My Favorite Place in Guatemala: San Miguel Chicaj

Today, is Thursday, May 21, and I have now arrived in San Miguel Chicaj, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. I arrived in Guatemala, May 6, and since that time I have taken some Spanish immersion classes in Antigua while I lived with a Guatemalan pastor and his family. While in Antigua, I participated in a street ministry bringing soup and tortillas to people sleeping in the streets of Antigua. Then Brandon and I had a few days with Jaco and his wife, Sandy, to enjoy Antigua a little bit and attend church with Jaco and Sandy. Monday and Tuesday, this past week, Brandon and I had the opportunity to join a team from Tennessee and do some medical missions in an orphanage between Antigua and the capital. This was especially beneficial to Brandon because he is a pre-dental student finishing his second year of university and he was teamed with a dentist that spent two days doing practical dentistry education. Brandon even pulled two teeth, which is two more than I would ever want to pull. I was designated to be the team photographer and I ended up being the abuelo to many, many of the children in the orphanage. And I also learned a new word, payaso, which means clown, because I was teasing them, practicing my Spanish and making them laugh. This was a very large orphanage, about 300 kids from one to eighteen years of age, many abandoned and some even taken away from their parents by he authorities for reasons. All in all, I was very impressed with the care, the cleanliness and the love the staff and all of the children expressed towards each other. As I said in one of my posts, it could literally put a lump in my throat.

   Today we met three of our pastors from our church at the airport and we made the three hour trip from the capital to San Miguel Chicaj. For the next two days we will be doing pastoral training for fifty or more local pastors. Then Saturday another twenty members of my church will arrive in Guatemala and San  Miguel Chicaj and we will do medical, dental, physical therapy and musical ministries during the next week in local villages. Rather than live with my church friends, and because I am going to be spending extended time in San Miguel Chicaj, I am staying with a very special Rabinal Achi family, the Ixcopal's. This is very special for me for many reasons. Our church has worked with Pastor David Ixcopal since 2005 and I organized a mission in 2006 to be an answer to ten years of prayer by the Ixcopal family and build a house for them. Now I am living in a room in that same house. During my past missions, I have lived with other Americans and this was OK for short term missions. But my last mission was nearly three months and because I managed to live with English speakers every day, I don't think I realized the value, to the full potential, of my four weeks of Spanish lessons in Antigua. This time I have separated from the team at nights and I am living with the Ixcopal's and my young adult is living with another Rabinal Achi family in the evening, so we cannot take the path of least resistance in the evenings and speak English to each other. 

    So the adventure really begins now. I look forward to the next two days of pastoral training, and then the med/music missions and then time with the local young adult ministries.