tape on our bags so we could easily see them, then it was time to get in line to check our bags.
The wait was going to take a while, so we decided to put all of our nearly 20 bags off to the side of the check in counter. Hugh sat with them while the rest of us got in line and waited. Eventually we got through the line. Just as we were getting to the counter, John, Will, and Hugh grabbed all the bags and pulled them over to us. This caused a little commotion because one of the people at the check in counter only saw us pulling over our bags, not us waiting in line. This made him question whether we'd butted in line or not. We assured him we hadn't and after a moment, he let us proceed to get checked in. Once we checked all our bags, we headed through security then on to our gate.
It was on the way to the gate that we first learned that our flight was going to be delayed. Initially, it looked like the delay would only be by about 30 minutes. This worried everyone a little, since our layover in Houston was only about an hour long, but we thought it might be okay. Then we got another look and realized that we’d been delayed by nearly an hour. This was extremely worrying since that meant we definitely wouldn't have enough time to get to our connection. If we missed our connecting flight, that meant we might wind up not getting to Guatemala until later that night. Stacy told us that that would be bad.
This was the first time, but certainly not the last, that we were very grateful to have John Ryan with us. As soon as we got to our gate, he went up to the counter and started explaining the situation to the two women there. He stood at the counter, insisting that they keep working, until they got something worked out. It was something like 30 minutes later when they finally arrived at a solution.
Turns out that the United people called the Houston airport (several times actually) and found a way to get us an extra 15 minutes so that we could make it to the other gate and on the plane. We didn’t find out until we boarded the plane to Houston that this happened because they canceled a flight to Philadelphia. We’re pretty sure that John’s insistence on them figuring something out is what got the flight canceled. Which is hilarious. And another big God thing. Once more, His hand was very evident on this trip, and we hadn’t even left St. Louis yet.
The actual flight to Houston was uneventful. We sat on a plane while it flew. That’s all.
Once we landed in Houston, we prepared for our sprint to the next gate while the plane taxied. As soon as we reached our gate, we stood up and the flight attendant asked that everyone else on the plane let those with connecting flights get off the plane first. Hugh picked up Dominic, the rest of us grabbed all the carry-on bags, and we took off so we could get all the way to the other side of the airport in time. Our trek to the other gate involved a tram ride past two stops, Hugh carrying Dominic on his shoulders, and practically running down a few moving sidewalks. Still, we made it. In fact, we weren’t even the last people to get on the plane.
Once more, the flight to Guatemala was just that: a flight. The funniest thing about the flight was that despite it getting delayed and us getting delayed by nearly an hour in St. Louis, we actually got to Guatemala City a little before we were scheduled to get there. Let’s say it together now: God thing!
After getting to Guatemala City, it took us a bit to exit the plane. Once we accomplished that, we met up with Ben Ryan (John’s brother) and headed to baggage claim. On the way, we had our first experience with Guatemalan bathrooms. It actually wasn’t that bad. It’s a little weird not to flush toilet paper, but it didn’t smell like I was worried it would. Of course, that could have just been because I have almost no sense of smell.
Anyway, once our bladders had been relieved, we made our way to baggage claim. When we got there, Stacy found some men with a cart to help us with the bags since we each had two checked bags with us plus carry-ons, what with all the donations we’d brought. They piled all the suitcases onto the cart into a huge pile, then we went and stood in line to have our bags checked for customs.
While we stood in line, Stacy told us that often what would happen is that the people checking the bags would go through the stuff and then decide you had to pay them a certain amount of money before you could keep going. John told us a similar story from one of the last times he was in Guatemala when they had to pay to get through customs too.
Despite this being the usual practice, when we got to the head of the line, the guy looked at our pile of bags, took our papers, and waved us around the search. This allowed us to completely bypassed the place where we were going to have to pay who-knows-how-much to get into Guatemala. This was sort of a big deal and another example of God’s provision.
Once we got through customs, we headed outside to find Daniel and our ride. I’m not sure if Daniel was waiting for us or if he pulled up not long after we got outside. Either way, he was there and we headed straight over to the van.
Stacy got worried though, because Alex was not there. We found out that his car broke down again (something that had happened a few days before also) so he couldn’t actually make it to the airport. Instead, we were going to meet him and pick him up somewhere just outside the airport.
While we figured all this out, the Guatemalan men who helped us with our bags finished loading them and it was time to pile into the van for the four hour drive out to Chiquimula. I initially thought that this was going to be pretty stressful for me. I am not a people person. I am friendly and I can carry on a decent conversation (barring small-talk of course), but I don’t do well in large groups, especially large groups of people that I don’t know well. Since that was exactly what this trip consisted of, I was nervous. Up to this point, we actually hadn’t had much down time for talking or getting to know each other. Now we were going to be stuck in car with each other for four hours. Talk about scary.
Turns out, my fears were unfounded. The drive was a lot of fun. The people who had been to Guatemala before pointed out interesting things and told stories of previous trips. We also just chatted and started getting to know each other. We introduced ourselves to Daniel and his daughter Mary Kathleen (known mostly as CeeCee). There was much joking and laughter.
About half-way to Chiquimula we stopped for lunch/dinner (linner?) at a place called Sarita’s. Unfortunately Jillian and I made the mistake of ordering burgers instead of actual Guatemalan food. While she and I may have ordered the same thing, I can’t help but point out that while we both got teased, she got teased more. In fact, dinner marked the beginning of the week-long teasing session of Jillian. I’m not entirely sure why, but everyone decided she was the perfect target for quite a bit of friendly teasing.
Lunch was also where we first got a real taste of what Daniel is like most of the time. Which is to say, he is a giant goofball who loves teasing people and making jokes. His favorite target was Jillian, but he teased all of us. It led to a lot of laughing throughout the week, which was awesome.
After we finished eating, we piled back into the van and continued the drive to Chiquimula. We got slowed down a bit due to a huge mudslide that closed down part of the road. But other than that, I think we made pretty good time.
After dinner my memory gets a little fuzzy. I don't remember exactly when we got to Daniel and Brandi's house. I think it was after dark, but I could be wrong. I know we unloaded the car and introduced ourselves to Brandi and the other kids (they have three kids. Levi is their oldest son, then CeeCee, and finally their youngest son Uriah) at some point. We put our stuff in our rooms, but beyond that, I'm not really sure what went down after we got there. I do know eventually we went to bed though.
June 12, 2014: Thursday - Pastor Fulgencio's Village
My day started particularly early on Thursday, and not by choice. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep all that well, but that's not unusual when I stay in new places. I kind of expected to wake up early.
I spent the early part of the morning reading my Bible and writing about the trip. I also took some time to walk around and take pictures of Brandi and Daniel's house. Where they live is so beautiful, I doubt I can do it justice in words. Still, I'll try.
They live in a mission house that is set up kind of like a . . . well not quite compound, but sort of. They have a smallish main house, and then two other small buildings, as well as a pool, and portico/porch area near the main gate. The whole thing (buildings, portico/porch, yard, pool) is surrounded by a wall. They also have a bunch of fruit trees all over the place that never quit dropping fruit. Seriously, the ground was littered with mangoes. There were also a few coconut and cashew trees. Hugh also told me there was a lemon tree around there some where, and there were a couple of trees that grow a fruit that was a combination of a lemon and an orange (I think).
The way the house was arranged, the portico/porch was right by the big gate. The pool was in the center of the courtyard. The main house was on one side, with the sleeping quarters for us at the back and the third building (which housed bathrooms and a large storage area) along the other wall.
There was also a front yard area that had more fruit and other trees, as well as a little grass and a lot of concrete. It was originally the entrance, but they closed up the gate and now everyone just enters through the side gate.
Around 7:00 Brandi was up and started making breakfast, so I offered to help. She decided I got to make pancakes. I mixed up the batter and got started working. It had been a while since I'd made pancakes, but I think they turned out okay. I didn't even burn any of them.
While I was cooking, I got the chance to talk to Brandi. She and Daniel are from Alabama but they had lived in Guatemala for about 5 years at that point. We talked about what led up to God calling her and Daniel to be missionaries in Guatemala as well as a few other things. Basically I just spent some time getting to know her, which was nice. Both she and Daniel are pretty awesome people and I'm really glad I had the chance to meet and get to know them over the course of the week.
After breakfast, we gathered up all the things we needed to bring with us because we were going up to a mountain village that day. We pulled out the donation suitcases and all the other stuff that we needed, including food that Brandi had bought so we could put food baskets together. We also gathered everything we would need personally, like water bottles, sunscreen, bug spray, etc. Once everything was together, we loaded it all into the two vehicles we were taking and set out.
Daniel drove his giant white F350 and Hugh drove the smaller Toyota Rav4. I rode in the car with Hugh and Jillian. I think we were by ourselves that first trip, but I'm not sure. I do know that on the way up to the village Ben and Will rode in the pickup's bed, while everyone else rode in the cab.
We made a quick stop for gas not far from Daniel's house, then another a little further on to pick up Pastor Carlos. Pastor Carlos is the man that Daniel wants to take over leading a group of about eight mountain churches. He sort of wants him to be the head pastor, leading and caring for all the other pastors in the group. He accompanied us to all the villages throughout the week.
After picking up Pastor Carlos, we got back on the road to our first village. The drive took about 2 hours (maybe longer). Half of that time was spent on paved roads. The last half of the trip, we had to drive dirt roads that wound up the side of the mountain. It was slow and bumpy. In a few places, there were really big ruts carved in the road that we had to navigate. In others, there were big rocks that we had to find our way around. I asked Hugh if the roads had been this bad when he came last time (he'd been there in February of 2013) and he said he didn't think so. It made me think that there was probably a lot of washout because our current trip was in the middle of Guatemala's rainy season. That means that they get heavy rain pretty much every day. This has a rather negative effect on the dirt roads that most mountain dwellers have to walk/drive on.
Following the long, bumpy drive up the mountain, we got to the village a little after 11:00 (I think. I didn't have a watch with me, so I'm guesstimating times here). The first thing we did upon arrival (and getting out of the cars) was do introductions with Pastor Carlos and Pastor Fulgencio. They had fun with some of our names. Which is completely understandable since there are certain sounds in English that aren't really used or said the same way in Spanish. John's, Will's, and Ben's names were easy enough, but Hugh, Heather, Jillian, and I all have names that aren't easy to say for some Spanish-speakers.
After introductions, we got to work. First, we helped carry a food delivery up to the kitchen that stood just below the church building. The church was located up a hill from where we drove in. It wasn't a long walk, but it was a little steep. After we carried the food up, we all went up into the church and got chairs out so we could sit down and talk with Pastor Fulgencio for a while.
The church building was a small structure with a concrete slab foundation. The slab was surrounded by four cinder-block walls that were not quite finished. Overhead, the roof was just a couple of large pieces of tin. While there was plenty of shade inside the church, there weren't a lot of windows, so it wasn't much cooler than outside the church. Still, it wasn't bad.
When we got up to the church, we all pulled out some of the plastic chairs they had stacked in one corner and sat down. When I say plastic chairs, I don't mean the folding kind. Nope, these were those inexpensive outdoor chairs that you can get for a couple of bucks just about anywhere. Nothing about this church was like what we have here in the states. For a sound system, they had a couple of speakers, a couple of mics, and one tiny amp that controlled everything. Everything about that church was just so incredibly different than what we're used to here in the States.
Anyway, sitting in our plastic chairs, we started talking with Pastor Fulgencio about how he got started in ministry and what was going on in his life and his church. Daniel translated the conversation for us, but I don't think I remember everything that was said. I'll tell you what I can about Pastor Fulgencio and his church, though.
Pastor Fulgencio is in his 60s, so not a young man anymore. I don't remember how long he's been pastoring, but it's been a while. On top of being the pastor, which involves preaching several times per week, discipling other leaders, and caring for his church members by visiting them, Pastor Fulgencio also works in the fields so that he can support his family. He not only has to care for his family, but the family of one of his sons. This is because about 6 months ago, his son died, leaving behind a widow and four children.
Pastor Fulgencio's wife also passed away not that long ago. This put a lot of strain on him. He did eventually get remarried, though, and now has someone to help him with his family. In general, he's just got a lot going on.
Besides his own personal struggles, he mentioned that his church is struggling a bit in terms of male leadership. They have a lot of women in the church, and a number of female leaders. But Pastor Fulgencio has very few male leaders in his church.
After Pastor Fulgencio had finished telling us about himself and his church, we all prayed for him. He, in return, prayed for us.
When we were finished praying, it was time to eat lunch and get things ready to go visit villagers. Lunch was sandwiches, so nothing too spectacular there. The things we had to put together for the villagers were baskets of food and personal care items that had been purchased and donated. I say baskets, but actually all of the items were placed in some blue plastic tubs that the people who received them could use in a variety of ways. We put things like rice, beans, sugar, salt, toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc., in them. John and Heather started putting them together, but then stopped to eat lunch. After lunch, I went back over and helped Hugh and Nancy (Daniel and Brandi's Guatemalan assistant) put the rest of the baskets together. That was fun because I got to practice some of my (very) basic Spanish skills.
After getting the baskets together, we also sorted out the various other donations we were going to take with us. Those included things like shampoo, conditioner, soap, more toothpaste, and lots of toys.
While we worked on that, Hugh and Will got out a couple of frisbees and taught some of the children who'd come to see us how to play. They had a lot of fun with it. I think their favorite part though was when they got to give the frisbee to the kids for good. It was really cool to see.
Once we had all the donations and baskets sorted out, it was time to start visiting houses. We gathered everything up and headed down the hill to our first stop, Pastor Fluhencio's house. We presented his wife with one of the baskets we'd made, as well as a gift that the wives of the elder's from Summit had put together for her. I think we also gave her some new flip flops. It was hard to tell, but I think she really liked the gits.
While we were there, we also got to give a basket to Pastor Fulgencio's daughter-in-law. She was the wife of the son who had died, so we were very happy to be able to give her something. Along with the basket, we gave her some new flip flops and gave her children some new toys. They were all very appreciative.
We continued our journey throughout the village, stopping at 7 more houses. A few of them were church members, but a number of them weren't. One place we stopped, the woman wasn't a Christian so Alex spent a while talking to her and explaining the Gospel. Despite this, she still chose not to accept Christ, which was utterly dumbfounding in some ways.
Everywhere we went, we got the chance to interact with villagers and give out things. Will wound up being in charge of the toys and the Silly Bandz, a job he completed with abandon. He didn't just give things to the kids in the houses we visited, either. Any time he saw a child, no matter where, he'd go up to them and see if they wanted a bracelet.
Another thing we did with every family we stopped at was pray with them if we could. We prayed for any specific needs they had, for their kids, and for God to be present in their lives. It was really cool to watch our team praying over people, even when there was a language barrier.
I wish I could remember all the names and stories of the people we visited. Unfortunately, I can't I didn't take notes or nearly enough pictures, so I just remember faces in most cases. Still, it was an amazing and humbling experience.
We finished with the last of the baskets around 4:00 and headed back to the church to get ready for service that night.
Service started around 5:00 and was a bit different than our services back home. It started with Pastor Fulgencio welcoming us to the church and then praying for us. After that, we sang some worship songs. They were all in Spanish, so I knew none of them, although the very first one was familiar to some members of our group. There was a lot of clapping though, so I did that. After singing, John got up and gave a short sermon based on the parable Jesus told about the vineyard owner and the workers he hired throughout the day (Daniel translated for him). Then Alex stood up and called for anyone who wanted to be saved to come forward and pray. When no one came forward, he then called for people who needed prayer to come forward to be prayed for. At least, I think that's what he was doing. It was all in Spanish and Daniel didn't translate that part of it, so I'm guessing based on the few words I understood and what everyone did.
The service ended with Pastor Fulgencio introducing Daniel to the congregation (I think. Spanish and all). During the introduction, Pastor Fulgencio also mentioned Nancy. Except he clearly thought that Nancy was Daniel's wife. At first I didn't understand what was going on and why Nancy was embarrassed, but then Daniel explained that he and Nancy weren't married and that his wife was Brandi and she was home with his kids. Again, all of this was in Spanish, so I only caught part of what was said. I do know the word for wife (esposa) and a few others (hijos=kids, casa=house), though, so I got the gist of the whole thing. We all found it hilarious (as did Daniel and Nancy) and everyone teased Nancy about it off and on the rest of the week.
After that, service was over and it was time to go home. So we gathered up everything and headed back to the cars for the 2 hour drive home.
Nothing else really happened for me that evening. On the ride home I chatted with Hugh, Jillian, and Heather, but once we got back to Daniel and Brandi's house and got everything unloaded, I pretty much went straight to bed.
I spent the early part of the morning reading my Bible and writing about the trip. I also took some time to walk around and take pictures of Brandi and Daniel's house. Where they live is so beautiful, I doubt I can do it justice in words. Still, I'll try.
They live in a mission house that is set up kind of like a . . . well not quite compound, but sort of. They have a smallish main house, and then two other small buildings, as well as a pool, and portico/porch area near the main gate. The whole thing (buildings, portico/porch, yard, pool) is surrounded by a wall. They also have a bunch of fruit trees all over the place that never quit dropping fruit. Seriously, the ground was littered with mangoes. There were also a few coconut and cashew trees. Hugh also told me there was a lemon tree around there some where, and there were a couple of trees that grow a fruit that was a combination of a lemon and an orange (I think).
The way the house was arranged, the portico/porch was right by the big gate. The pool was in the center of the courtyard. The main house was on one side, with the sleeping quarters for us at the back and the third building (which housed bathrooms and a large storage area) along the other wall.
There was also a front yard area that had more fruit and other trees, as well as a little grass and a lot of concrete. It was originally the entrance, but they closed up the gate and now everyone just enters through the side gate.
Around 7:00 Brandi was up and started making breakfast, so I offered to help. She decided I got to make pancakes. I mixed up the batter and got started working. It had been a while since I'd made pancakes, but I think they turned out okay. I didn't even burn any of them.
While I was cooking, I got the chance to talk to Brandi. She and Daniel are from Alabama but they had lived in Guatemala for about 5 years at that point. We talked about what led up to God calling her and Daniel to be missionaries in Guatemala as well as a few other things. Basically I just spent some time getting to know her, which was nice. Both she and Daniel are pretty awesome people and I'm really glad I had the chance to meet and get to know them over the course of the week.
After breakfast, we gathered up all the things we needed to bring with us because we were going up to a mountain village that day. We pulled out the donation suitcases and all the other stuff that we needed, including food that Brandi had bought so we could put food baskets together. We also gathered everything we would need personally, like water bottles, sunscreen, bug spray, etc. Once everything was together, we loaded it all into the two vehicles we were taking and set out.
Daniel drove his giant white F350 and Hugh drove the smaller Toyota Rav4. I rode in the car with Hugh and Jillian. I think we were by ourselves that first trip, but I'm not sure. I do know that on the way up to the village Ben and Will rode in the pickup's bed, while everyone else rode in the cab.
We made a quick stop for gas not far from Daniel's house, then another a little further on to pick up Pastor Carlos. Pastor Carlos is the man that Daniel wants to take over leading a group of about eight mountain churches. He sort of wants him to be the head pastor, leading and caring for all the other pastors in the group. He accompanied us to all the villages throughout the week.
After picking up Pastor Carlos, we got back on the road to our first village. The drive took about 2 hours (maybe longer). Half of that time was spent on paved roads. The last half of the trip, we had to drive dirt roads that wound up the side of the mountain. It was slow and bumpy. In a few places, there were really big ruts carved in the road that we had to navigate. In others, there were big rocks that we had to find our way around. I asked Hugh if the roads had been this bad when he came last time (he'd been there in February of 2013) and he said he didn't think so. It made me think that there was probably a lot of washout because our current trip was in the middle of Guatemala's rainy season. That means that they get heavy rain pretty much every day. This has a rather negative effect on the dirt roads that most mountain dwellers have to walk/drive on.
Following the long, bumpy drive up the mountain, we got to the village a little after 11:00 (I think. I didn't have a watch with me, so I'm guesstimating times here). The first thing we did upon arrival (and getting out of the cars) was do introductions with Pastor Carlos and Pastor Fulgencio. They had fun with some of our names. Which is completely understandable since there are certain sounds in English that aren't really used or said the same way in Spanish. John's, Will's, and Ben's names were easy enough, but Hugh, Heather, Jillian, and I all have names that aren't easy to say for some Spanish-speakers.
After introductions, we got to work. First, we helped carry a food delivery up to the kitchen that stood just below the church building. The church was located up a hill from where we drove in. It wasn't a long walk, but it was a little steep. After we carried the food up, we all went up into the church and got chairs out so we could sit down and talk with Pastor Fulgencio for a while.
The church building was a small structure with a concrete slab foundation. The slab was surrounded by four cinder-block walls that were not quite finished. Overhead, the roof was just a couple of large pieces of tin. While there was plenty of shade inside the church, there weren't a lot of windows, so it wasn't much cooler than outside the church. Still, it wasn't bad.
When we got up to the church, we all pulled out some of the plastic chairs they had stacked in one corner and sat down. When I say plastic chairs, I don't mean the folding kind. Nope, these were those inexpensive outdoor chairs that you can get for a couple of bucks just about anywhere. Nothing about this church was like what we have here in the states. For a sound system, they had a couple of speakers, a couple of mics, and one tiny amp that controlled everything. Everything about that church was just so incredibly different than what we're used to here in the States.
Anyway, sitting in our plastic chairs, we started talking with Pastor Fulgencio about how he got started in ministry and what was going on in his life and his church. Daniel translated the conversation for us, but I don't think I remember everything that was said. I'll tell you what I can about Pastor Fulgencio and his church, though.
Pastor Fulgencio is in his 60s, so not a young man anymore. I don't remember how long he's been pastoring, but it's been a while. On top of being the pastor, which involves preaching several times per week, discipling other leaders, and caring for his church members by visiting them, Pastor Fulgencio also works in the fields so that he can support his family. He not only has to care for his family, but the family of one of his sons. This is because about 6 months ago, his son died, leaving behind a widow and four children.
Pastor Fulgencio's wife also passed away not that long ago. This put a lot of strain on him. He did eventually get remarried, though, and now has someone to help him with his family. In general, he's just got a lot going on.
Besides his own personal struggles, he mentioned that his church is struggling a bit in terms of male leadership. They have a lot of women in the church, and a number of female leaders. But Pastor Fulgencio has very few male leaders in his church.
After Pastor Fulgencio had finished telling us about himself and his church, we all prayed for him. He, in return, prayed for us.
When we were finished praying, it was time to eat lunch and get things ready to go visit villagers. Lunch was sandwiches, so nothing too spectacular there. The things we had to put together for the villagers were baskets of food and personal care items that had been purchased and donated. I say baskets, but actually all of the items were placed in some blue plastic tubs that the people who received them could use in a variety of ways. We put things like rice, beans, sugar, salt, toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc., in them. John and Heather started putting them together, but then stopped to eat lunch. After lunch, I went back over and helped Hugh and Nancy (Daniel and Brandi's Guatemalan assistant) put the rest of the baskets together. That was fun because I got to practice some of my (very) basic Spanish skills.
After getting the baskets together, we also sorted out the various other donations we were going to take with us. Those included things like shampoo, conditioner, soap, more toothpaste, and lots of toys.
While we worked on that, Hugh and Will got out a couple of frisbees and taught some of the children who'd come to see us how to play. They had a lot of fun with it. I think their favorite part though was when they got to give the frisbee to the kids for good. It was really cool to see.
Once we had all the donations and baskets sorted out, it was time to start visiting houses. We gathered everything up and headed down the hill to our first stop, Pastor Fluhencio's house. We presented his wife with one of the baskets we'd made, as well as a gift that the wives of the elder's from Summit had put together for her. I think we also gave her some new flip flops. It was hard to tell, but I think she really liked the gits.
While we were there, we also got to give a basket to Pastor Fulgencio's daughter-in-law. She was the wife of the son who had died, so we were very happy to be able to give her something. Along with the basket, we gave her some new flip flops and gave her children some new toys. They were all very appreciative.
We continued our journey throughout the village, stopping at 7 more houses. A few of them were church members, but a number of them weren't. One place we stopped, the woman wasn't a Christian so Alex spent a while talking to her and explaining the Gospel. Despite this, she still chose not to accept Christ, which was utterly dumbfounding in some ways.
Everywhere we went, we got the chance to interact with villagers and give out things. Will wound up being in charge of the toys and the Silly Bandz, a job he completed with abandon. He didn't just give things to the kids in the houses we visited, either. Any time he saw a child, no matter where, he'd go up to them and see if they wanted a bracelet.
Another thing we did with every family we stopped at was pray with them if we could. We prayed for any specific needs they had, for their kids, and for God to be present in their lives. It was really cool to watch our team praying over people, even when there was a language barrier.
I wish I could remember all the names and stories of the people we visited. Unfortunately, I can't I didn't take notes or nearly enough pictures, so I just remember faces in most cases. Still, it was an amazing and humbling experience.
We finished with the last of the baskets around 4:00 and headed back to the church to get ready for service that night.
Service started around 5:00 and was a bit different than our services back home. It started with Pastor Fulgencio welcoming us to the church and then praying for us. After that, we sang some worship songs. They were all in Spanish, so I knew none of them, although the very first one was familiar to some members of our group. There was a lot of clapping though, so I did that. After singing, John got up and gave a short sermon based on the parable Jesus told about the vineyard owner and the workers he hired throughout the day (Daniel translated for him). Then Alex stood up and called for anyone who wanted to be saved to come forward and pray. When no one came forward, he then called for people who needed prayer to come forward to be prayed for. At least, I think that's what he was doing. It was all in Spanish and Daniel didn't translate that part of it, so I'm guessing based on the few words I understood and what everyone did.
The service ended with Pastor Fulgencio introducing Daniel to the congregation (I think. Spanish and all). During the introduction, Pastor Fulgencio also mentioned Nancy. Except he clearly thought that Nancy was Daniel's wife. At first I didn't understand what was going on and why Nancy was embarrassed, but then Daniel explained that he and Nancy weren't married and that his wife was Brandi and she was home with his kids. Again, all of this was in Spanish, so I only caught part of what was said. I do know the word for wife (esposa) and a few others (hijos=kids, casa=house), though, so I got the gist of the whole thing. We all found it hilarious (as did Daniel and Nancy) and everyone teased Nancy about it off and on the rest of the week.
After that, service was over and it was time to go home. So we gathered up everything and headed back to the cars for the 2 hour drive home.
Nothing else really happened for me that evening. On the ride home I chatted with Hugh, Jillian, and Heather, but once we got back to Daniel and Brandi's house and got everything unloaded, I pretty much went straight to bed.
June 13, 2014: Friday - School and Hospital
Friday morning started pretty much the same way Thursday had. I got up, read my Bible, wrote out a brief description of what I'd done the previous day, then waited around for everyone else to get up.
Ben and Hugh eventually got up and I spent some time talking with each of them. It was my first real conversation with Ben and it was a good one. Next was that Stacy came out and I asked if I could help with breakfast, but she said Hugh had it all under control, so I stayed put. Anyway, after breakfast, we loaded everything and everyone into the cars and set off for our first stop of the day.
The first place we went was a school that was about 20 minutes away from where Brandi and Daniel live. The name of the school was Escula Official Rural Mixta Veguitas San Juan Ermita. It was a primary school so the students there ranged in age from Kindergarten (I think) to 6th grade. Also, it had both boys and girls at the school (not all of the schools do).
After we got to the school, we carried all of our stuff up to it, then set up the small sound system and got things organized for the drama we were going to perform for the students. Before we could start laying out our props, we had to wait for the class in the room we were going to use to finish. While they did, I took a few pictures of their classroom, as well as some of the kids who'd already come out to see us.
Once class was over, we pulled our prop trunk (a suitcase) into the classroom and started getting everything out. The drama is about 20 minutes long, so we had a lot of props to get out and organize. I checked with Will and he decided he wanted to paint his face like it was in the video we'd watched to learn the drama. So he sat down and I painted his face for him. I felt bad for him later because the paint wound up running since he sweated so much and it got in his eyes. Still, he thought it was worth it.
After everything was ready, we started the drama. Without going into too much detail about what everyone's parts were, the drama was basically about a kid who tried out a lot of different things before realizing that the only thing that would satisfy his soul was a relationship with God through Christ. There are certain members of our group that were less than thrilled with performing it, so we didn't take any pictures. Plus, all of us were in the drama, so it wasn't really possible for us to take pictures. That being said, I do know that Brandi and Nancy got a few pictures, so you can go find those if you're just dieing for a look at our performance.
When we finished the drama, Alex got up and spoke to the kids for a few minutes. I don't know exactly what he said, but I do know there was an illustration using paper that wound up as a cross. At the end of his message, he called for people who wanted to accept Christ to come forward. 14 kids came forward, which was really cool.
After praying with the kids, we gave out candy to everyone. Once we'd given out all the candy, we spent a little time talking to different people and taking pictures of various things. At one point, Stacy presented donated school supplies to one of the school administrators.
Finally, it was time to gather everything up and head back to Brandi and Daniel's house.
Back at the house, we had lunch of some kind. I honestly don't remember what we had for lunch or most of what we did between getting back to the house and leaving again. I do know that we spent some time with Nancy getting things ready to take to the hospital. But beyond that, I've got nothing.
After we got our stuff together, those of us going to the hospital loaded into Daniel's truck and he drove us to the Hospital. Not everyone went this time. On Friday, it was just Brandi, Nancy, Heather, Stacy, Jillian, Hugh, and me. Will, Ben, Alex, and John stayed with Daniel and the kids.
The hospital was difficult on an emotional level. The hospital there isn't like the hospitals here in the States. The way Hugh described it to me before I'd had a chance to see it for the first time was kind of like the hospitals you'd see in an old '50s or '60s film. There are wards instead of separate rooms, everyone's together, and there's pretty much no privacy.
On top of all of that, there’s also the fact that it’s just not as clean as our hospitals. It’s hot and there is no air conditioning in most places. So people are sweaty and flies buzz around everywhere. Also, they can’t throw out used things like hoses, so they have to wash them and use them again. In general things are a bit dirty, which really doesn’t contribute to people getting well. That’s why most people only go to the hospital if they are going to die. That or if they are too poor to afford medicine, so they go there to get it for free.
When we got to the hospital, we first went to the NICU. Basically it was just a moderate-sized rooms with a number of young babies on beds arranged around the perimeter. At first, we thought only two of us were going to be able to go in at a time, but it turned out that the doctor okayed all of us coming in at once. Once inside, we split up into a couple of groups and started praying for different babies. I prayed for one baby that was all by himself, although I didn’t know his name at the time. A little while later, Brandi had me come with her and I prayed for a young girl named Santa Lucila. She had a fever and diarrhea and we think she also probably had some sort of respiratory issue since she was on a breather. We prayed for her and her mother, Brandi translating for me.
After we prayed for the children, we got out some of the donations we had brought. We gave them each some diapers and wet wipes, as well as a blanket and burp cloth and some literature.
Once we had finished praying for all of the babies in the room, we packed up our bags and headed over to the children’s ward. There, we split into two groups again so we could pray for more people. I went with Brandi and Jillian while Stacy, Nancy, Hugh, and Heather went to the other side.
On our side, there were a lot of kids. So many that we didn’t get the chance to pray for all of them. Instead, we slowly worked our way down one wall, praying for each child and their family individually.
As we walked into the room and started talking to the first family, a mother and daughter, we were approached by another woman. She spoke rapid Spanish with Brandi, and though I didn’t really understand her it was clear she was asking for something. Brandi told her something (which I guessed amounted to “We'll be with you in a bit.”) and then we got back to praying for the child we were with. Brandi told us later that the woman had come up and asked for money. Later, when Brandi confronted her about it, the woman denied ever doing that. Even later than that, she’d come up to Jillian and I, asking for more stuff after we’d prayed for her child and given her some toys and clothes. She finally stopped when we just told her we didn’t speak Spanish.
We spent the next hour or so making our way down the line of children and praying for them. There were a lot, so I don’t remember most of their names. I do remember that pretty much all of them had some sort of upper respiratory infection, probably pneumonia. Later, I mentioned it to Hugh and he said that wasn’t uncommon at all. Which makes sense consider how most people there live with all the dust and what not.
When we finished praying for as many children as we could, it was time to head out. We just had one more stop in the hospital before we did. We made our way over to the office area and Stacy and Nancy went in to give them the last of the donations that we had brought. These were specifically for the staff and included hand cleaning sponges and medical wipes.
After that, it was time to go home. To get home, we were going to have to take a bus. Brandi asked if this was okay and all of us said it was. Who wasn’t up for a little adventure?
To get to the bus, we had to take a “short” walk up a hill from the hospital to get to a particular corner where the correct bus would come by. Once we got there, it wasn’t too long of a wait. So we piled into the bus (which was actually just a van without a side door), said bye to Nancy, and sped off on our way back to the mission house.
Back at the mission house, we had some down time before we had to leave for our next destination. Heather decided we should make up some of the Salvation bracelets that she’d brought supplies for so we could give them out at the village the next day. She pulled out the beads and the twine and we got to work.
While we worked with the twine she’d already cut, Jillian took the rest of the spool and went inside to cut more. Once she was gone, we kind of forgot about her. We spent a while making bracelets and wound up getting 20 or so done (I think) before it was almost time to leave. About then, I went inside for something and saw Jillian sitting on the couch with a massive pile of twine strings cut and most of the spool gone. All I could say was, “Uh, Jillian, I think you can stop now.”
That evening, we drove over to Zacapa for dinner at Rapadilo’s with a ministry friend of Stacy, Alex, and John. The restaurant is a place that Stacy and Alex went all the time when they lived in Zacapa. In fact, they went enough that when we showed up that night, one of the waitresses actually remembered them. Stacy was pretty excited about that.
We started the evening by eating dinner. Stacy suggested the Tortillas de Harina, which Rapadilo’s is apparently known for. I went with that, getting a chicken one. It consisted of a giant tortilla wrapped around grilled chicken (or pork or beef), cebollitas (baby onions), black beans, cole slaw, and mayonnaise. I got mine without the mayonnaise, but kept everything else. It was very good, but I could only eat half of it and the chicken from the other half.
After dinner, it was time for the baby shower we were throwing for the two missionaries we were eating dinner with. Their names were Alyssa and Josue and they were having a son. We all stood up and watched as the opened all the different gifts people had sent them. I took lots and lots and lots of pictures. They really liked all of the gifts.
Once all the gifts had been opened and all the pictures had been taken, Stacy convinced everyone that we should go for dessert at her favorite coffee place that was about a 10 minute drive away.
Since it was nighttime, I decided to ride in the back of the truck with the guys and the kids. I wound up holding onto to CeeCee while she, Dominic, and Levi played a game of I Spy with Will. It was a beautiful night so it was a nice ride.
We arrived at a lovely little coffee shop and all piled out of the cars again. Heading inside, we got tables and all sat down. Not too much later, everyone was enjoying the various desserts and beverages. We sat around talking for a while, getting to know Alyssa and hearing about how she wound up being a missionary in Guatemala and marrying Josue.
When everyone was finished, it was time to head home. We said goodbye to Alyssa and Josue and then piled back into the cars and headed back to the mission house to go to bed.
Ben and Hugh eventually got up and I spent some time talking with each of them. It was my first real conversation with Ben and it was a good one. Next was that Stacy came out and I asked if I could help with breakfast, but she said Hugh had it all under control, so I stayed put. Anyway, after breakfast, we loaded everything and everyone into the cars and set off for our first stop of the day.
The first place we went was a school that was about 20 minutes away from where Brandi and Daniel live. The name of the school was Escula Official Rural Mixta Veguitas San Juan Ermita. It was a primary school so the students there ranged in age from Kindergarten (I think) to 6th grade. Also, it had both boys and girls at the school (not all of the schools do).
After we got to the school, we carried all of our stuff up to it, then set up the small sound system and got things organized for the drama we were going to perform for the students. Before we could start laying out our props, we had to wait for the class in the room we were going to use to finish. While they did, I took a few pictures of their classroom, as well as some of the kids who'd already come out to see us.
Once class was over, we pulled our prop trunk (a suitcase) into the classroom and started getting everything out. The drama is about 20 minutes long, so we had a lot of props to get out and organize. I checked with Will and he decided he wanted to paint his face like it was in the video we'd watched to learn the drama. So he sat down and I painted his face for him. I felt bad for him later because the paint wound up running since he sweated so much and it got in his eyes. Still, he thought it was worth it.
After everything was ready, we started the drama. Without going into too much detail about what everyone's parts were, the drama was basically about a kid who tried out a lot of different things before realizing that the only thing that would satisfy his soul was a relationship with God through Christ. There are certain members of our group that were less than thrilled with performing it, so we didn't take any pictures. Plus, all of us were in the drama, so it wasn't really possible for us to take pictures. That being said, I do know that Brandi and Nancy got a few pictures, so you can go find those if you're just dieing for a look at our performance.
When we finished the drama, Alex got up and spoke to the kids for a few minutes. I don't know exactly what he said, but I do know there was an illustration using paper that wound up as a cross. At the end of his message, he called for people who wanted to accept Christ to come forward. 14 kids came forward, which was really cool.
After praying with the kids, we gave out candy to everyone. Once we'd given out all the candy, we spent a little time talking to different people and taking pictures of various things. At one point, Stacy presented donated school supplies to one of the school administrators.
Finally, it was time to gather everything up and head back to Brandi and Daniel's house.
Back at the house, we had lunch of some kind. I honestly don't remember what we had for lunch or most of what we did between getting back to the house and leaving again. I do know that we spent some time with Nancy getting things ready to take to the hospital. But beyond that, I've got nothing.
After we got our stuff together, those of us going to the hospital loaded into Daniel's truck and he drove us to the Hospital. Not everyone went this time. On Friday, it was just Brandi, Nancy, Heather, Stacy, Jillian, Hugh, and me. Will, Ben, Alex, and John stayed with Daniel and the kids.
The hospital was difficult on an emotional level. The hospital there isn't like the hospitals here in the States. The way Hugh described it to me before I'd had a chance to see it for the first time was kind of like the hospitals you'd see in an old '50s or '60s film. There are wards instead of separate rooms, everyone's together, and there's pretty much no privacy.
On top of all of that, there’s also the fact that it’s just not as clean as our hospitals. It’s hot and there is no air conditioning in most places. So people are sweaty and flies buzz around everywhere. Also, they can’t throw out used things like hoses, so they have to wash them and use them again. In general things are a bit dirty, which really doesn’t contribute to people getting well. That’s why most people only go to the hospital if they are going to die. That or if they are too poor to afford medicine, so they go there to get it for free.
When we got to the hospital, we first went to the NICU. Basically it was just a moderate-sized rooms with a number of young babies on beds arranged around the perimeter. At first, we thought only two of us were going to be able to go in at a time, but it turned out that the doctor okayed all of us coming in at once. Once inside, we split up into a couple of groups and started praying for different babies. I prayed for one baby that was all by himself, although I didn’t know his name at the time. A little while later, Brandi had me come with her and I prayed for a young girl named Santa Lucila. She had a fever and diarrhea and we think she also probably had some sort of respiratory issue since she was on a breather. We prayed for her and her mother, Brandi translating for me.
After we prayed for the children, we got out some of the donations we had brought. We gave them each some diapers and wet wipes, as well as a blanket and burp cloth and some literature.
Once we had finished praying for all of the babies in the room, we packed up our bags and headed over to the children’s ward. There, we split into two groups again so we could pray for more people. I went with Brandi and Jillian while Stacy, Nancy, Hugh, and Heather went to the other side.
On our side, there were a lot of kids. So many that we didn’t get the chance to pray for all of them. Instead, we slowly worked our way down one wall, praying for each child and their family individually.
As we walked into the room and started talking to the first family, a mother and daughter, we were approached by another woman. She spoke rapid Spanish with Brandi, and though I didn’t really understand her it was clear she was asking for something. Brandi told her something (which I guessed amounted to “We'll be with you in a bit.”) and then we got back to praying for the child we were with. Brandi told us later that the woman had come up and asked for money. Later, when Brandi confronted her about it, the woman denied ever doing that. Even later than that, she’d come up to Jillian and I, asking for more stuff after we’d prayed for her child and given her some toys and clothes. She finally stopped when we just told her we didn’t speak Spanish.
We spent the next hour or so making our way down the line of children and praying for them. There were a lot, so I don’t remember most of their names. I do remember that pretty much all of them had some sort of upper respiratory infection, probably pneumonia. Later, I mentioned it to Hugh and he said that wasn’t uncommon at all. Which makes sense consider how most people there live with all the dust and what not.
When we finished praying for as many children as we could, it was time to head out. We just had one more stop in the hospital before we did. We made our way over to the office area and Stacy and Nancy went in to give them the last of the donations that we had brought. These were specifically for the staff and included hand cleaning sponges and medical wipes.
After that, it was time to go home. To get home, we were going to have to take a bus. Brandi asked if this was okay and all of us said it was. Who wasn’t up for a little adventure?
To get to the bus, we had to take a “short” walk up a hill from the hospital to get to a particular corner where the correct bus would come by. Once we got there, it wasn’t too long of a wait. So we piled into the bus (which was actually just a van without a side door), said bye to Nancy, and sped off on our way back to the mission house.
Back at the mission house, we had some down time before we had to leave for our next destination. Heather decided we should make up some of the Salvation bracelets that she’d brought supplies for so we could give them out at the village the next day. She pulled out the beads and the twine and we got to work.
While we worked with the twine she’d already cut, Jillian took the rest of the spool and went inside to cut more. Once she was gone, we kind of forgot about her. We spent a while making bracelets and wound up getting 20 or so done (I think) before it was almost time to leave. About then, I went inside for something and saw Jillian sitting on the couch with a massive pile of twine strings cut and most of the spool gone. All I could say was, “Uh, Jillian, I think you can stop now.”
That evening, we drove over to Zacapa for dinner at Rapadilo’s with a ministry friend of Stacy, Alex, and John. The restaurant is a place that Stacy and Alex went all the time when they lived in Zacapa. In fact, they went enough that when we showed up that night, one of the waitresses actually remembered them. Stacy was pretty excited about that.
We started the evening by eating dinner. Stacy suggested the Tortillas de Harina, which Rapadilo’s is apparently known for. I went with that, getting a chicken one. It consisted of a giant tortilla wrapped around grilled chicken (or pork or beef), cebollitas (baby onions), black beans, cole slaw, and mayonnaise. I got mine without the mayonnaise, but kept everything else. It was very good, but I could only eat half of it and the chicken from the other half.
After dinner, it was time for the baby shower we were throwing for the two missionaries we were eating dinner with. Their names were Alyssa and Josue and they were having a son. We all stood up and watched as the opened all the different gifts people had sent them. I took lots and lots and lots of pictures. They really liked all of the gifts.
Once all the gifts had been opened and all the pictures had been taken, Stacy convinced everyone that we should go for dessert at her favorite coffee place that was about a 10 minute drive away.
Since it was nighttime, I decided to ride in the back of the truck with the guys and the kids. I wound up holding onto to CeeCee while she, Dominic, and Levi played a game of I Spy with Will. It was a beautiful night so it was a nice ride.
We arrived at a lovely little coffee shop and all piled out of the cars again. Heading inside, we got tables and all sat down. Not too much later, everyone was enjoying the various desserts and beverages. We sat around talking for a while, getting to know Alyssa and hearing about how she wound up being a missionary in Guatemala and marrying Josue.
When everyone was finished, it was time to head home. We said goodbye to Alyssa and Josue and then piled back into the cars and headed back to the mission house to go to bed.
June 14, 2014: Saturday - Pastor Sefariño's Village
Saturday started early, like all the other days. After reading my Bible and writing in my journal, I spent some time doing something, though I don't really remember what. Then it was time to help with breakfast. It was also the time for something funny to happen (at least, I think it happened on Saturday. My memory is a bit fuzzy on this.) I wound up helping cook the toast (apparently bread was my specialty on the trip).
After the toast was done, I asked Brandi if she needed me to do anything else. She asked if I could fill up a pitcher with cold water. She told me I’d probably need Daniel’s help since the switch for the cold water dispenser was broken. I went out and asked Daniel if he could help me so he took the pitcher and started filling it. After a couple of seconds I told him I could hold the pitcher if he wanted, so he could do other things. He said okay, then immediately got called away.
At first, I wasn’t too worried. I figured he’d be back and there was still plenty of room in the pitcher. When it got to about ¾ of the way full, I began to get a little worried and tried to find a way to turn the water dispenser off. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the way to shut it off, Daniel still wasn’t back and the pitcher was almost full. I yelled for Daniel, Brandi, and Alex hoping someone could help me. Alex and Brandi came running and we all tried to get the water turned off. Unfortunately, by now the pitcher was overflowing. We frantically searched for the way to turn it off, but the water kept flowing. Finally, after what seemed like forever and way too much water, Alex found how to turn the switch off.
Of course, right about then Daniel came back and asked what happened. I told him he left me alone and I didn’t know how to turn the water off. He said, “But you said you had it.” I said, “No, I said I could hold the pitcher!” We were all laughing though, so it was all good.
After the great water fiasco, we ate breakfast and then got everything together for the day. Then it was time to head out to the next village.
The drive to this village was similar to the drive to the first village, except the time on paved road was shorter. We only spent about 30 minutes on the regular roads. The rest of the trip to the village was accomplished by driving 1 ½ hours on a very dusty dirt road that wound up, down, and around two mountains.
At one point during the drive, we pulled over so the guys could relieve themselves. It also gave us a chance to take photos of the beautiful mountains that surrounded us.
Back in the cars, we bumped the rest of the way to the village.
As soon as we got to the village, we unloaded everything into the church (basically a structure with several support pillars and a tin roof, but not really anything else) and started making up the baskets we were going to give away. While we made up the baskets, we learned that a group of people who were going to receive some of the baskets were already there. They were all of the women and children and a few men that were sitting around watching us.
Since most or all of them weren’t Christians and we weren’t sure if they would come back for service that night, John, Daniel, and Alex decided we should do a quick impromptu service for them. Alex got up and spoke for a while. First he did an illustration with two empty Gatorade bottles. One was easily crushed by the volunteer Alex had called up. The other, not so much.
Alex went on to explain how the uncrushed bottle represented people who’d accepted Christ. Because the Holy Spirit lived within them, they were better able to stand up to hard times. On the other hand, people without the Holy Spirit are crushed by hard times. At least, that what I think he said. You know, limited Spanish and all.
Anyway, after that he prayed and asked if anyone wanted to receive Christ. No one did. Also, no one had us pray for them. So he ended the prayer and we started handing out baskets.
Since most of the people were there, Pastor Sefariño called out names from a list and someone came up to get the basket. Whenever someone came up, one of our group would step forward with the basket and had it to them. Daniel and Nancy also gave them a copy of the books of John and Romans in Spanish and a comic book that depicted the life of Christ.
After all the people had received their baskets, we gave out the Salvation bracelets that we’d made the day before. We all took time and tied bracelets on all the kids’ arms, and even some of the adults. Once everyone had bracelets, Heather stood up and explained what each colored bead meant.
When the meaning had been explained and everyone had begun to disperse, it was time for lunch. Daniel had informed us a little earlier that Pastor Sefariño’s family had decided to cook lunch for all of us. Since lunch was finished cooking, it was time to go up to his house and eat.
We got up to the house and went inside and the first thing Hugh made me do was take a picture of the stove that the women were cooking tortillas on. It’s nothing like the stove that we have at home. It’s a clay structure with an open fire and a metal pan placed on top where they place the tortillas to cook. It was really neat and really hot.
When I’d finished taking pictures of the stove, we all sat down around the table to eat the meal Pastor Sefariño’s family made for us. It consisted of a broth made from oil/butter and water with vegetables and potatoes in it, tortillas, and a chicken they’d killed and boiled for us.
The whole chicken thing is a big deal cause chickens are really valuable for more than just their meat. People don’t eat meat everyday there like we do here. It’s a big deal and a lot of work to eat meat there. So yeah, super humbling for them to do that for us.
After lunch, we sat down with Pastor Sefariño and talked about his life, ministry, and church. He told us his story and what he’d seen go on. He talked about how at one point he broke his back and how he should not have been walking. But God had given him the ability to walk again, despite everything the doctors said. It was really cool to hear all his stories and learn more about all the amazing things God was doing in his life and in the lives of the people he pastors.
When he’d finished talking, we took some time to pray for him and his family. In fact, he called his whole family into the room with us so they could be there to be prayed for. It was really cool.
After we finished praying with Pastor Sefariño’s family, it was time to try and visit a couple more families before church service started. Since we didn’t have much time, we decided to split into two groups. I wound up in a group with Alex, John, Ben, and a couple of Guatemalan church members. Everyone else went with Daniel.
My group headed down the mountain. This involved carefully making our way down a very narrow path with the mountain on the left side and a sheer drop on the right. The path was barely wide enough for us to walk on and pretty steep in some places. I realized pretty quickly that I just needed to concentrate on walking on the path and not worry about going too slowly or what was going on around me. It was the only way I was going to get down the path without falling.
I should also mention that I was doing all of this with a rather bad headache. I had a headache because as I was coming out of Pastor Sefariño’s house, I didn’t duck quite far enough and managed to ram my head into the top of the door really hard. After about twenty minutes I had a nice headache and a good sized bump on the top of my head.
So there I am, hiking down a mountain with a super headache. Sounds like fun right?
Actually it wasn’t that bad. Nerve-wracking: yes but bad: no. At one point, we made our way along a path that had a portion of it washed away. I wound up having to take a really big step over a washed our section of the path. That was the point that had me the most nervous the whole time, but it turned out okay and was kind of fun.
We visited three houses on our trip, but we only talked to people at two of them. The third house didn’t seem to want us to stop by, but since I didn’t understand what was being said, it’s hard for me to know for sure. The other two were both Christians, I think. Again, not good with the Spanish, so I’m not sure.
Once we’d finished hiking around to houses, we headed back to the church to wait for church service to start. We were the first group to get back, so we sat down and Alex started talking with the Guatemalans who had already gathered there.
After a while, the other groups started to trickle back in. First came Hugh and Heather and Nancy. They told us their group had split up again after we left them so that they could visit even more houses. Finally, the rest of the group showed up and it was finally close to time to start service. What followed was a very long church service.
Service started with music led by musicians that Pastor Sefariño had hired just for our visit. There was a lot of singing and it just kept going. After that, Pastor Sefariño had us all come up front and made Daniel introduce us to everyone. Daniel went down the line and told everyone our names and what we did.
After that, Hugh and Jillian got up and shared portions of their testimonies while Daniel translated. Then John stood up and preached for a while. This time, Alex translated for him.
After John finished preaching, Alex asked if anyone wanted to receive Christ. No one did, so after a while, he asked if there was anyone who needed prayer for anything. A bunch of people stood up, so everyone else in the group went up and prayed for all the people who were standing.
After all the prayer, service ended and it was time to go home. We packed up our stuff then made a quick pit stop at Pastor Sefariño’s outhouse so we wouldn’t have to stop on the way home. After that, we all loaded into the car and got ready for the ride back down the mountain.
John wound up riding in our car on the way down the mountain. He said his 50 year old body couldn’t handle the bumpy ride back down the mountain in the back of the pickup, so he came with us. He told us a few stories and in general we had a decent ride down the mountain, even if it was nerve-wracking cause the sun went down about half-way through the ride.
When we’d gotten about half to three-quarters of the way down the mountain, we suddenly came upon a group of young men and policía and had to stop. They stopped and talked to the people in the truck, then came over to us. One of the policía stepped up to Hugh’s window and Hugh tried to tell them he didn’t speak any Spanish (No hablo español). Only, he wound up saying he didn’t speak any English (No hablo ingles). At first, I couldn’t react, I was too stunned. Then I realized what he was saying and quickly said “Español, español!” He corrected himself and the police eventually went away. Although I think some of that had to do with Ben giving out water to them.
After they’d gone, Hugh said that the police officer had given him a really funny look when he’d told him that he (Hugh) didn’t speak English. We all had a good laugh about it then.
After getting past the police checkpoint, we got to the bottom of the mountain and were ready to head home. But something happened to Daniel’s truck as we came off the mountain road and his clutch broke. We knew right away something was wrong, but it was a few minutes before we pulled over.
Pulling over to the side of the road, Daniel got out and attempted to create a temporary fix that would get us home to Chiquimula. He spent a good 10 minutes working on it before getting back in the truck only to discover that it hadn’t worked. Which put us in a really bad spot.
We didn’t have enough room in the Rav4 for all of the stuff, plus all of the people. Actually, we didn’t even have enough room in the car for everyone to ride home. Someone was going to have to stay with the truck. This was less than ideal because it was night in Guatemala and we were at least 30 minutes from home. No one liked the idea of them sitting out on the road waiting for a tow truck, but we had little choice.
So Heather, Jillian, me, Alex, and Pastor Carlos, piled into the car with Hugh, while Daniel, Nancy, John, Ben, and Will took all the stuff and put it into the pickup to wait for the tow truck.
The ride back to Chiquimula probably would have been a rather quiet and intense one except for the fact that Hugh managed to hit a speed bump going about 50mph. To be fair to him, I don't remember seeing a sign for the speed bump. In fact, I didn't even know we were coming up on one until we'd gone flying over it (I was sitting in the front passenger seat).
So there we are, driving along, all silently worrying about everyone back at the truck (well, at least I was silently worrying. I don't quite remember about everyone else). All of the sudden there's a large bang and we go airborne for a few seconds before thudding back to the ground with a big shout of surprise from everyone in the car, especially those in the back seat.
At first, we had no idea what had just happened, but then we figured out that Hugh had just taken us over a speed bump at 50mph. As a result, everyone in the backseat and Pastor Carlos back in the trunk had gone flying and banged their heads on the ceiling. Heather, who we found out later was already not feeling great because of dehydration, wouldn't let Hugh forget about it the rest of the way home. We all had a good laugh after making sure everyone was okay, but after that, any time we got near a speed bump Heather made certain Hugh was paying attention.
We made it back to the mission house about 40 minutes after leaving the truck behind. We sort of knew the situation we were walking into, but not completely till we got there, so the rest of the evening was still interesting.
See, earlier in the day, the electricity had started fluctuating and randomly sort of going off. Well, before we left, Brandi discovered that the main circuit box had been made into a honey comb by a colony of bees. That's what was causing the power issues. Because of this, she'd spent all day trying to find someone who could fix the problem and get full power restored that day. Because of the power issues, she and Stacy hadn't been able to get everything done at the house that they'd needed to. Apparently the washing machine wasn't working correctly either, which made Brandi get behind on laundry. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but things get dirty so fast there that getting even a little behind can cause a lot of problems. Also, throughout the day, she'd had two different electricians come and tell her that they weren't sure they could fix the electricity that day. I think one said he'd come back later, but they weren't sure he actually would. Add to all this having to deal with several rowdy kids all day and you get a very stressed out Brandi and a very stressed out Stacy. Which is what we came home to.
Despite being stressed out, Stacy and Brandi greeted us and served us the dinner they'd prepared for us (spaghetti, green beans, and bread). While we were getting ready to eat, another electrician arrived to see if he could get the problem fixed. To fix the problem, he'd have to cut all the power to the whole house for something like 10 minutes. Cue everyone grabbing flashlights.
For 10 minutes or so, Hugh, Heather, Jillian, Alex, Carlos, and I, along with Brandi and Stacy, sat in the dark eating and talking. During this time, the kids also wound up waking back up. Eventually though, all the lights came back on. After that, Brandi brought the electrician around, introduced him as a hero, and then took him over so he could fix the washing machine too. He did and left to much thanks from all of us.
At some point during all of this, Alex left to take Carlos to a relative's house. After all of the electrical drama, the other group still wasn't back. Brandi wanted to wait up for them, as did Hugh. But Stacy wanted to get Dominic back to bed and Heather wasn't feeling well. So Heather, the Rodriguezes, and Jillian all headed to their rooms while Hugh and I hung out with Brandi to await the arrival of the other group.
I helped Brandi with dishes and we just chatted for a while. Eventually, the others got back. I thought it was around 11:00, but Brandi told me later that it is was actually 10:00ish when they got back. Anyway, they all got back, so Hugh and I ran outside really quick and helped everyone unload all the stuff from the truck so Daniel could take Nancy home and then go check on the truck at the shop it was being taken to.
After we got everything unloaded, Daniel left with Nancy while Brandi and I made up plates for the three Ryans. It took a few minutes, so I talked to Ben for a bit while their plates heated up. Once all their meals were done, I made sure Brandi and the Ryans didn't need anything else, then I headed to my room to take a shower and go to bed. It had been a long day.
After the toast was done, I asked Brandi if she needed me to do anything else. She asked if I could fill up a pitcher with cold water. She told me I’d probably need Daniel’s help since the switch for the cold water dispenser was broken. I went out and asked Daniel if he could help me so he took the pitcher and started filling it. After a couple of seconds I told him I could hold the pitcher if he wanted, so he could do other things. He said okay, then immediately got called away.
At first, I wasn’t too worried. I figured he’d be back and there was still plenty of room in the pitcher. When it got to about ¾ of the way full, I began to get a little worried and tried to find a way to turn the water dispenser off. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the way to shut it off, Daniel still wasn’t back and the pitcher was almost full. I yelled for Daniel, Brandi, and Alex hoping someone could help me. Alex and Brandi came running and we all tried to get the water turned off. Unfortunately, by now the pitcher was overflowing. We frantically searched for the way to turn it off, but the water kept flowing. Finally, after what seemed like forever and way too much water, Alex found how to turn the switch off.
Of course, right about then Daniel came back and asked what happened. I told him he left me alone and I didn’t know how to turn the water off. He said, “But you said you had it.” I said, “No, I said I could hold the pitcher!” We were all laughing though, so it was all good.
After the great water fiasco, we ate breakfast and then got everything together for the day. Then it was time to head out to the next village.
The drive to this village was similar to the drive to the first village, except the time on paved road was shorter. We only spent about 30 minutes on the regular roads. The rest of the trip to the village was accomplished by driving 1 ½ hours on a very dusty dirt road that wound up, down, and around two mountains.
At one point during the drive, we pulled over so the guys could relieve themselves. It also gave us a chance to take photos of the beautiful mountains that surrounded us.
Back in the cars, we bumped the rest of the way to the village.
As soon as we got to the village, we unloaded everything into the church (basically a structure with several support pillars and a tin roof, but not really anything else) and started making up the baskets we were going to give away. While we made up the baskets, we learned that a group of people who were going to receive some of the baskets were already there. They were all of the women and children and a few men that were sitting around watching us.
Since most or all of them weren’t Christians and we weren’t sure if they would come back for service that night, John, Daniel, and Alex decided we should do a quick impromptu service for them. Alex got up and spoke for a while. First he did an illustration with two empty Gatorade bottles. One was easily crushed by the volunteer Alex had called up. The other, not so much.
Alex went on to explain how the uncrushed bottle represented people who’d accepted Christ. Because the Holy Spirit lived within them, they were better able to stand up to hard times. On the other hand, people without the Holy Spirit are crushed by hard times. At least, that what I think he said. You know, limited Spanish and all.
Anyway, after that he prayed and asked if anyone wanted to receive Christ. No one did. Also, no one had us pray for them. So he ended the prayer and we started handing out baskets.
Since most of the people were there, Pastor Sefariño called out names from a list and someone came up to get the basket. Whenever someone came up, one of our group would step forward with the basket and had it to them. Daniel and Nancy also gave them a copy of the books of John and Romans in Spanish and a comic book that depicted the life of Christ.
After all the people had received their baskets, we gave out the Salvation bracelets that we’d made the day before. We all took time and tied bracelets on all the kids’ arms, and even some of the adults. Once everyone had bracelets, Heather stood up and explained what each colored bead meant.
When the meaning had been explained and everyone had begun to disperse, it was time for lunch. Daniel had informed us a little earlier that Pastor Sefariño’s family had decided to cook lunch for all of us. Since lunch was finished cooking, it was time to go up to his house and eat.
We got up to the house and went inside and the first thing Hugh made me do was take a picture of the stove that the women were cooking tortillas on. It’s nothing like the stove that we have at home. It’s a clay structure with an open fire and a metal pan placed on top where they place the tortillas to cook. It was really neat and really hot.
When I’d finished taking pictures of the stove, we all sat down around the table to eat the meal Pastor Sefariño’s family made for us. It consisted of a broth made from oil/butter and water with vegetables and potatoes in it, tortillas, and a chicken they’d killed and boiled for us.
The whole chicken thing is a big deal cause chickens are really valuable for more than just their meat. People don’t eat meat everyday there like we do here. It’s a big deal and a lot of work to eat meat there. So yeah, super humbling for them to do that for us.
After lunch, we sat down with Pastor Sefariño and talked about his life, ministry, and church. He told us his story and what he’d seen go on. He talked about how at one point he broke his back and how he should not have been walking. But God had given him the ability to walk again, despite everything the doctors said. It was really cool to hear all his stories and learn more about all the amazing things God was doing in his life and in the lives of the people he pastors.
When he’d finished talking, we took some time to pray for him and his family. In fact, he called his whole family into the room with us so they could be there to be prayed for. It was really cool.
After we finished praying with Pastor Sefariño’s family, it was time to try and visit a couple more families before church service started. Since we didn’t have much time, we decided to split into two groups. I wound up in a group with Alex, John, Ben, and a couple of Guatemalan church members. Everyone else went with Daniel.
My group headed down the mountain. This involved carefully making our way down a very narrow path with the mountain on the left side and a sheer drop on the right. The path was barely wide enough for us to walk on and pretty steep in some places. I realized pretty quickly that I just needed to concentrate on walking on the path and not worry about going too slowly or what was going on around me. It was the only way I was going to get down the path without falling.
I should also mention that I was doing all of this with a rather bad headache. I had a headache because as I was coming out of Pastor Sefariño’s house, I didn’t duck quite far enough and managed to ram my head into the top of the door really hard. After about twenty minutes I had a nice headache and a good sized bump on the top of my head.
So there I am, hiking down a mountain with a super headache. Sounds like fun right?
Actually it wasn’t that bad. Nerve-wracking: yes but bad: no. At one point, we made our way along a path that had a portion of it washed away. I wound up having to take a really big step over a washed our section of the path. That was the point that had me the most nervous the whole time, but it turned out okay and was kind of fun.
We visited three houses on our trip, but we only talked to people at two of them. The third house didn’t seem to want us to stop by, but since I didn’t understand what was being said, it’s hard for me to know for sure. The other two were both Christians, I think. Again, not good with the Spanish, so I’m not sure.
Once we’d finished hiking around to houses, we headed back to the church to wait for church service to start. We were the first group to get back, so we sat down and Alex started talking with the Guatemalans who had already gathered there.
After a while, the other groups started to trickle back in. First came Hugh and Heather and Nancy. They told us their group had split up again after we left them so that they could visit even more houses. Finally, the rest of the group showed up and it was finally close to time to start service. What followed was a very long church service.
Service started with music led by musicians that Pastor Sefariño had hired just for our visit. There was a lot of singing and it just kept going. After that, Pastor Sefariño had us all come up front and made Daniel introduce us to everyone. Daniel went down the line and told everyone our names and what we did.
After that, Hugh and Jillian got up and shared portions of their testimonies while Daniel translated. Then John stood up and preached for a while. This time, Alex translated for him.
After John finished preaching, Alex asked if anyone wanted to receive Christ. No one did, so after a while, he asked if there was anyone who needed prayer for anything. A bunch of people stood up, so everyone else in the group went up and prayed for all the people who were standing.
After all the prayer, service ended and it was time to go home. We packed up our stuff then made a quick pit stop at Pastor Sefariño’s outhouse so we wouldn’t have to stop on the way home. After that, we all loaded into the car and got ready for the ride back down the mountain.
John wound up riding in our car on the way down the mountain. He said his 50 year old body couldn’t handle the bumpy ride back down the mountain in the back of the pickup, so he came with us. He told us a few stories and in general we had a decent ride down the mountain, even if it was nerve-wracking cause the sun went down about half-way through the ride.
When we’d gotten about half to three-quarters of the way down the mountain, we suddenly came upon a group of young men and policía and had to stop. They stopped and talked to the people in the truck, then came over to us. One of the policía stepped up to Hugh’s window and Hugh tried to tell them he didn’t speak any Spanish (No hablo español). Only, he wound up saying he didn’t speak any English (No hablo ingles). At first, I couldn’t react, I was too stunned. Then I realized what he was saying and quickly said “Español, español!” He corrected himself and the police eventually went away. Although I think some of that had to do with Ben giving out water to them.
After they’d gone, Hugh said that the police officer had given him a really funny look when he’d told him that he (Hugh) didn’t speak English. We all had a good laugh about it then.
After getting past the police checkpoint, we got to the bottom of the mountain and were ready to head home. But something happened to Daniel’s truck as we came off the mountain road and his clutch broke. We knew right away something was wrong, but it was a few minutes before we pulled over.
Pulling over to the side of the road, Daniel got out and attempted to create a temporary fix that would get us home to Chiquimula. He spent a good 10 minutes working on it before getting back in the truck only to discover that it hadn’t worked. Which put us in a really bad spot.
We didn’t have enough room in the Rav4 for all of the stuff, plus all of the people. Actually, we didn’t even have enough room in the car for everyone to ride home. Someone was going to have to stay with the truck. This was less than ideal because it was night in Guatemala and we were at least 30 minutes from home. No one liked the idea of them sitting out on the road waiting for a tow truck, but we had little choice.
So Heather, Jillian, me, Alex, and Pastor Carlos, piled into the car with Hugh, while Daniel, Nancy, John, Ben, and Will took all the stuff and put it into the pickup to wait for the tow truck.
The ride back to Chiquimula probably would have been a rather quiet and intense one except for the fact that Hugh managed to hit a speed bump going about 50mph. To be fair to him, I don't remember seeing a sign for the speed bump. In fact, I didn't even know we were coming up on one until we'd gone flying over it (I was sitting in the front passenger seat).
So there we are, driving along, all silently worrying about everyone back at the truck (well, at least I was silently worrying. I don't quite remember about everyone else). All of the sudden there's a large bang and we go airborne for a few seconds before thudding back to the ground with a big shout of surprise from everyone in the car, especially those in the back seat.
At first, we had no idea what had just happened, but then we figured out that Hugh had just taken us over a speed bump at 50mph. As a result, everyone in the backseat and Pastor Carlos back in the trunk had gone flying and banged their heads on the ceiling. Heather, who we found out later was already not feeling great because of dehydration, wouldn't let Hugh forget about it the rest of the way home. We all had a good laugh after making sure everyone was okay, but after that, any time we got near a speed bump Heather made certain Hugh was paying attention.
We made it back to the mission house about 40 minutes after leaving the truck behind. We sort of knew the situation we were walking into, but not completely till we got there, so the rest of the evening was still interesting.
See, earlier in the day, the electricity had started fluctuating and randomly sort of going off. Well, before we left, Brandi discovered that the main circuit box had been made into a honey comb by a colony of bees. That's what was causing the power issues. Because of this, she'd spent all day trying to find someone who could fix the problem and get full power restored that day. Because of the power issues, she and Stacy hadn't been able to get everything done at the house that they'd needed to. Apparently the washing machine wasn't working correctly either, which made Brandi get behind on laundry. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but things get dirty so fast there that getting even a little behind can cause a lot of problems. Also, throughout the day, she'd had two different electricians come and tell her that they weren't sure they could fix the electricity that day. I think one said he'd come back later, but they weren't sure he actually would. Add to all this having to deal with several rowdy kids all day and you get a very stressed out Brandi and a very stressed out Stacy. Which is what we came home to.
Despite being stressed out, Stacy and Brandi greeted us and served us the dinner they'd prepared for us (spaghetti, green beans, and bread). While we were getting ready to eat, another electrician arrived to see if he could get the problem fixed. To fix the problem, he'd have to cut all the power to the whole house for something like 10 minutes. Cue everyone grabbing flashlights.
For 10 minutes or so, Hugh, Heather, Jillian, Alex, Carlos, and I, along with Brandi and Stacy, sat in the dark eating and talking. During this time, the kids also wound up waking back up. Eventually though, all the lights came back on. After that, Brandi brought the electrician around, introduced him as a hero, and then took him over so he could fix the washing machine too. He did and left to much thanks from all of us.
At some point during all of this, Alex left to take Carlos to a relative's house. After all of the electrical drama, the other group still wasn't back. Brandi wanted to wait up for them, as did Hugh. But Stacy wanted to get Dominic back to bed and Heather wasn't feeling well. So Heather, the Rodriguezes, and Jillian all headed to their rooms while Hugh and I hung out with Brandi to await the arrival of the other group.
I helped Brandi with dishes and we just chatted for a while. Eventually, the others got back. I thought it was around 11:00, but Brandi told me later that it is was actually 10:00ish when they got back. Anyway, they all got back, so Hugh and I ran outside really quick and helped everyone unload all the stuff from the truck so Daniel could take Nancy home and then go check on the truck at the shop it was being taken to.
After we got everything unloaded, Daniel left with Nancy while Brandi and I made up plates for the three Ryans. It took a few minutes, so I talked to Ben for a bit while their plates heated up. Once all their meals were done, I made sure Brandi and the Ryans didn't need anything else, then I headed to my room to take a shower and go to bed. It had been a long day.
June 15, 2014: Sunday - Pastor Carlos's Village
On Sunday, the plan was for everyone to sleep late because we'd been up so late the night before. We were just going to go to a buffet breakfast that morning, so we didn't need to be up early. Unfortunately, my body had different ideas and I was up ridiculously early, like every other morning that week.
Eventually the rest of the group got up and it was time to leave for breakfast.
Everyone piled into the cars and we headed into Chiquimula to a restaurant called Charlie's. It's actually a pizzeria, but they also serve a buffet breakfast on Sunday mornings. We got there and Brandi said that she'd called and the staff had assured her that they would have a table for us when we got there. When we walked in, we thought there was a table set up for us, but it was actually for someone else. After a bit of confusion, they eventually led us upstairs to where they hold banquets and special events and told us we'd be eating up there instead of in the main restaurant. We were the only group up there.
Once we'd gotten our stuff set down, we headed downstairs and got in line for food. What food I did eat was good, but my stomach had been finicky all week, so I didn't really eat much. I felt bad cause everything looked so tasty. Everyone else really liked the food, in any case.
We all sat down and relaxed in the air conditioning and enjoyed our meal. After everyone had had enough too eat, we started just hanging out and talking. I think at some point someone asked if there was anyway for us to see the soccer game where we were. There weren't any TVs up there so I think we were just gonna leave when all of the sudden a couple of the guys come in carrying a TV and all the wires to hook it up. We realized that they may have just gone out and bought a TV just so we could watch the World Cup game that was on. Because of that, we decided we should probably stay for a while longer. No one really complained.
At one point, Daniel came over and sat down to talk with Jillian and I about the trip, see if we had any questions, and ask what our thoughts were. Jillian asked about the history of the country and the culture and whatnot, so we got into a long conversation about the Guatemalan culture and how the descendants of the Mayan Indians were treated differently and how they wound up in the mountains, among other things. Eventually most everyone had gathered around and was listening to Daniel talk. He also told us stories about ways that God had provided for him and Brandi as they'd been in Guatemala and for the other pastors, like Pastor Carlos.
After a while the conversation died out and the guys went to finish watching the game. We stayed until the game ended, which wound up being a little before noon. I think we were there for three hours. It was wonderful and relaxing and the most downtime we'd had all week.
When the game finished, we headed back to the house. We had some time before we had to leave for our last village church and I was exhausted, so I took a nap.
After I woke up, we had a little more time to kill, but I don't totally remember what we did. We left for the last church, Pastor Carlos's church, at about 2:00.
We started out the ride like usual, with John, Ben, and Will in the back of the pickup truck (a tiny red rental that Daniel had gotten since his big truck was in the shop). As soon as we pulled out, John, who was standing up in the back of the truck, looked ahead and pointed: we were driving right into a bunch of rain.
Not long after that, Daniel pulled over and asked the Ryans if they wanted to either get in the truck or at least put ponchos on since we were definitely going to get rained on. They all said no, insisting they would stay dry by sitting up against the back of the cab of the truck. Daniel said okay, got back in and started driving again while the guys rearranged themselves in the back of the truck. Meanwhile, in the other car, we were all laughing our heads off and wondering if they would actually get to the church without getting soaked. We got our answer not long after that.
Within five minutes of pulling onto the road again, the rain started. At first, the Ryans seemed like they might just get away without getting too wet, even after it started raining harder. Then we got stuck behind a number of slow cars and it began to pour. To say they got soaked would be an understatement. I have one picture of them and they are all pretty much curled up in little balls but they're smiling, probably cause they saw me taking the picture.
After a while, the rain kind of stopped, so the Ryans decided to try and dry off by standing up and letting the wind air-dry them. I'm not sure how well it worked and I'm pretty sure it started raining again before we got there, but A for effort on their part.
We finally got to Pastor Carlos's church about 40 minutes after leaving the mission house. His church was a bit different from the other two churches because it was an actual completed building. It had all four walls done, a roof, doors and windows, and a stage where they had a couple of speakers and a podium. The wall inside were even painted and had some murals on them. It also had banners hanging from the eaves of the ceiling. It just goes to show that you don't need a big fancy building to worship God.
It was very interesting to see the differences in all of the different churches. They were all so unlike anything you would typically see here in the States, but that just proves that you don't need a big fancy building to worship God. You can worship Him in a simple four-wall structure, or a place that has a roof and not much else. It's yet another humbling reminder of God's greatness.
By the time we got to the church the rain had slowed some, so we unloaded everything into the church. We wanted to go give out donations, but before we could, we had to put together all of the baskets. Unfortunately, it took just enough time to put the baskets together for it to start raining again.
We decided to wait and see if the rain would let up. Will started playing with the kids while pretty much everyone else sat around talking.
After about an hour (or maybe half-an-hour. Still no watch, so I'm not sure) of watching the kids and waiting for the rain to stop, John and Daniel decided that we should go ahead and talk with Pastor Carlos the way we had with the other pastors. Since he'd been with us the other two times, he was ready with photos and stories.
We learned that he went to University and had a couple of degrees. He also worked in construction, which helped his church a lot because he was able to build a nice church building because of that. He told us stories of God's provision for him and his family and for his church. Like all the other talks, it was good to hear from him.
We decided to wait to pray for him until after we went to give out baskets because by this time the rain had finally slowed down a bit. So we gathered up some of the baskets and split into two groups to try and get some of them delivered before church started.
I was in a group with Daniel, Brandi, their kids, Will, Jillian, Hugh, and one of the Guatemalan men from Pastor Carlos's church. Everyone else went with Alex. Our group was going to some of the houses that were a little further away, so we drove. As we were pulling away from the church, Brandi mentioned that one of the women she had spoken to thought it was going to rain again. Brandi said that the woman was usually right about these things. Sure enough, about half-way to our first house, it started pouring.
We pulled up to the area just outside the first house, the home of Doña Aueria, and we all ran as quickly as possible to get under some shelter and avoid getting too soaked. Sadly, in our rush, we forgot a couple of things. We sent Will back to the truck to grab them and on the way there, he managed to grab a barbwire fence and gash his finger. I tried to get him to at least put a band-aid on it, but he insisted that with the rain, the band-aid wouldn't do any good.
Another accident happened while at the first house as well. While we were talking to the first woman, CeeCee decided to stand on a stool that was there. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but suddenly the stool flipped and she fell. I'm not sure if she hit her eye on the way down or if she hurt that some time later. All I know is that she started crying and the next day she had a scratch and a black eye. Poor girl.
Aside from the accidents, our visit with Doña Aueria followed the same pattern that all of our other visits with villagers had. We spent some time talking to and praying for her and invited her to join us for service that night. Unfortunately, I don't remember much about her story. When we'd finished praying with her, we gathered up all our stuff and ran back to the truck. It was still down-pouring.
Next, we drove a little while and stopped at another house. It was still raining, so we sort of rain into the house to be greeted by Doña Tina and her family. We wound up staying at that house for a bit because it began raining really hard while we talked and prayed with her. After about 10 minutes, the rain finally slowed down enough that we could get back to the truck. At that point, we opted to head back to the church and wait for service to start.
Back at the church, Hugh, Will, Jillian, and I decided we should get ready for church. After we got changed, we stood around waiting for the other group to get back, but they took a long time. Eventually Will, Jillian, and I sat down and decided to play a game of Bible trivia. It was Will’s suggestion. I suggested cards instead, but Will pointed out that we couldn’t be sure playing cards wasn’t a big sin for the people in the church. So Bible trivia it was.
We played for a while, each taking turns coming up with questions that the other two had to answer. When we weren't sure about the correct answer to one of the questions, so we got out John's Bible and checked. It was a fun way to test our Bible knowledge, but eventually we started running out of questions. It isn't easy to come up with Bible trivia questions off the top of your head.
Eventually, one of us said something about a TV show that we all knew and, after more struggling to think of questions, Will suggested that we just talk about TV instead. We all agreed, so he asked what shows I watched. I listed off most of them and he said he actually watched almost all of them. He asked if we watched much Netflix and I said yes so then we got to talking about Netflix and the shows we'd watch there. It was fun just sitting and chatting with him and Jillian.
Not long after that, the other group got back and church service started. This service was a lot like the others, in structure and execution. But also different.
At the beginning of the service, Pastor Carlos got up and spoke and prayed for a bit, then he asked Daniel to bring all of us forward and introduce us. He went down the line and gave the congregation everyone’s names and said what they did in the church.
After we were introduced, Pastor Carlos called up people from the congregation to pray individually for each of us. Being prayed for in another language is an interesting and cool experience. It’s also humbling to know that God doesn’t need everyone to speak the same language to know what they are asking and saying and what they need.
After we were prayed for, we went back and sat down and service continued. Next came worship. Two women from the church got up and started singing. At some point during the song, one of the two women started singing something that didn’t sound quite like the song the other girl was singing. She also started sort of dancing. At first, everyone kept singing and clapping, but eventually some people started praying and the other girl put her mic down and left the stage and the guitar player stopped playing. All of us Americans kind of started looking around and trying to figure out what was going on. Heather later said that she was pretty sure the woman started speaking in tongues, but I’m not sure. Unfortunately, I never really got to ask anyone else about it.
After worship ended, Heather and Jillian got up and gave some testimonies. Stacy translated for them. When the girls finished their testimonies, one of the men from Carlos’s church got up and I think he gave his testimony. It was hard to tell since there was no translator.
Next came Alex giving a message to the church, all in Spanish. Then Carlos got up and asked us to come and pray for the people in his church. We did.
The last thing that happened in church was that Carlos grabbed Will and asked if he would come up and say a couple of words to the church. I think he asked him to do it in Spanish even. Will had been practicing Spanish all week and had gotten pretty good at speaking without an translator, so he agreed. He got up on stage and, completely in Spanish with very little help, thanked the church for welcoming us and praying for us and letting us worship with them. I’m not sure about everything he said, though he did tell me later. Still, it was pretty cool that he got up there and spoke completely on his own in Spanish. I think everyone in the congregation really appreciated it and I know we were all proud of him.
After service ended, we got the chance to go to Pastor Carlos’s house and eat dinner with him and his family. They had cooked for us, so that was cool. They made us a noodle dish that had vegetables and chicken in some kind of sauce all mixed together. They also served us the sweetest cup of coffee I’ve ever had. I only took about two drinks out of it. I don’t like coffee to begin with and it was way too sweet for me. Hugh noticed I wasn’t drinking it, so he asked if I was gonna finish it. When I told him no, he asked if he could have it and I told him to go for it.
When we’d finished eating, we gave Pastor Carlos and his wife some gifts we had brought for them. Pastor Carlos got some hats and his wife got the things that the Elder’s wives had sent.
After dinner there was a little more talking, then it was time to go home. We all climbed into the cars and headed back to the mission house.
On the way back, we had a bit of an adventure. Because of all of the rain, there was a lot of washout on the road. Hugh and Alex compared it to driving in a live video game. We had to dodge around big branches and rocks that had fallen into the road during the storms. At one point there was an entire tree that had fallen into the road. We did eventually make it home in one piece though.
Eventually the rest of the group got up and it was time to leave for breakfast.
Everyone piled into the cars and we headed into Chiquimula to a restaurant called Charlie's. It's actually a pizzeria, but they also serve a buffet breakfast on Sunday mornings. We got there and Brandi said that she'd called and the staff had assured her that they would have a table for us when we got there. When we walked in, we thought there was a table set up for us, but it was actually for someone else. After a bit of confusion, they eventually led us upstairs to where they hold banquets and special events and told us we'd be eating up there instead of in the main restaurant. We were the only group up there.
Once we'd gotten our stuff set down, we headed downstairs and got in line for food. What food I did eat was good, but my stomach had been finicky all week, so I didn't really eat much. I felt bad cause everything looked so tasty. Everyone else really liked the food, in any case.
We all sat down and relaxed in the air conditioning and enjoyed our meal. After everyone had had enough too eat, we started just hanging out and talking. I think at some point someone asked if there was anyway for us to see the soccer game where we were. There weren't any TVs up there so I think we were just gonna leave when all of the sudden a couple of the guys come in carrying a TV and all the wires to hook it up. We realized that they may have just gone out and bought a TV just so we could watch the World Cup game that was on. Because of that, we decided we should probably stay for a while longer. No one really complained.
At one point, Daniel came over and sat down to talk with Jillian and I about the trip, see if we had any questions, and ask what our thoughts were. Jillian asked about the history of the country and the culture and whatnot, so we got into a long conversation about the Guatemalan culture and how the descendants of the Mayan Indians were treated differently and how they wound up in the mountains, among other things. Eventually most everyone had gathered around and was listening to Daniel talk. He also told us stories about ways that God had provided for him and Brandi as they'd been in Guatemala and for the other pastors, like Pastor Carlos.
After a while the conversation died out and the guys went to finish watching the game. We stayed until the game ended, which wound up being a little before noon. I think we were there for three hours. It was wonderful and relaxing and the most downtime we'd had all week.
When the game finished, we headed back to the house. We had some time before we had to leave for our last village church and I was exhausted, so I took a nap.
After I woke up, we had a little more time to kill, but I don't totally remember what we did. We left for the last church, Pastor Carlos's church, at about 2:00.
We started out the ride like usual, with John, Ben, and Will in the back of the pickup truck (a tiny red rental that Daniel had gotten since his big truck was in the shop). As soon as we pulled out, John, who was standing up in the back of the truck, looked ahead and pointed: we were driving right into a bunch of rain.
Not long after that, Daniel pulled over and asked the Ryans if they wanted to either get in the truck or at least put ponchos on since we were definitely going to get rained on. They all said no, insisting they would stay dry by sitting up against the back of the cab of the truck. Daniel said okay, got back in and started driving again while the guys rearranged themselves in the back of the truck. Meanwhile, in the other car, we were all laughing our heads off and wondering if they would actually get to the church without getting soaked. We got our answer not long after that.
Within five minutes of pulling onto the road again, the rain started. At first, the Ryans seemed like they might just get away without getting too wet, even after it started raining harder. Then we got stuck behind a number of slow cars and it began to pour. To say they got soaked would be an understatement. I have one picture of them and they are all pretty much curled up in little balls but they're smiling, probably cause they saw me taking the picture.
After a while, the rain kind of stopped, so the Ryans decided to try and dry off by standing up and letting the wind air-dry them. I'm not sure how well it worked and I'm pretty sure it started raining again before we got there, but A for effort on their part.
We finally got to Pastor Carlos's church about 40 minutes after leaving the mission house. His church was a bit different from the other two churches because it was an actual completed building. It had all four walls done, a roof, doors and windows, and a stage where they had a couple of speakers and a podium. The wall inside were even painted and had some murals on them. It also had banners hanging from the eaves of the ceiling. It just goes to show that you don't need a big fancy building to worship God.
It was very interesting to see the differences in all of the different churches. They were all so unlike anything you would typically see here in the States, but that just proves that you don't need a big fancy building to worship God. You can worship Him in a simple four-wall structure, or a place that has a roof and not much else. It's yet another humbling reminder of God's greatness.
By the time we got to the church the rain had slowed some, so we unloaded everything into the church. We wanted to go give out donations, but before we could, we had to put together all of the baskets. Unfortunately, it took just enough time to put the baskets together for it to start raining again.
We decided to wait and see if the rain would let up. Will started playing with the kids while pretty much everyone else sat around talking.
After about an hour (or maybe half-an-hour. Still no watch, so I'm not sure) of watching the kids and waiting for the rain to stop, John and Daniel decided that we should go ahead and talk with Pastor Carlos the way we had with the other pastors. Since he'd been with us the other two times, he was ready with photos and stories.
We learned that he went to University and had a couple of degrees. He also worked in construction, which helped his church a lot because he was able to build a nice church building because of that. He told us stories of God's provision for him and his family and for his church. Like all the other talks, it was good to hear from him.
We decided to wait to pray for him until after we went to give out baskets because by this time the rain had finally slowed down a bit. So we gathered up some of the baskets and split into two groups to try and get some of them delivered before church started.
I was in a group with Daniel, Brandi, their kids, Will, Jillian, Hugh, and one of the Guatemalan men from Pastor Carlos's church. Everyone else went with Alex. Our group was going to some of the houses that were a little further away, so we drove. As we were pulling away from the church, Brandi mentioned that one of the women she had spoken to thought it was going to rain again. Brandi said that the woman was usually right about these things. Sure enough, about half-way to our first house, it started pouring.
We pulled up to the area just outside the first house, the home of Doña Aueria, and we all ran as quickly as possible to get under some shelter and avoid getting too soaked. Sadly, in our rush, we forgot a couple of things. We sent Will back to the truck to grab them and on the way there, he managed to grab a barbwire fence and gash his finger. I tried to get him to at least put a band-aid on it, but he insisted that with the rain, the band-aid wouldn't do any good.
Another accident happened while at the first house as well. While we were talking to the first woman, CeeCee decided to stand on a stool that was there. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but suddenly the stool flipped and she fell. I'm not sure if she hit her eye on the way down or if she hurt that some time later. All I know is that she started crying and the next day she had a scratch and a black eye. Poor girl.
Aside from the accidents, our visit with Doña Aueria followed the same pattern that all of our other visits with villagers had. We spent some time talking to and praying for her and invited her to join us for service that night. Unfortunately, I don't remember much about her story. When we'd finished praying with her, we gathered up all our stuff and ran back to the truck. It was still down-pouring.
Next, we drove a little while and stopped at another house. It was still raining, so we sort of rain into the house to be greeted by Doña Tina and her family. We wound up staying at that house for a bit because it began raining really hard while we talked and prayed with her. After about 10 minutes, the rain finally slowed down enough that we could get back to the truck. At that point, we opted to head back to the church and wait for service to start.
Back at the church, Hugh, Will, Jillian, and I decided we should get ready for church. After we got changed, we stood around waiting for the other group to get back, but they took a long time. Eventually Will, Jillian, and I sat down and decided to play a game of Bible trivia. It was Will’s suggestion. I suggested cards instead, but Will pointed out that we couldn’t be sure playing cards wasn’t a big sin for the people in the church. So Bible trivia it was.
We played for a while, each taking turns coming up with questions that the other two had to answer. When we weren't sure about the correct answer to one of the questions, so we got out John's Bible and checked. It was a fun way to test our Bible knowledge, but eventually we started running out of questions. It isn't easy to come up with Bible trivia questions off the top of your head.
Eventually, one of us said something about a TV show that we all knew and, after more struggling to think of questions, Will suggested that we just talk about TV instead. We all agreed, so he asked what shows I watched. I listed off most of them and he said he actually watched almost all of them. He asked if we watched much Netflix and I said yes so then we got to talking about Netflix and the shows we'd watch there. It was fun just sitting and chatting with him and Jillian.
Not long after that, the other group got back and church service started. This service was a lot like the others, in structure and execution. But also different.
At the beginning of the service, Pastor Carlos got up and spoke and prayed for a bit, then he asked Daniel to bring all of us forward and introduce us. He went down the line and gave the congregation everyone’s names and said what they did in the church.
After we were introduced, Pastor Carlos called up people from the congregation to pray individually for each of us. Being prayed for in another language is an interesting and cool experience. It’s also humbling to know that God doesn’t need everyone to speak the same language to know what they are asking and saying and what they need.
After we were prayed for, we went back and sat down and service continued. Next came worship. Two women from the church got up and started singing. At some point during the song, one of the two women started singing something that didn’t sound quite like the song the other girl was singing. She also started sort of dancing. At first, everyone kept singing and clapping, but eventually some people started praying and the other girl put her mic down and left the stage and the guitar player stopped playing. All of us Americans kind of started looking around and trying to figure out what was going on. Heather later said that she was pretty sure the woman started speaking in tongues, but I’m not sure. Unfortunately, I never really got to ask anyone else about it.
After worship ended, Heather and Jillian got up and gave some testimonies. Stacy translated for them. When the girls finished their testimonies, one of the men from Carlos’s church got up and I think he gave his testimony. It was hard to tell since there was no translator.
Next came Alex giving a message to the church, all in Spanish. Then Carlos got up and asked us to come and pray for the people in his church. We did.
The last thing that happened in church was that Carlos grabbed Will and asked if he would come up and say a couple of words to the church. I think he asked him to do it in Spanish even. Will had been practicing Spanish all week and had gotten pretty good at speaking without an translator, so he agreed. He got up on stage and, completely in Spanish with very little help, thanked the church for welcoming us and praying for us and letting us worship with them. I’m not sure about everything he said, though he did tell me later. Still, it was pretty cool that he got up there and spoke completely on his own in Spanish. I think everyone in the congregation really appreciated it and I know we were all proud of him.
After service ended, we got the chance to go to Pastor Carlos’s house and eat dinner with him and his family. They had cooked for us, so that was cool. They made us a noodle dish that had vegetables and chicken in some kind of sauce all mixed together. They also served us the sweetest cup of coffee I’ve ever had. I only took about two drinks out of it. I don’t like coffee to begin with and it was way too sweet for me. Hugh noticed I wasn’t drinking it, so he asked if I was gonna finish it. When I told him no, he asked if he could have it and I told him to go for it.
When we’d finished eating, we gave Pastor Carlos and his wife some gifts we had brought for them. Pastor Carlos got some hats and his wife got the things that the Elder’s wives had sent.
After dinner there was a little more talking, then it was time to go home. We all climbed into the cars and headed back to the mission house.
On the way back, we had a bit of an adventure. Because of all of the rain, there was a lot of washout on the road. Hugh and Alex compared it to driving in a live video game. We had to dodge around big branches and rocks that had fallen into the road during the storms. At one point there was an entire tree that had fallen into the road. We did eventually make it home in one piece though.
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