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.

Hilarious! Brandon's First Day in Antigua

I think this will be a short blog because I am using my phone to write my blog.  Today was my last day of class and I will now join my young adult, Brandon. Dennie met Brandon at church last Sunday to give him some things I forgot and told me later, "He is SO young and cute. You are going to have to keep an eye on him so the young ladies don't steal him!" So while I have been going to my Spanish school in Antigua, Brandon has been staying with Jaco and Sandy in Alotenango and doing ministry with Jaco at Village of Hope in San Lucas. Today I finished classes, so Brandon joined me for his first day in Antigua.  He did not have a plan so he got to tag with me. The first place we went was Fernando's for lunch and some chocolate for gifts.  Then we visited the family that I stayed with with two years ago and had a great time visiting.  They remembered me with affection and Brandon did great with his Spanish. They also invited us for dinner the following evening. After visiting my first Antigua family, we climbed Cerro de la Cruz and then we toured the nicest hotel in Antigua, Hotel Santo Domingo. That was enough walking for a while, so we headed to the plaza to find a bench so Brandon could study for his dental admissions test and I could study my Spanish. 
   And this is where the fun began. For some reason this had never happened to me before.  Brandon and I would be studying and a young school girl would step up, hand ME her camera and say, "Will you take my picture?" And when I stood up, she would sit down next to Brandon so I could take their picture.  After I took the picture, it was smile-thank you-good bye. This happened more than once. Dennie's concerns were being realized. Of course I was so concerned that I took a few shots myself and posted them to Brandon's Facebook page.
    After the park, we met my Spanish teacher from last year who just happened to bring her 17 year old daughter with her. We sat down for coffee and my teacher made her daughter practice her English with Brandon while she tortured me with my last Spanish lesson.  It was pretty funny while they all teased me about my age. Brandon even piled on and said I would never have to conjugate the Usted conjugation because I would always be older than anyone I was talking to. I guess you need to know Spanish to think that is funny. Actually the three of them thought it was much funnier than I thought it was.
   Then we bid our good byes, Brandon and I returned to the plaza to study and wait for Sandy to come pick us up and take us to Alotenango, our next home for a few days.

Antigua, Guatemala again

 This is a long over due blog. I have been in Guatemala for a day more than a week now. I should not be surprised, but this has been a very different trip from my last trip in 2012. As I had been preparing for the mission, initially my support was enough less than it was last time, that I actually wondered if God was shutting a door and directing me into perhaps a different ministry. And then my support overflowed and I thought it exceeded what I needed for the mission. Than on the night prior to my departure, I printed out my itinerary and found out that I, my missions director and the person actually purchasing my tickets were not exactly on the same page. My missions director and I "knew" that I was departing for Guatemala on Monday, but it turned out my tickets were actually purchased for Sunday morning, the morning of the evening I was finishing my packing. Uh Oh!! I had missed my flight. So, after about three hours of telephone discussions with Travelocity and United Airlines, and some significant fees for changing my date of flight, I was rescheduled to fly out on Tuesday morning. The significant fee increase was within $14 of my additional support raised. Thank you all, thank you Lord. Of course now I needed to contact, somehow, the people in Guatemala and make sure no one went to the airport on Monday and would they PLEASE have someone pick me up I the capital on Tuesday and take me to Antigua.

   So last Tuesday I arrived in Guatemala and connected with my ride to Antigua for 8 days of Spanish lessons. The last time I did my Spanish immersion for four weeks at the most expensive Spanish language school in Antigua for $350 a week. When you consider you get 4 hours of lessons each day, plus room and board with a family in Antigua, it works out to $50 a day, an excellent value. And I stayed with a lawyer and his family and the accommodations and food was marvelous. But now that I am "seasoned" and have more experience, I arranged lessons for $180 a week with a local pastor that is also a teacher of Spanish to foreign students. The quality of my education is excellent, as good as what I experienced two years ago, but my instructor is a bit more impatient, a bit less gracious and my accommodations and food are spartan. This is to be expected, in that I am paying about fifty percent of what I was paying before, so this is an observation, not a complaint at all. It is just a different experience and actually probably more authentic to the real Guatemala. The family is living day to day and I am very glad I am able to contribute to their income.

    Learning a new language is hard work. I am caught up to where I was two years ago and learning new things now, such as past imperfect tense. My class is from 8-12 in the morning and I confess, in that last hour I am counting the minutes until noon and those last minutes seem to move at glacial velocity. Then I do my homework for a while, wait for lunch to be prepared, and after lunch I head for the plaza and find a bench and continue to do my homework or wait for someone to sit down next to me. And someone usually sits next to me. Just about every time it is someone local, often someone that wants to practice their English or help me practice my Spanish. Often it is a very young couple that wants to sit down and make out, a lot of serious public kissy face happens in the park. I remain amazed at how much public making out is done in Guatemala. I guess that is because young people in Guatemala cannot afford their own cars, so back seats are not available and family is always home so there are not homes without parents available. So this might be good. Often time the person that sits down next to me has the same story; their wife or husband is sick or dead, they were not able to find work that day, and they have 4-5 kids to feed. And, although I think some of my seat partners are playing me, I think most of these stories are more or less true. It is a tough time, a tough economy and finding a job is very competitive. So I do open my wallet a little bit for some of these stories. I have learned one new trick this time. If I wear tennis shoes, I will not be interrupted every five minutes by a young boy insisting my shoes really do need to be shined. I did have one fun experience related to shoe shines yesterday. One of the older shoe shine boys sat down next to me and did not ask to shine my tennis shoes. Instead, he said, "Hola, Marvin." I looked at him in surprise, and he told me, in Spanish, that he remembered me from two years ago. Wow! He told me he no longer shined shoes every day because of school and only some afternoons. So we made a date for Thursday afternoon for me to wear shoes that could be polished and I would find him.

    This past weekend, I visited the family of Abdiel Lopez again, in San Juan Zacatepeques. If you say San Juan Sack of Potatoes quickly, you will nearly say that correctly. Last trip in 2012, I visited Abdiel and it was an intestinal disaster of traumatic proportions requiring the attention of Dr. Jacobo. So it was with some trepidation that I was returning to the scene of the crime two years later. It seemed Abdiel's wife was a bit nervous as she prepared dinner and after dinner, and some visiting, I retired to my room. I passed the porcelain throne I had made friends with two years earlier and I hoped very strongly that would it would it not beckon again to renew our friendship sometime in the middle of the night. Carefully I got ready for bed and tried to shut my eyes. Eventually they shut and sometime in the morning I woke up, con salud; healthy. I shaved, showered, prepared for church and made my way to the kitchen where Abdiel and waited to see how I survived. To everyone's relief, I had a smile on my face. "Tengo salud, estoy bien!" Then we continued to prepare for church. Actually, we went to the market and prepared for lunch and everything that happens before church.  Abdiel's church is a little over half indigenous and Sunday morning is market day where most of them either vend vegetables, flowers, fruits, meats, etc. and make their money for the week, or they are shopping for the family, so it only makes sense to have church at 2pm so they can go home, get cleaned up and go to church. 

   After a communal lunch of chicken, rice, beans and tortillas at the church, church started. Abdiel's church is pretty large, probably about 500 sitting in the congregation. I had to ask later if Abdiel conducted marriage workshops (and he said yes) because the couples were surprisingly affectionate towards each other. In summary, I really enjoyed the service and attending Abdiel's church. Last time I attended, he called me up in front of the congregation and caught me by surprise as I was not prepared to speak. This time I spent the morning writing a small speech in Spanish, so I would be prepared. But he just recognized me from the pulpit, told everyone how much I "liked" zompopos de mayo, but did not call me up. After church, there was a ten year celebration of a local Christian radio station attended by all the local churches. Abdiel's church was the largest church, so that was where the celebration was held. I had to get back to Antigua and Abdiel could not leave, so he had a brother in the church take me to Antigua. I am not sure what the vintage was of the pickup was that turned out to be my chariot, but none of the seat belts worked. Also, all of the windows were tinted dark except a slit across the front windshield eye height of my driver Daniel; which happened to be about the same height as the top button on my shirt. So I had a good view of the hood of the pickup, unless I slouched and then I could see just in front of the pickup. The roads are very curvy in this area, and there were a bit of fumes in the cab. Dennie was texting me about how sick she had been back home and I had to tell her I was going to be the same if I kept texting, "Good bye, I love you, pray for me!"  Fumes and curves and not being able to see where we were going, not a good combination. Also, I think Daniel might have thought I was a typical American in a hurry, so he was hurling through the curves. I was telling him, "No tenga prisa, no problema. Estoy tranquilo." Which basically means, "I am not in a hurry, no problem. I'm cool." We arrived at Antigua and in telling him where I was staying, I got us very lost in a very small town, but that is a boring story that I am not going to belabor. 

   I am going to be doing most of my mission with Brandon, a 19 year old pre-dental student that arrived in Guatemala for the first time yesterday. As his adult chaperone, I was not at the airport and I let him fend for himself. Actually, I was keeping in touch with email, and Dr. Jacobo's wife, Janett, picked him up and took him to her son's house, Dr. Jaco, near Antigua. And Jaco picked me up in Antigua and we all had El Salvadoran papusas for dinner.

  This trip, as I said earlier, has been a bit different than prior trips. It is my third time in Antigua and so the newness is missing. My accommodations and fare are a bit more spartan. My instructor can be a bit of an exacting dilettante, and although that is good in the end, it does not always feel good going down. I am looking very much forward to getting to Baja Verapz and San Miguel Chicaj in a little over a week and seeing all my friends and the Rabinal Achi I love. Next week is a bit open and Brandon and I might take a field trip to the beach for my very first trip to the Pacific in Guatemala. Guatever. 

    Antigua, Guatemala

     Shopping for lunch before church in San Juan Zacatepequez

   Abdiel's most excellent abode

Loving and being loved by the Achi

It seems like a week and a year since I last updated this blog. We have done so much, been to many different places and have seen so many different people. Our nights, if we are in San Miguel Chicaj, are usually spent at some little church within a twenty mile radius of San Miguel. I am now at the point where I am talking Spanglish. It takes discipline to not interject Spanish while I am typing. I almost typed any given night 'mis tres jovenes y jo' instead of 'my three young adults and I'. Anyways, usually the four of us pile into a microbus along with Tania plus about a half dozen Achi and we head to church to play games, do music and preach to youth in the area. Most of the songs that we do are in Spanish along with a couple of Achi songs, but tonight we were asked to do at least one song in English. That is our typical evening.

Our non-typical days have been even more interesting and blessed. Once, very, very early in the morning we piled into our microbus, the Achi, the gringos and one Mexicana. We were told to bring our bedrolls (blankets and sheets) because we would be staying overnight. Sleep was impossible in the microbus because of the curves and the climbing and the drop offs. And that was the good part of the road. Then we reached a small village and turned off the paved road and started climbing a tortuous dirt road. In the USA this road would be considered a serious four wheel drive road and we were climbing it in a microbus that was occasionally bottoming out on the oil pan. I kept glancing back to see if we were trailing oil. Finally we made it to the the top and to a little Rabinal Achi village named Santa Ines. A herd of smiling kids were there to greet us. After we dumped our sleeping bags in two small store rooms (later we found out these two rooms were our his and her dormitories, complete with indestructible cement floor to rest your tired back ... all night) we climbed up a short path to a top of a hill to find the church, the church kitchen and most the village waiting for us. The location for this simple little church was absolutely beautiful. The air was clear, the mountains were incredibly green and we could see for miles. We had not had breakfast so we were offered atol which is a not quite tasteless thick creamy soup made from corn. Some of us had it with sugar but I asked for chili and salt. They must have thought I was an atol aficionado ("¿tienes sal y chile?") because they brought me a huge bowl of atol. Brian was in awe when I finished it. While I was waiting for my salt and chile I could see some of the men of the village looking at me and waving hello, so I went over and pulled out my family pictures and practiced my Spanish. I learned some new names and made a lot of new friends and had a great time. After we were filled up on atol, we were told to return back to where we were dropped off because the pastors wife had breakfast waiting for us. What!? There must be some misunderstanding, we thought. But we quietly had that discussion. These people literally scratch a living out of the soil and we knew whatever is put in front of us, we must eat it all, because it is a such a sacrifice on their part. So with eager smiles on our faces, we let our belts out a notch and headed down the hill for pinole and chicken and, of course, tortillas. And we finished everything in front of us and complimented the chefs.

We let the pinole settle and the next event was soccer. The field was some distance away, so they got a pickup for the gringos. And after we piled in the gringos and the Achi, about another dozen little kids piled in. And when I say pickup, I am talking Nissan size, not GMC. It was hilarious. Everytime we hit a bump, I would say, "Lo siento (I am sorry)" as I crushed the little guy in front of me. And after I was done crushing him, he would look up at me with a big beaming smile. After a bit of a ride, we got to a flat spot of some size with goals at either end and that was our soccer field. Teams were waiting and we contributed a few of our Achi to the fray and the games began. One sideline was a ravine and the ball was only considered out of bounds when it disappeared into the ravine, usually accompanied by a few tumbling players disappearing over the edge and lots of laughter. The other sideline was dense thicket and jungle and the ball was only considered out if it somehow wedged into the thicket. The match was a crazy blend of kicking, running, laughter, occasionally interrupted by actual displays of skill. It was hard to determine a loser, I think everyone was winners.

After a wonderful lunch of pinole and chicken, we did some home visits and prayed for families. We split into two groups started our visits. The team I was on had five families to visit and they were all within a quarter mile of each other. When we got back to the church we waited for the other team to return, and we waited, and we waited some more. Finally, bedraggled, they returned. It seems all four of their families were about a mile apart each and on top of mountains. They were exhausted.

Then after the dinner and the home visits, we went back to church and it seems the church was having a musical talent show that night. An Achi talent show is an unforgettable event and so much fun. First of all, all the amps are cranked up as loud as possible. Then it seems that if you owned a keyboard, you get to be in the band that played behind each one of the contestants. The band had one drummer, two guys on guitars and four keyboards. I am sure that two of guys had been playing keyboard at least six months, but I am less sure about the other two. It was great though. Three hours of pounding noise, praise, laughing and applause and some occasional music. I am sure this sounds like a rather disparaging description, but it really was a joy to see how much fun everyone was having. At the end, the pastor had everyone clap for the contestants and the volume of the clapping determined the winners. Of course it was impossible to determine applause volume differences, so the pastor was just telling jokes and being really random about who was a winner and everyone went home happy. We went to our sleeping quarters which were the two small rooms, one for the girls and one for the guys, and we spread our blankets on cement floors and slept like Achi.

The next day we attended about four hours of Sunday church and after the youth service that our Achi team led, all of the youth honored us and then each one of them came up and gave us each a hug. Then we piled into the microbus, thankful that it had not rained, and headed back down the hill to San Miguel Chicaj.

In closing, I want to try to convey what a home visit is like. I think these are my favorite parts of our mission. Either local pastors or some of the Achi on our team determine what homes we will visit. The homes we visit usually have clear prayer needs, either health or a non-believer, or it is the home of someone who has been in service to us and wants to continue to love on us. The homes are usually two or three room adobe homes with wood burning cookstove inside the house. Each room has a door that opens to a covered area that is open to the outside. We approach the home and from a distance start saying, "buenos dias", or " buenas tardes", or "Maria". No matter what the occupants name is, it seems that Maria is a customary thing to say when you are announcing your presence. After a while, a lady of the house will peek out and Hector or a pastor will explain our presence and then we will be invited to the covered but open to the outside area. All the chairs in the two or three rooms will be brought out for us and this is usually two to four chairs, the rest of us stand or sit on the low wall. Conversation takes place, often in Achi, so until we get a summary translation, we just sit and watch. If the person that needs prayer is bedridden due to sickness, injury or stroke, we will be invited inside. After a while, the discussion turns to prayer needs and spiritual health of the family. And then all of us are made aware of the prayer requests, and a pastor or I as the eldest, will be called to lead prayer. After the prayer is started, everyone starts praying, simultaneously and loudly. It is a chorus and cacauphany of prayer. It is an aroma lifted to God. It is my favorite time of our mission. A pleading for God's provision, recognition of His promises, and acknowledgement of His glory, and confession of our sins. Sometimes Christ will be received by a new believer and then other times a heart will be hardened, sadly. These are some of the times I feel closest to the Lord when I witness such dependence.

Healthy, Exhausted and In Sin?? Huh?

When I was given the responsibility for planning the young adult mission and realizing that God will always put in front of us what He wants done, I was still worried that we would have days of idleness wishing there was something we could do. That has not been the case at all. Every day seems to be packed to the brim, often more than one church to visit, and now we all are looking forward to a rest day. Thursday, this week, we will be taking a day off and heading to the waterfalls on the way to Coban.

I thought after the medicos departed back to the USA, that I would be able to rest some. Hah! What was I thinking once again? Rodrigo and I had a meeting to attend with the Central American Faith Comes By Hearing representative, Abdiel Lopez, and two of the Guatemalan Campus Crusade representatives, Oto and Roberto in the capital. And we had to get the Gregory's to the airport. Before the Gregory's departed from San Miguel Chicaj, Rodrigo and Tania, our Mexicans, made chilaquiles for breakfast. They were absolutely delicious, but during the breakfast I received another language lesson. Rodrigo looked down the table at me and said, "¿Empacado?" He was asking me if I was packed and ready for our trip to the capital and using the past tense of the the verb 'empacadar', to pack. However, my "extensive" knowledge of Spanish did not include that verb, but I did know the words "¿En pecado?", which would mean "In sin?" For the life of me, I could not figure out why Rodrigo was asking me in front of about fifteen people (and we were at opposite ends of a long table), "Are you in sin?" Of course I was. We all are, that is why we need Christ, but was this good bye breakfast the time to confess in public. I was very confused. Rodrigo kept asking, "¿Empacado?", and I continued to hear "En pecado?". When both are said quickly, it is difficult to distinguish the difference. Rodrigo was finding it difficult understanding why I was confused about a simple question of packing and I was confused why we needed to have a discussion about my sin in front of fifteen of my friends. Tania, our translator, finally told me he wanted to know if I was packed. I said, "Oh, that is not a verb I know. I thought he wanted to know if I was in sin?", and we all had a big laugh at that.

Soon after, the Gregory's, Rodrigo and I headed for the capital. That evening, we had a very productive meeting with Abdiel Lopez (Central America Faith Comes By Hearing) and Oto and Robereto of Guatemala Campus Crusade. The next morning we got the Gregory's off to the airport and then, after breakfast, Rodrigo and I ran errands in the capital. During our time of running errands, Rodrigo asked if I would help him get his car back to San Miguel Chicaj. Of course I would help him, I needed to get back to San Miguel Chicaj also. What I found out was that he had another car in the repair shop and I would drive one car and he would drive the other. Oh boy, I get to follow Rodrigo in the capital city, a city maybe only slightly safer than Juarez, Mexico. I cannot begin to tell you how eager I was for this adventure ... NOT! I have to report that Rodrigo was on his best behavior and when he lost me on a round about (not a fun memory, "Dang, no one is letting me in and where is Rodrigo? I'm shutting my eyes and going for it!"), he pulled over a half block from where I saw him last disappear and waited for me. Once we got on the highway ("Thank you, Lord") he was even fairly conservative about passing. I think this was the first trip I did not have to pass on a blind curve to stay with the lead cars. Finally we were back in San Miguel Chicaj, with two intact cars and two intact drivers. And I was exhausted! When I arrived at where I was staying with my young adults, they all exuberantly told me how much they missed me and Sophia gave me a big, big hug and told me, "I missed you, grandpa."

Pastors y Medicos

Our days have been incredibly packed for the last week and more. The Barrera's and I packed light and headed up to the mountains above Salama on the way to Cobán Thursday last week. Our church, Desert Springs, was hosting a pastors conference at the Posada del Quetzal and we were arriving early to see that all was ready and prepared; and it was. It was an incredibly lush setting, green, ferns of many types, huge tree ferns, tall trees with mossy bark; a jungle paradise. That afternoon a van arrived delivering the first contingent from Desert Springs; Bart Faris, one of our team leaders who grew up in Latin America and is totally bilingual; Tim Ragsdale, one of our elders; Greg Schneeberger, our former youth pastor that will be leaving for a position in California and is also bilingual; and my three young adults, Sophia Edwards, Brian Whippo, and Rachel Breidenbach. It was really great seeing everybody and I think it was Sophie that just about immediately pinned me with my new Guatemalan name, Abuelito Loco. Also arriving in the van was Tania, a charming young Christian lady from Mexico that was going to be our interpreter, when necessary, for the young adult team for the next five weeks.

The following day, the Rabinal Achi pastors began to arrive and after lunch and time to get reacquainted with old friends and new friends, we started the conference. The Desert Springs contingent of three taught, and on Saturday we continued with testimonies and a session taught by Francisco Benefield of Guatemala City. The testimonies were powerful. A wife (names withheld for security) gave her testimony about their time in Morocco, ministering for twenty years until her husband was kicked out and forbidden to return. She is from El Salvador and her husband is a water engineer from Guatemala. They are now back in Guatemala, but their heart remains in the Middle East and they are now awaiting word as to whether they can go to live in Tunisia. Our own Sophia gave her testimony about how cancer has impacted her family and how they have come to see God more real in their lives. She also explained that the reason her hair was cut off was that there was a little girl that was bald due to chemotherapy and she donated all her hair for a wig for the little girl. Also often during the retreat, Brian would get up at the end of breaks and be joined by the other young adults, both North American and Achi and lead everyone in song, Achi and Spanish songs. After a few sessions, the pastors named the group Las Piedras Vivas (The Living Rocks, see Luke 19:40 and 1 Peter 2:5). This was the second pastors retreat I have been able to go to and once again I was blessed.

After the retreat ended Saturday afternoon so the pastors could be back in their churches on Sunday, we returned to San Miguel Chicaj and met up with the medical team that just arrived the day prior from New Mexico. With the addition of the medical team, we were now a team of about 20 gringos plus our Achi and locals made us a team of over thirty. I know we were over thirty, because one evening our regular bus broke down (not an unusual event in Guatemala) and they sent a bus that designed for twenty passengers and we crammed in 32 of us plus the medical supplies because it was raining and we could not put the supplies on the roof rack (no one brought a tarp).

Sunday morning we were bussed as close as we could get to the church we were attending. In order to get to the church, we hiked by fields and over a cable bridge and reached our church, a simple cinder block building with a dirt floor and plastic lawn chairs. This was a church that Pastor David Ixcopal planted and he did introductions and then Stevie gave a very well received testimony about her great-grandmother who was the first believer on the Jemez pueblo. Stevie was also wearing traditional pueblo clothes. And after Stevie, Brian once again led music and then Bart preached. Then on Monday through Friday we did four medical missions at three different locations; Tempisque, Buena Vista and Chichalom. We saw over 300 people and witnessed many blessings and some tragedies. We saw a lady with untreated and very advanced cancer on her jaw and all Dr. Jacobo could do was prescribe morphine for what terminal. And in another community we were made aware of a nearby family with two very, very ill young boys. Bart made a quick home visit and recognized that the two young boys about one year old and four years old were near death and rushed them back to the clinic. We found out they both had infantile diabetes and the family had no way to refrigerate the necessary insulin. Plus the grandfather did not want the boys stuck with needles any longer and believed that the money that had been spent on their health would have been better spent on property. So, despite our doctors insistence that these boys would die if they did not get to a hospital immediately, the mother absolutely would not allow them to go to the hospital. And she was smiling while she disagreed with the pleading advice. That was a tough one for all of us. That night at dinner, Dr. Jacobo's wife, with tears in her eyes was distraught with this situation because she knew that if we had stepped in, we would have been arrested by the police. But she also knew that in the USA this mother would have been arrested instead and she was distraught with the impotence of authorities in Guatemala.

On a brighter note, we have been doing both water/sanitation and medical missions in the village of Chichalom and there have been been a lot of improvements over the past few years in volume, purification, and distribution. And when we did the medical mission this year and saw nearly 150 patients, for the first time there were no cases of diarrhea or intestinal parasites, praise the Lord.

It has been a blessing to watch our team, many of them first timers, come alongside our Achi team and bless the villages. Some real friendships have developed and it has been wonderful and marvelous to see the prayer for the patients from everyone on the team, simultaneous prayers in Spanish, Achi and English. At this time, the medical team is now on their way back to the USA and I remain here with my young adults.

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.