After many attempts to leave Antigua last week, we finally made it to Lake Atitlan on Wednesday of last week. We crossed the lake by boat from Panajachel to a small village called San Juan. We met up with Team 61 and stayed in the same very pretty, yellow and hot pink hotel. We each had our own double bed and we pretty much took over the hotel. We had a gorgeous view from the roof overlooking the lake and volcanos!
Since Team 61 had been there for a month, they were already established in ministry. My team decided to go to the next village over, San Pedro, to try to locate some ministry opportunities. We met some people, but never established a good contact. One night, Spano actually got a gig at a nearby café/bar where he was the main event. He did really well! I wish you could all hear him sing. (Check out his blog to read more about it http://jamesspano.theworldrace.org/) Overall, it was a hard week for me in a sense that I struggled to feel useful. I guess I’m still trying to figure out the balance between “being” and “doing.” Except for one day…
On Friday, Candice and I were the only ones to go to San Pedro. We rode in the pickup to San Pedro and went to our usual coffee shop. We spent time in the Word together and prayed for our day and God’s leading. We decided to walk towards the boat launch to people watch and try to talk to people as they wait to leave for other villages on the lake. I stopped to go to the bathroom and Candice walked into a nearby restaurant and found a flyer that said “volunteers needed.” The flyer explained that this woman named Lucia from Holland had an organization across the lake near the village of Santiago in the village of Panabaj. In 2005, Hurricane Stan devastated parts of Guatemala. In Panabaj, over 1000 people died in mudslides. This woman worked with the survivors of the mudslide and helped the children through art therapy. The kids made bracelets and necklaces then sold them for money. We thought it sounded interesting so we wrote down the website and were off to look it up. We looked it up at a nearby internet cafe, read as much as we could in English, because most of it was in Dutch, and wrote down her address. Then, we decided we should go on an adventure and find this lady.
We hiked up the crazy enormous hill to try to catch a pickup truck. The pickups told us it would cost us 200Q per person and it would take over an hour to get there. We debated about it, then decided it was not the best use of our money. We walked away somewhat frustrated because we really thought this was where God was calling us. We went down to the boat launch and negotiated (in Spanish) a good price for a trip across the lake to Santiago. Off we went.
Santiago from a distance Candice & I on boat to Santiago
Village of Panabaj
We made it to Santiago and were bombarded by tuk-tuk (taxi) drivers galore offering to take us. We showed them where we needed to go and negotiated a good price. We pulled off the main road and entered a dusty dirt road. Our driver took us into a village of houses in rows with many tin bathrooms and showers in the center. It looked like temporary housing. It was at the bottom of one of the volcanos. We asked a local woman if Lucia was there and she said she would be there at 2pm. It was a little after 1pm. We decided to wait for her. Our driver dropped us off at the school where there were women weaving table runners and kids playing. We told the driver to pick us back up at 3:30pm. We ended up just playing with the kids. We asked them all their names and memorized them. We played soccer, keep-a-way, and played on the playground with the kids. They were precious. Lucia never showed up, but God even when we make plans, God often has better ones. We were able to love on those kids and it was wonderful!
Our tuk-tuk picked us up exactly as planned. We stopped in Santiago for some lunch and had a complete conversation with the employee (in Spanish!) We got a ride back to San Pedro in a boat and I tried to charm the boat driver to take us to San Juan for free…but it didn’t work, we had to pay. Oh well, I tried. It was an amazing day! I felt like the Lord was directing us the whole day. Candice and I were so proud of ourselves that we were able to get exactly where we wanted to go, negotiated good prices, made decisions by ourselves, and even talked in Spanish!
