This week I received a pleasant gift and surprise from the Lord. It all started while sitting on the curb eating an icecream sandwich and waiting for one of our 7 buses we take daily. A man comes out of the Tortilla-ria and begins talking really fast. As no one is totally fluent on the team so it took a few minutes and many unanswered questions to find out we were to follow him into his home to see his wife. All 9 of us shuffle into this dark and smoky bedroom to see a woman scurrying around trying to get chairs for us all.
These beautiful people have adopted me and are now my Abuelo and Abuela, as they insist on us calling them. We have now made a few trips to their tiny room in a tortilla-ria, where they have spoiled us with delicious lunches and homemade bread. We have been able to pray with them many times and even saw Jesus heal Abuelo’s stomach!! His face was so adorable and shocked but he kept praising Jesus.
Praying over lunch that they made us. They love to make us their favorite Guatemalan dishes and this one did not disappoint!
Over lunch, our surrogate Guatemalan grandparents talk about how they met 52 years ago, them raising their 7 children in the room we are sitting in, and abuelo’s love of his job as a bread maker. He even had us over one day just to see how he does it and share this part of his life with us.
Abuela’s niece took this photo with my phone. Look at abuela putting up those peace signs lol.
Abuela is feisty and hilarious. She loves to tease us and boss her loving husband around:) We even took a picture together one day and she made sure to do the peace sign in it. Abuelo is such a gentleman and always makes sure we have a seat around the little plastic table. If we run out of room he is content to eat in his chair a little ways off and smile at our conversations. He is such a hard worker! I had no idea how strong you have to be to knead that much bread by hand!! I am so blessed to have them in my life.
Abuelo showing us how he makes and runs his bread baking business. Right behind me while I was taking this picture is a huge kiln that he bakes it all in.
It blows my mind how giving these people are. This couple lives in a tiny, smoke filled room because they can only afford to cook over an open flame in this closed off room. Yet they feed us 9 girls so much food with such joy and giving!! Homes I have visited in the village are no different. A tiny child only has 4 crackers in a container and it defiantly looks like her treat, but she offers me two of them with the biggest grin on her face. We stop by a home to say hello and the family immediately insists we sit as they run to the tined to buy us cold drinks. I sit in line with kids from a poor village playing hand clapping games and one adorable girl insists I eat the lima beans she has for lunch. All of this is done with such joy. The culture hear is to offer with no regret. It is the absolute coolest thing. I am trying to be more like my guate friends!!
I got the privilege of helping install a stove at a home this week. People usually cook over a open flame in a closed off room and the smoke is almost unbearable. I was only in there for an hour and already coughing a ton. It is the second biggest killer in guatemala. So these stoves allow smoke to vent out of the house and is a real blessing to these families!!
