Long time no blog

Apologies to many. It has been a long time since I have updated my blog and now that I have a moment to write, I am in a place up in the mountains without wifi. So I might finish this blog this evening (Thursday), but I won't be able to post until Saturday.

Last Friday I finished my four weeks of immersion Spanish in Antigua and, of course, I thought I should have learned more. And of course, my teachers said I covered and learned more than just about any other student could learn in four weeks, and I should give myself a break and relax some. School ended at 3PM on Friday and Rodrigo and Eder were waiting outside the school to begin our trip to San Miguel Chicaj. This would be, without construction delays and traffic, about a four plus hour trip, so we overnighted in the capital and headed out the next morning. Saturday afternoon, we arrived in San Miguel Chicaj. I love San Miguel Chicaj, but more on that later. I was shown my room, and after the briefest bit of unpacking, I went to visit the Ixcopal's. The Ixcopal family is about a dozen or more depending how much of the extended family is living in San Miguel or in the capital. David and his entire family are so special to many of us at Desert Springs Church. In 2005, I was privileged to co-lead a trip to San Miguel to build a house for Pastor David and his family. So many people were blessed by that trip. David and his family were blessed, all of the youth in San Miguel and adults also that use the house for church and meetings continue to be blessed, even today. And those of us from Desert Springs Church that got to build that house Guatemalan style will not forget how we were used by God to further His kingdom work in San Miguel Chicaj. David speaks zero English, but with my primitive language skills, we were actually able to hold a good conversation. While I was with David and his family, it deluged for a while, and when there was a break in the rain, I walked back to the Barrera's.

That evening, another one of my favorite family's, Irma, Byron and Pamela and Carlie came by the Barrera's to say Hi to me. In our original trips to San Miguel, Irma was our trilingual translator. Irma spoke English, Spanish and her heart language, Rabinal Achi. And she has the sweetest spirit. Years later, she and Byron married and they have two little girls, Pamela 3 years old and Carlie 2 months old. And Pamela is learning English, Spanish and Achi. And she and I had fun playing games on my iPad.

Sunday morning, the Barrera's and I went to church, one of the biggest churches in San Miguel, but one with a very difficult history. In the afternoon, Hector called me up and told me to be at David Ixcopal's house at 5:30. Then he corrected himself and told me to be there at 6PM because he told all the youth to be there at 5:30 which meant they would not be there until around 6PM, cause that's how they roll in Guatemala. A bit before 6 (cause that's how I roll) I walked in to David's house ... And no Hector or Eder. I found out Eder was in San Geronimo and David did not know where Hector was. I called Hector and asked where he was. He told me he was at David's house. I said I was at David's house and he was not at the same house I was at. He replied, "Estoy en frente de casa de David" (I am in front of David's house). "Oh, estoy a dentro de casa de David. Una momenta voy a estar en frente de casa de David". (Oh, I am inside David's house, in a moment I will be in front of David's house). Moments later I was in front of the house and moments later about a dozen Achi youth and I were inside a microbus heading I did not know where. I asked Hector where we were going and he said, "Despues San Gabriel" (after San Gabriel). After San Gabriel, the road got very interesting (narrow, dirt, rocky; in the USA we would consider it to be a four wheeled drive road) and finally petered out in a stream. Some do of the guys got out of the microbus and headed different directions trying to see if anyone knew where the little church was that we were going to. By this time it was also dark and now we were hiking on a little knarly path and I was hoping not to trip. Note to myself: never go out again without my little flashlight or headlamp. We found the little church, and it was fantastic. Chickens, dogs, wonderful Achi ladies, young and old, all in the traditional long skirts. A sound system was set up, a campfire was started, we played some games around the fire, sang a lot of songs. Then I was asked to introduce myself, in Spanish, and I did to everyone's amusement. I tried to say I was married which is 'estoy casado' but I guess it sounded like I said 'estoy cansado' which is to say 'I am tired'. At least I did not say I was tired of being married. From now on I am just going to say, "tengo esposa" which is to say I have a wife. After my amusing introduction, Hector preached from Ephesians 6 on the armor of God. At the end of Hector's sermon, I was asked to pray in English. A closing prayer with Achi is a chorus of prayer. I started the prayer and then everyone starts praying simultaneously, and loudly ... for a long time, until it starts trailing off and closes. You have to experience it, it is powerful. Then we had coffee for everyone, and of course they graciously gave the gringo the largest cup of coffee, and of course I had to graciously accept it. This was to cause a couple of problems later on. The first problem was shortly to make itself known after we retraced our path down the knarly trail and found the microbus in the dark. I was about to get in a small microbus, and go up a bumpy road and I had not used the facilities for hours and now I had a bladder full of coffee. Fortunately, I saw about four other guys that had the same problem watering plants about twenty yards off to my right, so I went over and helped them with those plants, whew! I was able to enjoy the bumpy ride back home to San Miguel. That evening when I was reflecting on just how great the evening was, and it was a fantastic evening, being with these young leaders preaching the Word, and I was laying down trying to go to sleep, I was reminded why I never drink coffee in the evening. I have enough sensitivity to caffeine, that if I drink it in the evening, I will not sleep. And I had consumed the largest plastic glass of coffee that this village could find. I think I got maybe two hours of sleep that night/morning.

Later, the next day, I learned some history of the little village of Las Minas that we visited. Apparently during the civil wars in the eighties, there was a valley that was going to be flooded and the people were told to leave the valley. A number refused to leave and troops came in and shot many of them and the rest fled. And many of them fled to this little remote village of Las Minas which thirty years ago was even more remote then. And of course, because they had troops shooting at them, many became guerrillas. Twenty years ago there were medical missions in the area and many of the medical issues that needed to be dealt with were related to bullet wounds or bullets that had not been removed because they did not trust going into a government hospital.