Leaving Palenque and First Impressions
On Monday, January 15 we packed up and left the comfort of the Shekinah Christian Center in Palenque. Squad B moved to a church in Palenque to begin 17 days of ministry ranging from Children’s Programming to outreach among prostitutes and drug dealers. Squad A went in three directions. Katie’s team went to Aroyal Palenque, Morgan’s team went to Santa Maria and Eric & Ryan’s teams (my team) went to Aguilar.
Aguilar is small town surrounded by beautiful mountains and not even on my Garmin GPS World Map. There are probably a lot of people that live in the outlying areas. I’ve heard population figures ranging from a few hundred to over 2000.
This place is beautiful. There is a small, mostly clear river with small waterfalls winding through and around the town which itself is nestled between several small mountain peaks. One of the mountains is just a rock face which is really fun to climb.
Many of the people speak Chol- a Mayan dialect quite different from Spanish. So far we have not had a translator. Ministry is difficult without a translator! We have been frustrated by our lack of ability to clearly communicate but we also understand that our frustration is spiritual in nature. What does translate easily are our smiles and ability to love the children. They are warming up to us more and more each day. Parents, especially mothers, seem delighted that their children are getting so much attention from us.
