So I am gonna start recording my Top 11 moments, memories, experiences in each country.
(I will retroactively go back and do Honduras 😉
So here it is…
Top 11 Guatemala…
1 Translating at our 1st church service
The pastor actually said at one point, "You guys (the audience) are looking kind of tired, let's sing!" And calls up the band to lead a song- right in the middle of his message! haha! Pastors in the USA should try that 😉
2 Giving marshmallows to Daniel
He was so happy he almost cried!
I know I potsted this photo before, but it was such an joy-filled moment, i thought it was worth posting again 🙂
3 Praying for Rosemary to stop having seizures…and it worked!
Here is Rosemary – daydreaming and seizure-free!
Sidenote: here is Rosemary's awesome hair-do that I DID one morning! (The nanies taught me to style the little girls hair – they have made it into an art form 🙂
Here is a deeper insight into Rosemary's story and our experience of healing prayers from my teammate Meagan, if you want more detail:
http://meagankelley.theworldrace.org/?filename=innocent-as-a-rose
4 Getting prophesied over by Pastor Marco Tulio
He told me I am going to have a ministry of my own that God is already planning in my heart, and that God brought me on this trip to speak to me, and that my husband is out there looking for me!
< sigh! how romantic! hahah >
5 Doing Gabriel's physical therapy with him for the first time in years
Gabriel is the "ga" in the SARUGAMI family – a family with whom I grew very close during my time in Guatemala. Gabriel hadnt done physical therapy in years because his family could no longer afford it after they moved from Guatemala City. I arranged with an American occupational therapist who was working at Gabriel's school to write out some exercises for him. After I transalted them into Spanish, one of my athetic trainer teammates and I went over to his house to do them with him 🙂 His dad is still doing them with him to this day!
Me and the SARUGAMI kids! 🙂 Gabriel is the boy- obivio. And that's sweet little Mirna who stole my heart! And if I havent told you yet- Mirna is deaf and just got her first pair of hearing aids a few months ago. My mom saw how much I loved this little girl and pulled some strings so that mom's work was able to donate a year's worth of her hearing aid batteries (that her dad has to buy every 2 wks) – so it was a great way to bless the family!
6 Laughing with the Nannies
The nannies at Los Gososzos LOVED to laugh & joke around 🙂
This is me and my favorite of all the nannies, Oty 🙂
7 Playing Doctor with the Medical Missionaries and giving out medicine and prescriptions to sick people
I'll be writing more about this, but because I am the only fluent Spanish speaker on my team, I got to translate when we 'played Doctor' and gave out medicine to sick people at the dump and also at 'Health Day at a local school'. The people started calling me 'doctora' – ahahaha
Here are 2 of the girls (who are actually nurses – I was translating for them. They would ask questions, I would translate "where is the pain? dull or sharp? how long has it been hurting? etc" and then they would make diagnosis and give recommendations or prescritpsions! simple as that. can you imagine? haha). Here they are taking blood pressure & vitals.
8 Dancing with Helen & Leelah at church
In Spanish they have a word separate from dance (bailar) that means "to dance praising God": danzar
Helen & Leelah (2 of the girls at the orphanage) love to danzar 🙂
I do, too!
9 Dressing up in traditional Mayan 'traje' and getting my hair done by the Nannies and doing a photo shoot with Courtney (my teammate)
I loved going to the marketing to admire the local 'trajes' (Mayan folkloric outfits) the different colors, textures, & fabrics are endless! The women really take pride in these outfits and sometimes take months hand making them in 'back looms'. Furthermore, each pattern represents a different region of the country!
These are 'fajas' the belts- I bought one for myself! (I am wearing it in the photo below)
You can imagine my delight when one of the nannies (Gladys- who is about my age & size) offered to bring a couple outfits over to the house for me to try on and model 😉 Late night at the orphanage became SO fun that night! )
10 When Daniel told me I was "Always going to be in his heart" and when the girls asked him why, he said because I am "Linda, bella, hermosa, princesa!"
He loves me! 🙂
11 Lake Atitlan
We visited Lake Atitlan on our off day and it was SO beautiful and SO much fun! We chartered a boat captain to drive us around the lake (about $5 a person for the whole day!)
The name of our boat was 'Bonita' = "Pretty!" 🙂
Lake Atitlan was very bonita!
Lake Atitlan! from the coast of Santiago Atitlan (a town around the lake)
We visited co-ops that do organic coffee, herbal holistic medicine, botanical dyes and thread making…
organic coffee! yummmm!
Botaincal dye coop in San Juan de Atitlan: they actually make the dye out of flowers, fruits, n veggies!
Local art galleries, delicious food, old churches, and even witnessed a shaman ceremony to the pagan god of hedonism: San Simon. Sidenote on that:
Weirdest thing I think I've ever done! San simon is this westernized looking wooden idol with a top hat and a cigar in its mouth, that smokes and drinks when you make an "offering" to him. (Nooo thanks!) But I did snap a few photos 😉 oh and they had a 'dead' jesus manaquin in a glass coffin next to the idol. The idol supposedly is a symbol of judas iscariot. And get this- when guatemalans have family members who go to usa to make $ for a time (which is a super common practice), they'll buy a little san simon figurine and take it to the idol to 'bless' it, so as to protect their son/family member from the corruption of western influences (drinking/drugs/hedonism). The idol takes all the bad influences, instead of the traveler.Couldn't we just ask for angels to protect them instead?I guess that's not nearly as interesting as a wooden dummy who'll smoke a cigar on command. SO weird!
San Simon: the Guatemalan pagan god of drinking, smoking, fornicating, and all other ''Western influences''! He''s like a Hugh Hefner type symbol in their culture. You''ll find little figurines of him in local dive bars. SO strange.
