beautiful mountain region in Guatamala. It is their rainy fall season, so the days are warm and the nights are
cold. The road to Quiche was like
riding a roller coaster for 3.5 hours straight. The sharp twists and turns sent us flying from one side of
the Chicken Bus to the other (kind of like the Scrambler), but man was it
fun! I took the ride the during my
day of silence (see blog A Holy Silence) which made for a very interesting
ride, but we still had a blast!
Our entire Squad of 63 people is tenting at Agape in Action
(AIN), a part of the local hospital that serves a population of 1Million. We have limited internet access because
there are sooo many of us and AIN still needs to do business as usual. We take turns cooking, cleaning, and
all that fun stuff. My tent has
been great! No bugs, no leaks, Praise Jesus!
So far, my team has served for 2 days painting the female
guards quarters at the local prison. The word overcrowded’ does not do justice to the space. Men are crammed so tightly into 3 small
‘cells’ that they literally sleep on top of each other on the floor, concrete
‘beds’ and bathroom floor.
Then we served with a local pastor for 3 days. The first day we were at the
construction site of a new church plant. With mostly construction work to do there, the women on the team were
given the task of ‘just rest’. So,
we made the most of the time through praying over the building, and prayer
walking through the area. We also
met some local girls and spent hours playing.
Over lunch, we got to talk with Pastor David and 2 faithful
members of his congregation who had done most of the work on the building. They were full of such joy that we were
able to converse with them in Spanish. They have had many missionary teams come through, but none of them know
the language, and the men often feel sad and disconnected. Pastor David explained that the Quiche
people have a heritage of feeling inferior. They are looked down upon by other Guatamalans and feel
inferior to Gringos-us. Our
ability and desire to engage them relationally did wonderful things to help
reinforce that all people are equal in Christ and served as a boste to their
self-esteem and confidence. A
message that Pastor David has worked hard to reinforce. After lunch, he took us up the road to
a cemetary where animal sacrifices happen daily (we didn’t take pictures of the
people to protect their privacy). He said this is just a small cemetery and there is a larger one nearby
where the sacrifices go on day and night. The cemetery as marked by crosses, but they have no religious
significance to the people, it is mearly a marker on which to place the name of
the deceased. The alters for
sacrifices are inside the base of the cross and the people are worshiping their
ancestors and nature. One of the
men we ate with shared his testimony that he came to Christ because he was
tired of serving idols that had no power.
The next 2 days we served at the main church location
painting. Pastor David and his
family live upstairs so we got to spend a lot of time with them as we
worked. His one son speaks
excellent English which made for some great conversation! He wants to go to school in the states
and possibly do the World Race one day :0) The family got running water about a year ago, and before
that they had to haul water upstairs from the street. The have blessed us sooo
much! So far, they have blessed us
with Coke, Chocolate Ice Cream, and all their love and affection! The mom made us a wonderful lunch
yesterday! A welcome change from sandwiches :0)
Well, there is so much more to say, but I wanted to brief you
with where I am at today.
re-written, but I’ll get them up this week :0) Please pray for the Lords favor
in trying to obtain another computer. Its not a simple process.
