Panajachel is PARADISE!!
No, but really…our ministry location, Panajachel, looks just like Hawaii but it’s like a tenth of the cost to live here. Our beautiful home that we’re staying in (with a Guatemalan family that goes to the church we’re serving at) is overlooking three volcanoes and we are less than a minute away from a beautiful lake. There are palm trees and blue skies everywhere.
We have been so blessed by Pastor Ben, his wife Lily and their ministry in Panajachel. Not only did Pastor Ben and his church members work their butts off for us to have a nice place to stay (this house/motel kind of area) but we also are having all our meals prepared by the sweet woman that lives with us in the house, Mercy. Mercy and her daughter, son, and grandson are all living with us in the ministry’s home until they can get back on their feet. Mercy has cooked for restaurants before and is in need to money so we decided to take our food budget for the month and bless her and her family with it by paying her to cook for us and allowing Mercy, Anna, Javier and baby Jose to eat the food with us. They don’t have to buy food for an entire month and they get paid to cook us authentic Guatemalan food. Win-win situation? Yes, I believe it is.
Mercy, Anna and a friend making lunch for all of us!
So far in ministry we have been helping Pastor Ben finish the house we’re staying in with construction and building. This week I made screens for all the windows, wired the gas line with plastic tubing, helped Paul build the fence on the roof, clean the floor with paint thinner (I know that doesn’t sound like it makes sense but I promise it does), and figure out how to make wood chip paste to finish a dining room table. Other than construction and building, we have taught an English class which was the most fun I’ve had all week (and I learned a lot of Spanish while I taught English) and attended my first Guatemalan church service in Spanish. It was fun because all the songs were Jeremy Camp, Hillsong, Matt Redman and Chris Tomlin but in Spanish so I just worshiped the Lord and sang them in English. It was so fun and there were woman that had big colorful flags that they waved in the front and through the aisles during worship. It was an honor to be praising the Lord with such beautiful people.
Alana and Angela getting ready to work on the house we’re living in! This is it!!
Tonight we are going to a “Movie Night� at the church that the Youth Ministry is putting on. It reminds me of the “Girls Movie Nights� I used to have at First Pres. Greeley. L I miss those days. Hopefully all the youth will speak English, or atleast Spanglish so I can talk to them. I’ll write more later, but thank you all for your prayers and support. I hope everyone’s having a good weekend so far!! Love you, family and friends!!!
