2-13-07
The pastor asked us if we would go visit some of the members of the congregation this morning. The sun was out and the heat was intense as we walked along the dirt road. We stopped in houses and met the residents then prayed for any problems they were facing. Despite the fact that it was mid-morning on a weekday, a majority of the residents were home. We walked over creeks, through corn fields, and up hills to reach houses that were about a 25 minute walk to the church. Some of the houses were made of wooden boards and tin roofs while others were made of sticks and palm leaves for roofs. The houses with the palm leaf roofs were much cooler than the tin roofed houses. Dogs snapped and barked at us as we passed from one property to another. They do not need doorbells here, because the dogs announced our presence at each house. In one of the houses we were led into a room to pray for a 6 day old baby. In another house we were asked to pray for a man that had surgery on his stomach. One of our team members asked what kind of surgery he had and the wife answered then grabbed a jar from the shelf. The jar had a brown ball of something floating in liquid that had been taken from the man’s stomach. That was just a little too much for me to handle. After about two hours of visits we came to a house where we were served a lunch of vegetables in broth and chunks of fatty beef. I’m pretty sure the broth was not made from purified water, but we ate anyway to please our host.
When we got back to the house Rosalia was making tortillas over the fire with her sister in law. The tortillas are much softer and smoother than the ones in Mexico. After they grind the corn up into dough they put it onto a stone and grind it into an even softer paste. Then they take a ball of paste and pat it back and forth in their hands until they have a perfectly round tortilla. The girls put it on a flat plate of metal over a wood burning fire until it is nicely cooked. I asked the girls if I could help and of course they said yes. I tried to mimic exactly what they did, but my tortillas never came out in circle and they always crumbled around the edges. I don’t think they wanted me to make any more so they told me that Pastor Marcus was making Hammock rope. Pastor Marcus made a contraption that uses a bike wheel and pedals twist twine into a tiny tight rope to make hammocks. The whole family watched and helped with the process as they joked and laughed with each other.
Tonight we went to a church service that was held at one of the houses. They put boards across piles of sticks for benches and we sat under the stars and a lone light bulb. The service was all in Q’eqchies with many of the church members getting up to sing a song or read from the Bible.
