First of three weeks in serving the community of LaCama
We’re at one week
now in LaCama, Guatemala. And only 12
days since I’ve left my country. Just a
little less then two weeks in and already I feel as though I’ve been here
forever. It feels like when I clocked in
to work for the Lord on the 6th of October, God put me straight to work with
assignments. *BAM-go here… *BAM-go
there… *BAM-do this… there’s always
something to do when God is your boss. But the awesome thing about it all is that we never get tired of it and
am always amazed of what comes next. It’s so beautiful!
Li Kacolbal Q’uebil Xban Li Dios
The first language
here is Quiche and the children are learning Spanish as a second language in
school. Most of the adults also know
some Spanish; enough to carry a conversation. But Spanish is not used regularly among them. They still prefer to speak in there cultural
language of Quiche. But I have been
noticing that as I strongly concentrate on there conversations in Quiche, that
I can kind of get the jest of what they’re talking about. Which is a little funny because since there
has been a few time where they would be speaking Quiche and be looking at me. I would then respond in Spanish to them,
hoping that I was speaking on the right subject as they were. And they would be shocked and surprised as I
responded correctly. So now they think
that I can understand everything they are saying in Quiche when in reality it
all just sounds like a bunch of tongues, clicks, hacking in the throat, and
shushing. I don’t know how, but there
are some times when I can make some sense of it all. But it can only be by the grace of God that
this happens. It just blows my mind to
here some of these languages that the Lord has constructed in this world. And the fact that it all makes sense to
someone in this world is even crazier. Is it possible for someone to understand all these tongues. I know that the power of the tongue is so
strong (Jam ch3) and imagine having that key to speak into every soul the gift
of Life. I can only speak English and
Spanish and even at that I am overwhelmed with the idea of the responsibility
of speaking the message to everyone I meet with that language. And I think to myself, what about those
tribal, those people with uncracked language codes. Who will speak to them. Who will tell them. How will they hear(Rom10:14). But then I catch my breath and remember that
God is in control. He love’s His
creation; His people(Rom10:18).
LaCama: River
So on Saturday my
team of seven of us, along with another one of our teams on the our squad, all
piled into a minivan and rode for two hours to this place called LaCama. LaCama means river stream in Quiche. There use to be a river stream that flowed
through here a long time ago when the settlers found this place. Infact, this river spilt in three ways giving
the people the idea of naming there newly founded land LaCama ‘One’, LaCama ‘Two’, and LaCama ‘Three’. We are living in the village of LaCama
‘Two’. LaCama is a village about an hour
/hour n’ half away from Chichicastenango.
This is how it was explained to me. It may not be exactly as but you’ll get to idea. It goes like: Guatemala(USA), Quiche(Texas),
Chichicastenango(Dallas), LaCama(HaltomCity).
Wild Sweet Home
This place is deep
jungle. But a jungle without any
wildlife or beasts. No animals live here
except for the dogs and chickens that were brought in and raised. The people say this it’s because when they
use to hunt they took advantage of it and wiped out all food sources. Now they live by agricultural fruits and
veggies and chickens. It’s soo cool to
see the process of the tortilla come from the corn husk outside into a warm
tasty tortilla with wild honey drizzled on it.
Extreme Church Makeover–Guatemalan Style
Our assignment this
month in to help a pastor and his congregation to build their church from the ground up. Seems
simple enough. I mean, if Extreme Home
Makeover can do it in a week or two then we could certainly build this little
church in three weeks, right! Uhhh,
no. We are already a week into this
construction and all we’ve been doing is moving dirt piles, gigantic boulders,
rock piles, rebar, and digging. It all
looks endless and at the end of the day we look back and wonder if we made any
impact or dent at all. But there are
thirteen of us (two teams) and about ten of their local men each day working on
these church project so this has to be more progress then there would have
been.
Amebas aren’t Amigas
On Wednesday the
pastor, Manual, took all thirteen of us to a beach called Pana’Jachel. While Pastor Manual and his men gathered
materials and such for the church construction, we where allowed to spend the
day swimming and playing on the ocean crest. I however, had became very ill earlier that morning and didn’t want to
do anything be sleep and vomit all day. Even when we were back home that evening I was getting more sick over
night. I woke up in the morning sick to
my stomach, headache, body aches, vomiting, and going to the bathroom
uncontrollably with ‘sangre’ and ‘mucos’. So my team decided to get me to the hospital. We all piled into the back of the pickup 30
minutes later and rode a half hour to the town. Then got out to walk the rest of the way to the hospital about 10
minutes away from where we where dropped off at. When we finally arrived my body as so weak
and dehydrated that my head felt like it was going to explode. It wasn’t a pulsing pain, it was just a heavy
strong pain covering my whole brain. My
speech was slurred and I was speaking gibberish. I couldn’t see straight and I was off balance
with everything. So with my brain going
crazy and wanting to explode, my dehydration making my speech and balance off,
my stomach hurting and curling, and uncontrollable potting, I was a big
mess. There was only one doctor in the
hospital and he was in the middle of a surgery so the nurses hooked me up to an
I-V with an injection of a pain killer for two hours. As I began to come back to sanity, the nurses
said we needed to leave because the hospital was closing for the night. I freaked out. I still had no medicine for this stomach
issue, no diagnoses of what was really going on inside of me, and no place for
me and my six teammates to sleep tonight until the hospital reopened. So I called some friends that I knew from
last years mission trip I was on and told them of the situation. The took us right in. Gave us all an awesomely beautiful place to
sleep with hot showers, beds, blankets, clean tile floors, lights, doors, and
more. It was like a mansion to us; a
dream. The place that my friends gave us
was breath-taking. When we walked in we
all teared up with joy and thanksgiving that the Lord would bless us with so
much goodness by bringing us here to sleep a night. The place was called ASELSI
(ww.aselsi.org). In the morning ASELSI
gave me the meds that I needed and some preventatives for my team and sent us
on our way. Come-to-find-out, the whole
Guatemalan government is out of prescription medications right now. The nurse there at ASELSI was telling us that
the governments has come to them for some of the meds because the supply in the
whole country is so low. So I thank the
Lord that He brought me to ASELSI and they had the meds that I needed so I can
get well and continue the World Mission Race!!!
“It’s better to have no expectations then to
expect and not have”
We were told that
when we came to LaCama, that we would not have any electricity or showers. But host family has blessed us with a cold
running shower in an enclosed area by a tarp. And there is a tarp on the ground to help keep the mud from
splashing. And we have electricity in
our house. Our bathroom is a hole in the
ground enclosed by bamboo built around it and a clothe sheet as a door. There aren’t lights around either one so we
have to bring our headlamps at night. When you are in there you can see tiny white worms squirming around on
the ground and flies swarming out and around the potty hole. The stench is unforgiveable and most of us
cannot bring ourselves to go in there. We prefer a banana tree instead. A seclusion that not even the flies would expect. Out house is made out of rebar and cement
blocks and there are four rooms. Each
room as three tents set up and each person sleep and has there stuff inside
their tent. The floor is smoothed
concrete and the ceiling is just sheets of tin metal. The door is a bed sheet that sways in the
breeze. Each room is dimly lit by one
light bulb and there is one outlet in the house. There is a long picnic table outside and we
eat all our meals outside; even if it is raining. And it rains every day. We are on top of a mountain and in a jungle
area. It’s very lush but it rains a
lot. Plus, it’s very very cold. All my teammates and I only brought clothes
for hot, rainy, or warm weather claimants so this 40* or below weather is freezing
all of us. The locals are so wonderful
though. Each day someone from nearby
comes and gives us something such as sacks, a chicken, drinks, and one lady
brought all of us a thick heavy blanket to keep us warm for the next two
weeks.
