Saying grace before eating

For as long as I can remember, (on numerous mission trips) we have taken our pre-meal prayer (grace) quite seriously. We didn't just ask God to bless the food, but to keep us from getting sick from it as well. On these same trips, we have been extra careful to avoid foods make by the locals. There are enough concerns regarding food in a 3rd world country w/o adding in the extra variables that come into play with food made by a local.

However, now I find myself in entirely different situations, and it's important to build relationships of trust with those we serve. I believe it's only by God's grace that we haven't been sick thus far. Three days each week we're in out-lying communities, and local folks take extra special efforts to make us food for lunch. Knowing that most of these people are poor, we know their hospitality is a sacrifice for them. Therefore, it would be absolutely rude and inappropriate to not be thankful, smile, and eat what is given to us. And you can be sure that we pray before we eat, and we take that prayer very seriously.

I'm very thankful that today's host was not insulted when we did not eat the iguana delicacy. I understand it was hung over a fire for several days...(like smoked fish). I've also included a couple of other photos of food that I've never seen in the USA.

It was a long night

This is my bed for 4 nights. This is how it looked when I was setting it up. Each 72"long x 27" wide.











Didn't look bad at all when I made my bed.

This is what it looked like when I got up (notice I didn't say "woke up") the next morning.

At some point during the night, the pink float died, and I decided tomake it a double-decker...thinking that it coud only help.






All in all I have to keep in mind that no matter what, it's a WHOLE WHOLE WHOLE lot better than what is being slept on by the folks we serve here in Guatemala.

Tonight, regardless, I'm going to thank God for a bed to lay on. And it'll make me a lot more thankful for the twin size air mattress that I'll get back on Friday night.

A new thought on danger

Groundwork Guatemala (GG), this new ministry, strongly believes in the value of education. We believe that education can be the means by which the cycle of poverty is broken. Without education, the local Guatemalan child is likely to turn to gangs, and other substandard ways of providing for themselves and their family.

GG has been blessed to find sponsors to pay for the tuition, books, uniforms, notebooks, etc for 12 local children this year. (The school year runs mid Jan-late Oct, more or less.) Yesterday we had our first parents/child meeting here at the ministry. It was a time to make sure the parents knew their responsibilities and our responsibilities. And the children are responsible for keeping the equivalent to a "C" average. The 2nd half of the meeting was used as a craft time for the kids and a Bible study for the adults. In general, we'll have meetings like this twice a month in order to stay on top of things. The parents are also encouraged to come and volunteer at the ministry when they can (such as mopping the floors, cleaning the windows, etc.) I overheard one parent already scheduling time to come volunteer.

One of the things that was explained to the parents is that this sponsorship money, in many cases, is being given sacrificially by Americans who are also facing hard times. Some of these sponsors will be on teams from the US coming to work here this year. Therefore, a normal part of the team schedule will be for teams to visit some of these homes. It gives the team members a good first hand "inside look." Here's the danger part. One mom apologetically spoke up, and requested that the teams not visit her home. Not only is her home in one of the most dangerous areas, but she strongly believes that gangs will rob her, her family, and her home frequently if Americans are seen to be in her home or with her family. It is a normal belief here that Americans are rich, and therefore we may possibly have left money or valuable goods are this mom/child's home, therefore making them a target. How about that!

You know, this makes me think about Jesus and his disciples. I'll bet there were plenty of folks who didn't want to be seen with Him or His followers. Hmm. Something to think about

Amatitlan Park Ministry 02-12-2009

I was excited to return to this town (Amatitlan)of about 63,000 people, nestled between the mountains about 1 hr away. As we got to the outskirts of town, I heard Manuel (who is almost always the driver) say that there was a lady he hoped pick up at her house. As best I could understand, she had some connection to an Alcoholics Annonymous type of group and she had questions. We picked up the lady, and I recongized her as a helper from vacation Bible school last fall. She led us to a building in Amatitlan with a sign that essentially said this was a residential home for alcohol and drug addicts. I soon learned that she knew the founder of this home and she wanted us to stop by this place to check it out as a possible new arm of our ministry. When we got there, the founder wasn't there, but we were warmly greeted and invited inside. The entrance room was lined with benches full of men of all sizes, shapes and ages. 50-55 men live in the home, and it seemed that we had the attention of nearly all of them. Manuel, who is ready to speak about the Lord at any moment, spoke to the group about us and our purpose in this new ministry. Then he spoke for about 30 minutes about the Lord. Oscar then gave his testimony, which includes how the Lord used his own abusive alcohol and drug using father in his life. When we left, I think we all felt like we'd just experienced something very cool. It wasn't exactly in our plans for the day and put us way behind, yet it was one of the Divine Interuptions that make life so much better.

We pulled up to our destination; a "park" which only consisted of a concrete slab with old basketball goals. Just as we parked our borrowed truck in front of a house, the door opened and I was envoloped in one of the best hugs I've had in a long time. It was Francisca, a strong Christian woman in the Lord and a faithful helper at vacation Bible school. We had bonded last fall and we had no idea that we would see each other until that moment. I hope I will remember the sweetness of that hug for a long time to come. She invited us into her home. She offered us soup, cheese (maybe from a goat?), tortillas, beans, and Pepsi. This was probably the food she would've used to feed her family for the week, yet she put it before us. We added to the feast our jar of peanut butter and 3/4 loaf of bread. We all ate and enjoyed time together. I'm sure the Lord will continue to repay her in tangible and intangible ways for her graciousness to us.

By 2pm the townfolks had gathered, anticipating our arrival. The adults gathered one one side, the children on the other. As usual, part of our Guatemalan team led the adults in a time of worship and Bible study, and the other part of the team worked with the children, repeating the activities and crafts that we prepared for yesterdays ministry in Buena Vista (the Bible story of Isaac).

The difference between Buena Vista (BV) and Amatitlan (Amat) was evident. Urban vs rural. Concrete homes vs bamboo and tin homes. By comparison, some were middle class, but some were obviously as poor as those in BV. All, however, were anxious to gather and hear about the Lord.

We are scheduled to continue this "Park" ministry in Amat. every Thursday. I understand that we are scheduled to return to a way different section of Amatitlan on Tuesday. I think this Tuesday ministry is based out of the home where Carlos lives (down a winding dirt road in the middle of nowhere). Remember Carlos? He's the El Salvadoran guy who was hired to dig a well for a family, in the meanwhile was secretly raping their teenaged daughter, and eventually fell down the well causing him to have his right leg amputated and spend the remainder of his life in wheelchair as a paraplegic. Yet, the Guatemalan family took him in and has provided for his care every day. I look forward to seeing Carlos next week. I'll tell you all about it.

I've loaded more pictures of this day in Amat in my facebook.

My 1st trip to Buena Vista, Guatemala

Somehow it came immediately to mind the moment I woke up...today was the 1st day of a brand new ministry for me. This day, like every day, will never happen again. Sobering, yet exciting.

All 9 of us left the house at 7am to go to Buena Vista (BV), 2 hours away. Apparently, one of our faithful ministry volunteers (Chochis) that lives in Amatitlan (another area where we do ministry weekly) asked our new ministry to check out BV where her sister lives. The drive was incredible as we passed a multitude of volcanic mountains. I must admit I'm glad chivalry isn't dead, and the guys insisted on riding in the back of the borrowed truck so that we ladies could sit in comfort inside the truck. Now, riding in the back of a truck may sound like an adventure and even kind of macho, but I promise you that the adventure and machoism would literally wear off after the first 15 min or so, especially on the bumpy dirt roads.

Where is BV? Go nowhere and turn left. In reality, I hope to learn the story behind this little village. Apparently at some point in the past a steam driven train ran thru this little village. The main road is literally where the train tracks used to be. And there's a huge old rusted water tank specially made to fill trains still standing along side what is now a road. It reminds me of an old TV series that I can just barely remember called Petitcoat Junction. At one point, the train crossed on a bridge over a fairly narrow river. This part of the train track is still clearly visable. As best I can tell, there is no running water to the homes and no electricity. I'm told that places like tiny corner stores run their electricity off batteries. There are almost no vehicles, however a number of people have bikes. They also seem to be pretty good at repairing them frequently. It's the kind of town where you bathe and wash your clothes in the river, and many children don't own shoes. The kind of town where there is no indoor plumbing, only outside holes for bathrooms. The kind of town where girls and women balance heavy items on their head as they walk down the dirt roads, and brooms are made of strips of sugar cane tied to a stick. The kind of town that demands intense physical labor to survive, thus causing the 30 yr old to look like a 50 yr old. The day we were there it was warm, probably in the 80s out in the sun until it became cloudy later in the afternoon. March and April tend to be windy, and then rainy season starts in May and runs for 6 months. The town is surrounded by volcanoes and unending fields of sugar cane. From the looks of it, I'd say it's about time for harvest, in more than one way.

Chochi's sister and her family allow us to set up at her home, which is a metal shack (see picture). We borrowed plastic chairs and additionally used logs and planks to set up benches for adults under a huge mango tree. And we spread out a tarp under the shade of a palm and banana tree for the kids just a few yards away. Manuel leads the adults in few songs, tells them about our ministry, and then teaches to them from the Bible. Evangelism is Manuel's passion, and it's so evident in all he does. The other 4 Guatemalans that make up our new ministry team lead the children's ministry. I had no idea that the song, "Father Abraham" was known outside the USA. Hmm. On this day they taught about the obedience of and faithfulness of Isaac. We have almost no craft supplies, so they have to be creative and stretch what little we have. Ruth, one of our Guatemalan team members, drew out the various characters of this story, then photocopied it and cut out each character. Each character was colored with crayons and then pasted onto 1/2 of a popsicle stick and stuck into a 1/2 piece of construction paper that was folded to become a stage. Oscar used these cut out characters to keep the children's attention and tell the story. Then the team gave the cut out paper characters to the children to be colored, pasted onto sticks, and put onto their own red paper stage. You should see how happy the kids were to do this! I always thought that the purpose behind craft time for kids was to keep the kids attention as they learned. Now I know there's an additional reason. These kids are so excited about what they've done that they run to show their mom and siblings their creation, and thus end up telling and retelling the story. This not only solidifies the story in their head, but passes on the story to those who have never heard it. Amazing!

According to Chochis, this town has very little Christian influence, and some are likely to have never heard about our Savior Jesus Christ. What a cool opportunity! We had 25ish adults and 25ish kids last Wed and we've announced to them that we'll generally be there every Wednesday at 9am in the future. We finish around noon, and then we eat our bag lunch (typically peanut butter sandwiches). Our host family was kind and gave us tortillas, and another lady went home and made us some hot fresh tortillas too. They have almost nothing, yet they give to us w/o hesitation from their heart.

After lunch, we split into 2 groups to visit folks in their homes. We've learned that people in this culture HIGHLY value people visiting them in their home. We often see people standing or sitting near or in their home, and we stop to talk with them. Usually Manuel or Sandra or Ruth will lead the conversation, and always back up what they are saying with scripture. It's amazing how much they have memorized, and I feel ashamed of how little I have disciplined myself to memorize Bible passages. The people seem genuinely interested and sometimes ask questions. We always encourage them to attend our weekly programs.

There's a block school house in town with 2 semi-attached rooms made of bamboo and tree limbs. The teachers in the school have invited us to come into the classroom as much and as often as we'd like to interact and teach the kids (kind of like vacation Bible school). I'm sure this is one area that we'll soon explore.

I also anticipate that once I get medical supplies, I'll be routinely doing clinics (along with teams) in this village. The people in this town seem so very genuinely appreciative of anything you do for them. They are very poor, but very content.

I think the ministry in this village has the potential to quickly grow by leaps and bounds. We're looking at options of places where we can have our programs with larger amounts of people, especially in rainy season. We've been told about 1 piece of land for sale in the center of town that could be purchased, cleared, and have a concrete slab laid with a metal roof for about $1200. That would be awesome. I'm very excited to see what the Lord does in this village.


I've got lots of pictures of this village on my Facebook.

John- what a nice guy!

I've realized I've forgotten to mention John. I don't even know his last name, but he sure is a super guy. John arrived here in Guatemala 2 days before me. He's from Wisconsin and he and his wife and a team from his church have visited Kevin and Ginny and assisted the ministry twice last year. He recently retired from 40 years of work in a private school system. He's here for 2 months to help in any way possible and to learn Spanish as much as he can (for possible future use here with his wife after she retires). He's somewhat quiet, has a huge heart, and seems to really love helping folks. I'm convinced he'd do anything he could to help a person in need, including us in this new ministry right now. Anyhow, I just wanted to introduce him to you because you'll hear me mention him by name for the next couple of months, and he's tagged in my Facebook photos.

My new Guatemalan home

I must say that the house is much nicer than I anticipated. As I stated in an earlier blog entry, we still live in zone 7 in Guatemala City (the capitol of Guatemala) but in a much nicer and seemingly safer area. The home is a sidewalk’s width from a busy street, but it seems like there are far less buses and big trucks on this road. Additionally, we in the middle of a block, not on a corner; therefore the vehicles don't need to stop (thus much less squealing of brakes) nor start again (thus much less thick black pollution pouring out of the exhaust pipes). We have a small side yard where there is grass and a few trees and bushes...such a refreshing change from before! Like most of the houses in the area, there is a drive in garage (so that the car isn't stolen), and houses are smooshed together, nearly touching each other. The house is 3 stories high, and all concrete (which means that every noise and voice echoes and carries like crazy). The rooms are all very tall, approx. 10ft. The first level has an area that we're using as the ministry's office and a multi purpose area where we can set up tables for teams or set up chairs for a meeting. The first floor also has a kitchen and laundry, a large bedroom with a bathroom attached, and a 1/2 bath in a hallway. It's very nice that we won't have to carry groceries up a flight of stairs like before. We have a borrowed washing machine and a borrowed dryer that doesn't work. Some friends of Ginny and Kevin donated money for us to buy a small refrigerator and microwave. The kitchen has cabinets, sink and a very old rusted small stove/oven that runs on propane. Until today, the only furniture we have in the entire house is a borrowed round wooden kitchen table and 2 white plastic chairs. When we sit to eat our meals, or when we sit around to talk or work on a project some of sit on 5 gallon buckets. Today we purchased 24 more plastic chairs and we’re hoping to soon purchase long folding tables (the kind you often see in churches). The 2nd level is only 18 steps away (and the steps are actually all the same height for a change!) On this 2nd level we've set aside one section for Manuel's family. Manuel is a tremendous Christian Guatemalan that worked with us in the previous ministry and now works with us in this new ministry. He and his family lived in the team house with me when I was in Guatemala last fall. As part of his pay, he is allowed to live here w/o paying rent or utilities. He, his wife and 10 day old child live in one room, his other 4 kids sleep in another room, and they have a kitchen and bathroom. I guess we might as well use the space. The rest of the 2nd floor has 3 bedrooms, one for me, one for Ginny and Kevin, and one that we'll designate as the women's room for teams as well as use it for storage. I'll tell you more about my room in a minute. When you go up to the 3rd floor, you walk straight into a good size multiuse room that has many windows that allow for a great view of the city and surrounding mountains/volcanoes. But the rest of the 3rd floor is really only the flat roof of the rest of the house, and is basically a balcony where we have lines strung for our laundry. It'll feel a little strange to hang my underwear out for all to see, but I guess it doesn't really matter.

When I arrived, I was given the choice of living in one of two rooms upstairs. I'm glad the downstairs bedroom was already taken because I feel safer on the 2nd floor where there are other folks. One room has 2 very large windows that allow LOTS of very warm bright sunshine in most of the day, plus it's on the front of the house (closest to the road). The other option was for a smaller room on the interior of the house with one nice size window (with attached broken blinds so they can't be open/closed or raised). Hmmm....let's see....a toasty bright room vs. a cooler and less bright room ....I definitely take the cooler and darker one, hands down! Now, there's a partial bonus with this room. It has an attached bathroom! How great is that! However, it's a "partial bonus" because it's the only bathroom (outside of Manuel's area) on the 2nd floor. This means that Ginny uses it and any ladies on a team will need to traipse through my room to use the bathroom or shower night and day. (Kevin is a nice guy, and uses the downstairs bathroom.) On the good side, the door handle to my room is broken, so that it won't latch, much less lock...that means I won't hear folks as they come and go! Plus my soft wax ear plugs and eye cover work great. (The ear plugs also help with the neighbor's rooster, the infant in the house, and the parrot which mimics the baby's cry and the 4 yr old’s whine.) Not matter what, the traffic in my room is a small price to pay for having such easy access to a bathroom and at some point I may try to hang some sort of temporary curtain across my room to give me some privacy. We'll see. All the walls in the house are painted light yellow, but will soon be painted blue when the team from Wisconsin comes in one week. Oh, another cool thing about my room is that I have a large closet with drawers built in and storage space built in above it. The sliding doors on the closet won't slide...I think the track is broken, but I don't really care. You see, I absolutely hate living out of suitcase, and I think God gave me a closet and dresser drawers just because he could. The 3 built-in dresser drawers are broken so that only the 1st and 3rd one kind of work, but that's probably be fixed sometime this year by one of the teams. I really don't care...it's still plenty of enough room for me to unpack my stuff. My pictuers show my room before I unpacked, and after I unpacked.

I’m sitting right now on my air mattress, resting my back against a wall. Ginny and Kevin purchased a twin sized air mattress for a visitor that they expect to arrive on Monday for a week. In the meanwhile, I get to sleep on it! God is so good! I thought I'd have to sleep on the 2 inflatable swimming pool floats I bought with me! Now I'll only need to sleep on the pool floats for 4 nights while the visitor is here, then I'll get the twin air mattress back. Plus, when the team from Wisconsin comes on the 21st, they're going to each bring an air mattress, towels, sheets, etc and then leave them here for us and future teams. This will allow more room in the suitcases of future teams so that they can bring other supplies that we need. How great is that! So, as you can tell, I have plenty of room here and I'd love to have you visit! And guess what else...we have hot water! This is almost unheard of in a person's home. Typically you only find hot water heaters in nicer hotels. I don't know the story behind this small miracle, but I'll take it!

As you have probably figured out, I have wireless internet access in the house. Yippee! Internet isn't hard to get in the city, only expensive, about $50 per month, but it's worth it and not too bad when you split it up among us.

Anyhow, this house feels a little like a dorm, but it really is awesome. I feel very comfortable and safe. It's like a mansion as compared to the homes of those we serve...so in some ways I feel guilty for all the luxuries. But I also anticipate this home serving and hosting many others and its comforts will help me live a life that makes it easier for me to serve. I really do hope you'll come visit.

Friendship Bread Explosion

Are you familiar with Friendship Bread? It's bread dough that you mess with every few days, then on day 10 (the last day) you separate it into 4 equal portions; bake one, give away 2 portions to friends, and keep one to start the process all over again.

Against my better judgment, I decided to bring some of this dough with me in my duffle bag to Guatemala. I really like this particular recipe and I figured it was a cheap way for us missionaries to have something warm, sweet, and homemade (which is rare). I put the freezer Ziploc of dough in a 2nd Ziploc bag. Then I put it in a Tupperware container that had a very tight lid. Then I put a wide rubber band over the lid, just to make sure it stayed in place.

My conclusion is that yeast under pressure is stronger than 2 Ziplocs, Tupperware and a rubber band because when I opened my suitcase I found bread goo throughout the suitcase. Yuck! Luckily it only made a mess and didn't ruin anything. Ginny suggested I wash out my duffle bag with a water hose. We had a water hose the width of my finger at the house that didn't fit very well onto the outside spigot. When I put my thumb on the end of the hose in order to get a least a little bit of pressure, it made the water spray like crazy at the spigot connection, thus getting me more wet then my duffle bag.

Oh well, when all was said and done, I and the duffle bag were fairly clean and I left the duffle in the sun to dry. And although I was only left with about 1/5th of the dough, I've since been trying to baby the dough and I'm gonna try to bake the bread tomorrow. I figure I don't have anything to loose, right?

Return to Guatemala 02-10-2009

How is it that no matter how hard I try, I always end up staying up WAY too late on the eve of a trip out of the country? I shifted and juggled things around over and over, trying to make the best possible use of the space and weight I could. I set my alarm for 3:30am and hit the sack around 12:30am. I suppose 3 hr is better than none. When I checked in at the Delta desk in Richmond, one suitcase weighed 50.7 lb and the other 50.0 lb. The lady let me through even though she is supposed to charge me extra ($150) if a suitcase is over 50.5 lb. What she didn't know was that my carry on weighed 42 lb! plus I had my computer bag! I'm very serious when I tell you that I prayed that the security staff would not open my carry on; I knew there was no way I'd ever get everything back in it and zipped closed again. My prayer was answered and my bag was not opened, however I did draw the lucky number that awarded me a full body x-ray in some strange stand-up tube that made me feel like I was in a time machine. I wanted to see the x-rays, but that wasn't allowed.

I was very glad that plane was only 1/2 full and I had room to stretch out and take cat naps all the way to Atlanta. On the next connection I sat beside a 50 yr old who was on her way to pick up her 18 month old adopted son in Guatemala. Better her than me!

I was thrilled that all my heavy luggage came through w/o any problem and I zipped through customs and immigration. Ginny and another friend met me at the airport in the friend’s car (since we don't have a vehicle). The 3 of us and 2 large duffle bags, and large carry on and my suitcase somehow all fit in his old VW Beatle.

The ministry office and our home are one in the same, and is only about 30 min from the airport. It's in zone 7, the same as our previous home, but in an obviously much better neighborhood. I was greeted very warmly by Kevin and the rest of the Guatemalan team when they returned from a long day in Amatitlan. I unpacked, set up my air bed, and went to bed by 9pm. Guatemala is in the Central Time Zone and only 1 hr behind the time in Virginia, but I was exhausted yet very glad to be back in