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.

Fried Brain Confessions

In the past seven days of school I have been exposed to 240 verbs, most of them irregular and my brain is fried AND I cannot carry on a decent conversation with a six year old. If you are in a hurry, that just about sums it up, but if you have time I will continue to share my experience of my foreign language immersion experience.

I say I have been exposed to 240 new verbs in the past seven days of my Level 2 Spanish instruction which is not exactly the same as saying I have learned and memorized 240 new verbs (most of them irregular) in the following persons: I, familiar You, formal You/He/She/It, We, familiar plural You, and formal plural You/He/She/It. If a verb is regular and ends in 'ar', then the endings for the aforementioned six person types are o-as-a-amos-áis-an. Similar rules exist for regular verbs that end in 'er' and 'ir', but I won't bore you with those endings. And all of this is in the present tense. Level 1 dealt with mostly standard verbs and also the past tense and a bit of a trick to speak in the future tense using the verb 'to go' to say 'going to "action/verb"'. We might have had four irregular verbs in the eighty verbs we learned. I hope this is not too boring, stick with me and I will try to say something funny before I end this blog.

In my first seven days of Level 2, the 240 verbs that I have been taught (also not the same as learned and remembered) are organized in 8 groups. The first group is the regular "ar", "er", and "ir" verbs. The next 7 groups, each with subgroups, are the irregular verbs and if I was to explain what made every group and subgroup irregular, I would never finish this blog. I can proudly say that when the group is explained to me, I think I understand perfectly, until the next group is presented and it immediately pushes what was ever in my brain out through my ear and on to the floor. An example of a rule could be "when a verb ends in 'cer', the first person conjugation will end in 'zco' instead of 'co', unless a consonant immediately precedes the 'cer'; in those cases the first person conjugation will end in 'zo'". Right! 240 verbs and most of them irregular, with seven different sets and subsets of rules on how to conjugate them differently. One of the verbs I was exposed to today was " to ski". I looked at that verb and said to my teacher, "For heaven's sake! I am in Guatemala! Why are you trying to teach me the verb "to ski"? I refuse to learn it!" Of course, now that I made a big deal of it, the verb 'esquiar' is burned in my brain and is taking up space other more valuable verbs could be occupying.

I really do like my Level 2 teacher, she does make learning fun. She's energetic, jokes and we are probably the loudest teacher/student pair in the school right now (of course that might be because I am hard of hearing and I don't know how loud I am talking and she is talking loud so I can hear her). Last Friday she asked me to go to our white board and conjugate about 15 verbs in all six person present tense conjugations. I started doing the conjugations and after about two, I stopped and said, "Our 1:1 teaching time is valuable and it is a waste of time for me to conjugate while you just sit there. I don't mind doing it, but make it homework, not part of our 1:1 time". And I had to convey that all in Spanish. But she replied in Spanish, "OK, Marvin, our time is gold". At first I thought, "It's my money", but then I remembered more accurately that I am able to take this trip because others believed enough in me to support me financially. So I am being a good steward of our investment. My typical day is six hours of class and another three hours of homework, whew! My teacher is pretty impressed. Today she said that when I was young I must have been REALLY intelligent and now I was very intelligent. Actually she might have just said I was intelligent and left off the 'very'. I think that had to be the most positive insult I have ever received. Well, tonight's homework had the verb 'esquiar' in it and I crossed the question out and did not do it. We shall see what she has to say tomorrow.

The Christian Spanish Academy language school has been established for twenty years and most of the teachers have at least ten or more years teaching Spanish to non-Spanish speaking students from many different nations. Also if you choose to stay with a family, all of the families are vetted. The family I am staying with has been hosting students for at least ten years and it is expected that the families continue the teaching experience and not speak English to you. However, they understand English and when you say something incorrect or can't find a word, they will say the correct translation or give you the word if it does not come. All of this is to say in the cocoon, surrounded by people experienced in hearing their language mangled by students attempting to learn it, I can communicate some fairly complex conversations. However, my experiences in the wild are not yet that successful. I often just go sit in the central park and often someone will talk to me. If it is someone wanting to learn English, they attempt their English, I attempt my Spanish and we have an enjoyable time of learning together. Once I was talking to an older Japanese widow that lived near Antigua for four years but still spoke Japanese at home with her sons. Perhaps because Spanish was a learned language for her and she was not extremely proficient, we had a very successful discussion. BUT, if I find myself talking to someone that is not an experienced language instructor, has no experience or interest in English and Spanish is their heart language, we can reach the universally understood "huh?" fairly quickly, accompanied by the usual blank look on both of our faces. I am always at a disadvantage in that game because I am trying to play on what is clearly their home field.

Three more days of class and then it is on to San Miguel Chicaj where I hope to get more field experience. And for those of you that read my last blog, yes I did survive and I remain among the living. Monday I was still moving slow but today I feel pretty good.

It happen, Estoy Muy Enfermo

I have been in Guatemala for more than three weeks and I had not yet been sick. That is the longest I have ever been in country without getting sick. But like the other baseball players in the dugout never discuss the no-hitter their pitcher has going between innings, I guess I should never have thought about my string of healthy days. Admittedly for the past couple of days or more, I seem to have some sort of an intestinal bug that was creating some discomfort, but I thought with my pro-biotics and vitamins, I would kick it. Friday after class, Abdiel Lopez picked me up and I was spending the weekend with him and his family. He does not live near Antigua nor the capital, and we ended up at a little dirt road smaller than the dirt roads in San Miguel Chicaj. Then we pulled up at walled house with a huge steel gait. After the gait was slid open on its tracks, I found myself at the nicest house I have had the privilege to visit in Guatemala. Abdiel and one of his daughters started jamming and doing some Christian songs. I also remembered my goal of being smarter than a fifth grader in Spanish, and tried to talk to a six year old in my Spanish, very unsuccessfully. That was a bit disappointing. Abdiel is the regional director for Faith Comes By Hearing and his region includes 11 Central and South American countries and is really nice house also has a very strong wifi signal, so I was able to Skype with the family. The six year old girl was the birthday girl for the night so there was a party. Her family went to Abdiel's church (Abdiel is also a pastor) and the little girl wanted to have her party with Abdiel's family. After the party, Abdiel's brother-in-law told stories for hours and although he was also acting the stories out, he spoke so fast I was not getting very much. But everyone was laughing so hard during almost three hours of stories, that they had tears in their eyes.

After the stories, I retired to bed. At about 2AM, I woke up and my stomach was rumbling and there was also intestinal signs of a southern breakout. This was a terrible familiar feeling about all of this. I was glad I was in the nicest house I had ever been in, because the porcelain throne and were about to become friends for a while. The Spanish name for toilet (actual toilet, not bathroom which we all know as baño) is inodoro and it is masculine. The name of my toilet became Raul, because that is what I called him all night. I would hold my head over him and say, "Raul, Raul" from the bottom of my gut. I was purging from both ends and when morning rolled around, I was very, very weak from dehydration.

The family became aware of my situation in the morning and they felt terrible. I let them know it had started days ago and not at their place. One of the bad things, though, was I had left my ciprofloxin back in Antigua for times like this. But I showed the family 'ciprofloxin' on google and they called around and got some delivered an hour later.

Today I am hanging around, mostly in bed. I have been able to keep yogurt down and I have not had to have a close conversation with Raul since this morning. I was supposed to go to church with them tonight for a couples dinner and Abdiel had asked to just talk for a couple of minutes, which could have easily meant I was the keynote speaker. I am not going to be able to join them, though. I am going to spend the rest of the day and evening just getting well so I can go to Abdiel's church with his family. Life in Guatemala.

A Capital Thing to Do

I have had a run of several good days in a row. This past Friday, I passed my first level Spanish exam, and I did very well. It was a pretty comprehensive exam that took nearly three hours to complete. I was dreading the oral part where a story is read to me in Spanish, and then I have to remember what was read to me. Then the instructor (and it is a different instructor than the one that instructed me for the prior two weeks) asks me questions in Spanish about the story and I have to attempt to remember what was read to me and respond accurately in Spanish. I passed that part of the exam with an 80% score; I was thrilled. The balance of the test was written and it took me a bit over two hours to complete the written part. Whoopee! I passed it! But the bad thing about immersion and doing this alone is I had no one to celebrate with; how sad ("could y'all shed a big tear for me? Thanks, I feel better now").

The next day, two of my friends, the Barrera's from San Miguel Chicaj, joined me in Antigua for lunch. I say they are from San Miguel Chicaj, but actually Rodrigo is from Mexico and Carol is from the USA. They have been in San Miguel Chicaj for more than thirty years as a Wycliffe bible translation team and my church, Desert Springs Church in Albuquerque has been working with and supporting the Barrera's for just about eight years. They are both language experts, especially Carol, and they are trilingual in Spanish, English and Rabinal Achi. It was a real pleasure talking to both of them and Carol knew exactly what I was going through because she could still remember what it was like when she learned Spanish. So we had fun relating common, but different experiences. We had a nice lunch in Antigua and then I returned with them to their place in the capital, Guatemala City. That night we fellowshipped, shared stories, I did my Spanish review and they both kindly spoke English to me and did not make the week end a total teaching experience.

The next day, Rodrigo and I spent most of the day together while Carol stayed home and recharged her batteries. They were in the capital because Carol had been one of the principals in a two week language workshop for several people groups all over Guatemala and she was exhausted. Rodrigo and I headed out across the city for breakfast and then we went to church. The church was a great experience, but authentic and not bilingual. However, when the sermon started, a nice young lady gave me a headset and a receiver and said I could listen to the English translation of the sermon. After five minutes of fumbling with headset, trying to see if there was a way to change the channel on it and hearing nothing but static, a different nice young lady came by and told me there was no one translating today. Oh, well, so I listened to the rest of the sermon and caught about every fifth word ... not really enough to get all the meaning. I have not yet reached my goal of being 'smarter than a fifth grader'.

After church, Rodrigo and I were given directions on how to find the orphanage that the church supported. Rodrigo was pretty pessimistic about the directions. Two people gave us directions and they were almost the same directions. We made two big unsuccessful attempts to find the orphanage and drove through some very interesting parts of town that made me realize I definitely was not in Kansas. We actually even gave up and were driving back in to the capital when we saw one of the landmarks we were supposed to drive around. So we made a U turn, and I will not tell you what driving around the landmark encompassed, but we made it to the orphanage.

Visiting the orphanage was a delight. It was pretty large, with spacious grounds and the young girls were on one side of the orphanage and the young boys on the other, with the common eating areas and classrooms in the middle. It was clean everywhere we looked and they did not know we were coming. The kids were happy and the youngest ones climbed all over us. Towards the end of our San Miguel Chicaj mission, I would love to bring the team from Desert Springs and Rabinal Achi young adult team and do a cross cultural combined mission for the orphanage.

After the orphanage visit, Rodrigo and I returned to the capital and picked up Carol; and we returned to Antigua to have another wonderful dinner together. There are a number of wonderful places to have dinner in Antigua, if you have not figured that out. After dinner they returned to the capital to prepare to drive back to San Miguel Chicaj and I remained in Antigua for my next two weeks of language school.

Time to Confess

This story probably begins with an incident that happened during the Vietnam conflict in 1968. At that time, I was enjoying the tropical climate and environs of Vietnam in my green pickle suit, on assignment, as an employee of the USA. I was one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children (USMC). Yes, I was a marine stationed in Danang, Vietnam. Most of my duty was in Danang and it was there, one evening that I found myself too close, way too close, to more than one F4 Phantom jet while they were launching on missions at full power take off. The details of this incident will remain a story with limited circulation.

So, what does this have to do with my Guatemala trip? Let me continue. At about the age of 35, I started developing tinnitus. By way of explanation, tinnitus is the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound. Now, almost thirty years later, I have full fledged ringing in my ears 7x24. I have not experienced true silence in probably twenty years. So one accommodates and gets used to the constant ringing and it is not a big deal. But in addition, about five years ago, I found I was saying, "Huh?" more than normal, so I had my hearing tested. And I found that in addition I was having significant hearing loss, especially in my left ear. I went to an audiologist and she seemed astounded that I could carry on a conversation without hearing aids. And I found out some very interesting things about my hearing and communication process.

This is probably not a surprise to many that know me, but I actually don't hear much of what is said to me. But apparently I hear enough, and if I see the lips moving, my brain automatically, with the words that I actually hear, fills in the missing sounds/words I did not hear and my brain receives a complete thought and I respond in context. And this process is usually accurate, most of the time. But even considering the usual accuracy of this process, I knew my hearing was deteriorating, so I made the decision to get hearing aids. The details of that process, the many different options don't add much to this story so I won't go into the details. Except to say, I did buy a pair of very nice hearing aids. And I even wore them ... for a while. My hearing aids did improve matters, but I could not wear them while I was riding my bike, changing the batteries and charging the controller was a small issue, they sometimes itched, and of course, I was wearing hearing aids. Oh no! How far off was the walker? So, because the improvement was just above the just noticeable detection limit, after a while I stopped wearing my hearing aids and returned to letting my brain do its compensation process.

So what does this have to do with Guatemala? Well now I am in the process of learning a new language and my brain no longer recognizes the landmarks that existed when I was back home. Now it hears, "blah, blah 'pero', blah (nothing), blah, blah, 'entonces', blah". No familiar landmarks, very few known words, or understood context. I now have hundreds of vocabulary words that I should know, not yet a hundred verbs that I can now conjugate in the past, present and future. I am writing and reading better each day but when the conversation starts, my brain immediately gridlocks.

I anticipated this could become a problem and I also knew that my hearing might not be up to the task completely. So I actually packed my 'aids' and brought them with me. My left ear is clearly my worst ear, so to begin, I only wore my left aid today, and I think it made a difference. I was catching words better and our oral discussions were better today. I was not completely gridlocked and my responses were coming out, albeit very slowly. But today I could understand the questions with less repeating, and I was responding with answers and questions, in Spanish for a change, not in English.

Tomorrow is my exam for the completion of Level A (the first of four levels) and another instructor other than mine will conduct the exam. The exam will consist of me writing all my verb conjugations in simple future, present and past tenses. This will include a number reflexive verbs that give me trouble. The exam will include me describing in Spanish what I see in some photographs that will be shown to me. I believe I will do well in these parts of the test. And then stories will be read to me and I will be asked questions about the story, and I will have to respond in Spanish, accurately based on what I heard, understood and remembered about the story. For me, this will be the most difficult part of the exam.

In my next blog, I hope to tell you I passed with flying colors.

Ignorance was bliss

I have long considered that there are four levels of competence.

At the bottom is unconscious incompetence. This could be described as "ignorance is bliss". When you are at this level of competence, you can walk around with a stupid smile on your face and feel good.

The next level up from the bottom is conscious incompetence. At this level of competence you can be painfully aware of your level of incompetence. It can be a very uncomfortable place to be and the natural response is to strive to get to the next level of competence.

The next level of competence is conscious competence. With conscious effort of some level, you are able to master what you are attempting. That conscious effort might require terrific focus or it might just require being attentive and alert. But you have reached competence.

The highest level of competence is unconscious competence, and this level of competence is rarely reached. To be unconsciously competent means you are in the zone, what you are attempting is natural and reflexive. In fact the word attempting would be incorrect. You do not attempt, you just do.

So I needed to illustrate the four levels of competence to convey where I am in my studies. Last Monday I walked into the language school with my blissful ignorant smile on my face; the lowest level of competence. After my first day of class, the bliss had disappeared and I had been ripped into stage two competence: conscious incompetence. Now after a week of school, with three more weeks in front of me, I think I can see stage three in the distance. I have a few hundred vocabulary words, and I often even use them correctly. I have about forty verbs but I can only conjugate in the present tense. I can say "went", "was" and "did", so I can tell a little bit about what I did. And I can use the verb "go" ("ir" in Spanish) with another verb to speak in the future tense. Example would be in English, "I am going to eat", or in Spanish, "voy a comer". But of course it takes a long time for me to roll this around in my head.

Before I started class, whenever I would communicate in Spanish, it was clear I did not speak Spanish, but I knew enough vocabulary and verbs that were terribly conjugated and all parties would struggle through the discussion and everyone had fun. Now I say enough correctly that the other party will babble a stream of Spanish in response, assuming comprehension, and my response is often the universally understood, "Duh!"

But I am holding on to the fact that competent competence is in sight. I think that is a light at the end of the tunnel and not an oncoming locomotive. And I am only one week into a four week session.

More than I can adsorb, but still too slow

I have completed my first week of my Spanish studies and sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed, yet it still seems to be going too slow. I wish I was further along. My teacher is effectively pedantic. She makes me repeat everything orally that we are learning, and she is a real stickler for pronunciation. I had been told in the past that my pronunciation in Spanish was very good, but my teacher now has me convinced otherwise. She can make me repeat the same sentence four times until I get it correct to her satisfaction. On Wednesday, she asked me if I ever learned French, and I responded, "Oui je parle un peu francaise, pourquoi?" Apparently my limited familiarity of French has affected my pronunciation of some of my Spanish, especially the word 'en', which is a word one uses most frequently in Spanish. In French this word 'en' would sound like 'on', but in Spanish it sounds closer to 'ane', where the 'e' sounds more like a long 'a'. If I am not concentrating or I am bit tired, every time I see, read and say that word, I say 'on' and my instructor immediately stops me and makes me start over. You would think I would learn.

The school itself, the Christian Spanish Academy, is very good. I think there are probably at least two dozen students and most are from the United States. And a number are from Korea, some from Japan, a few from Europe and probably one from China somewhere. Today a student from Korea came to live at the host house where I am living at, so now we have set up a schedule to use the shower in the morning. I thought I was making a big commitment to study for a month, but I am finding many students are here for three month programs, including the Korean that just started living with the de Navas, my host family. He is going by the name Esteban, and he is six weeks into his three month program. I have been a bit frustrated with the speed of my progress, but I am going light speed compared to poor Esteban. Spanish is a foreign language to me, but it is totally foreign to the Koreans, Japanese and Chinese. Many times I can just add an 'a', or 'Ito' or 'oso' to an English word and I have changed it to a Spanish word. The poor Asian students, if they did not attend an English language school, need to learn a new alphabet in addition to new words.

I told my teacher that since I would not being going to school on Saturday and Sunday, that she needed to give me more homework. She took me very serious and now I have seventeen pages of homework to complete before Monday morning. Early tomorrow morning, I plan on going to Finca Filadelfia, a local coffee plantation, and have breakfast with a view of the three local volcanoes and get a start on that homework.

Publishing photos using an iPad is turning out to be much more difficult than I expected. Here are a few photos of Antgua. In their order: the Saturday indigenas market; the cultural center de españa; the ruins of cathedral San Agustin; the central parque in the evening; the Arco de Antigua at night; Motos, a very popular transportation; the view just out the door of the family I am staying with, my language school is the orange building on the left.

What was I thinking!?

My Instruction in Spanish has begun. I am becoming aware that it has been a very long time since I have been in a class room, although I am not actually in a class room. I am in a large open area with many small tables and each table has one instructor and one student (estudiante). So there is no escaping or sitting in the back row. Every seat is a front row seat. Our program options were 4 hours a day, 5 hours a day, 6 hours a day, 7 hours a day, or 8 hours a day. I chose the 6 hour a day option. After the choice was made and the money paid, I was advised by others smarter than myself, that I really should consider the 4 hour a day option and rest and practice during the afternoon. Too late, I went for the big 6.

Whew! After six hours into my first session, I was convinced I knew Less Spanish at the end of hour 6 then than I knew at the beginning of hour one. It was exhausting and my old brain had not worked this hard in a long time. And I had not set down in one place for six hours for more than two years. At the end of the session my instructor asked me if I would like homework. Of course, I said, "yes". She asked, "facil or dificil?" (easy or hard), and of course, I want my moneys worth, so I responded, "dificil". So she gave me what I thought was 5 pages of exercises. This morning I found out she gave me six pages and I missed a page. Oh well, they have my money and they are not going to kick me out of school.

But enough about school, and a bit about Antigua. It is a very pretty and charming place with numerous old ruins. People from all over Central America come here for vacation. I hope I am successful with posting some photographs that I was able to shoot this week end. I am "roughing" it from a technical perspective. I am carrying a small point and shoot and I do not have my usual editing software. Roughing it, like I said. Between my classes, my meals and my homework, I spend my time walking around Antigua. It is not a large city at all. My walks usually end up at the central plaza where I find an empty bench and sit down and people watch. I already told the story of my visionary friend that wanted my money on Saturday. Sunday was a little more enjoyable. A young girl that was learning English was in the park with her parents. I must have looked trustworthy because her mother told her, "If you are trying to learn English go talk to that man." She was very nervous about rejection, but she finally came over to me and said, "Can I speak with you?" I put a big smile on my face and said, "No". After her face fell, I said I was only teasing and I helped her with her English for about two hours. She talked about her school and I showed her pictures of Dennie and the family, and told her about my mission and why I was in Antigua. It was a good deed, and her English was pretty good, 100 times better than my Spanish.

Then yesterday, Monday, I was blessed by a visit from one of my San Miguel Chicaj friends, Hector Hernandez. It was a very pleasant and unexpected surprise. We had a cup of coffee at Café Contessa and did some visiting and planning for our upcoming mission in San Miguel and the surrounding villages. It was just superb to spend time with him, really, really blessed.

First day in Antigua

Primera vez en Antigua

After some weather delays, my plane landed around 10PM in Guatemala City, and after I cleared immigration, got my luggage and cleared customs, it was about 11pm when I found Edi, my driver waiting for me outside the airport. Actually, it did not look like the picture of Edi that was emailed to me but he was holding a sign that said 'Marvin Gibson'. The 'does not look like Edi' said, "Uno momento, señor", and the real Edi appeared in a moment. It seems my plane had delayed long enough such that the call of nature was stronger than the call of duty to hold my 'Marvin Gibson' sign. After a few, "Buenas noches", "Buenas noches","Mi nombre es Edi","Mi nombre es Marvin", et cetera salutations were exchanged, Edi ran out of English and Marvin ran out of Spanish and we quietly drove to Antigua.

About midnight, we arrived in Antigua and I do not remember a rougher cobble stone road. I do not think it would be possible to speed in Antigua without throwing all your hub caps, your hood, your trunk and possibly a few doors. Señora Jeanette de Navas, the better half of my host couple, was waiting up for me. After a few more introductions and salutations, I ventured a "Yo tengo poco hambre", which I hoped translated to "I am a little bit hungry". It must have been understandable because in minutes she brought me some mango and bread, very nice.

Then it was almost off to bed, but first I was compelled to unpack and see how much I forgot. I would be embarrassed to list all that came out of my pack, my camera bag and my bolsa, but it appears I had not forgotten anything, and I probably had more than I needed. I have much difficulty attempting to be a minimalist. Then it was off to sleep, which was really welcome ... until about 2AM when some party in the next house to us cranked their 120 amp speakers up full blast playing music that was not meant to put you to sleep. Apparently there are no noise laws in Guatemala because this continued for over two more hours. But, as I said earlier, I am not a minimalist, so I dug around my stuff and found my ear plugs and soon I had every thing, other than the booming base, silenced. Next morning Señora de Navas was very chagrined to ask, "Did you hear the music?" I made her feel better when I told her I had ear plugs.

In the morning I got up and had desayuno (breakfast) and Señor Carlos joined us. He is a lawyer. I let them know I wanted to visit the school, change my dollars to quezales and get a SIM card for my phone. We pulled the map out, they suggested where I should go and I was off. The de Navas do not have wifi, but the school did, so I caught up on my email there. After I got a working SIM card for my phone, I was able to text Dennie, Clint (DSC missions pastor back home), Eder in San Miguel Chicaj and Hector. It turns out Hector is traveling, as usual, and will be in Antigua on Monday. So we look forward to getting together then. I also texted a local pastor that Hector was going to introduce me to. So I beat him to it and invited myself to the local pastor's church for Sunday services tomorrow.

I decided to walk around Antigua some, and found an empty park bench in the plaza and did some people watching. Soon a local man sat down next to me, let me know that he was Catholic, wanted to know if I thought he worshipped statues, said that he taught English and said he had one out of body experience and two real vision experiences of Jesus Christ, one of which included Jesus accompanied by two of his disciples. He also told me the story of the rich young ruler who went away sad when Jesus told him to sell all he had. And he told me it was more difficult for a rich man to get into heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. We talked for more than an hour and when I thought it was about to rain, I got up to continue my walk. He let me know then that he was out of work and could not afford his epilepsy medicine and does not drink anymore. I gave him a few dollars and we went our ways.

En route, E6

I am en route. Right now I am sitting at gate E6 in the Houston airport waiting to board for Guatemala City. I am not sure when I will have Wifi again, so I thought I would attempt a quick update.

Yesterday I was stressing because I did not have all my shots, especially the shingles vaccination and the tetanus shot. Dennie was doing some shopping for me and she forgot to get something at Walgreen's, so I quickly dropped by to make the purchase. A big sign on the door said "Get you Shingles shot at Walgreen's", so why not? I decided to check it out.

"Excuse me, how much is the shingles vaccination?"

"$219.00, but if you have insurance, there might be a co-pay"

"219.00! Wow! But here is my insurance card. Can you check it out?"

After a few minutes, "You have good insurance. You don't even have a co-pay. Your insurance will pick it all up."

Whoopee! God is good! And now I don't have to stress about getting shingles in Guatemala.

I also asked about tetanus and found that would cost me $64.00. So, I decided I just better be careful. Actually, while I was on a hot streak, I drove down the road to my primary care provider and convinced them to give me a tetanus shot right then because I was leaving for Guatemala the next day and I would be gone for three months. We are boarding, gotta go.

on His business

In less than 48 hours I am going to on a plane heading to Guatemala once again. I am both excited and a bit anxious. I will not be returning to the USA for three months, so this will be the longest time Dennie and I have been separated. I have left instructions with the sons on maintaining the yard and the pool and I am under no illusions that they will comply with those instructions. Many have asked what they should pray for and praying for Dennie and the house has to be high on the prayer list.

I am used to traveling on Intel business by myself but it was always to a nice hotel to meet colleagues that I was familiar with to perform business that I was competent to perform. This time I am first departing for a month of language school to a location that I have not been to in Guatemala and to reside with a family who I have never met. But this time I am on His business, not Intel business, so I need to step back and have faith that all will work according to plan; maybe not my plan, but His plan. It will be marvelous, of course.

Packing! I have spent the last three days packing and I really am packing light this time (yeah, right). I am NOT bringing my computer with me. Instead, being the geek that I am, I am bringing an iPad, an iPod, two still cameras, one video camera, one of my GPS's, my unlocked phone, a variety of chargers, electric shaver, a few clothes and underwear and vitamins. Yeah, packing light, I did not bring my tripod though or my long lenses, so I did cut a few corners. And on my iPad, I have loaded the Jesus film in three languages so I should be prepared for any situation.

Dennie and I took a trip to Nevada and Arizona just before this trip and now I am finding I do not have enough time to get all of my shots, but I am not too worried. Except too many people have asked me, "Did you get your shingles shot?" I am told that those of us over 60 years old should get a shingles shot. I should not worry about it unless I get stressed ... but I continue to get asked so now I am stressing about it. I hope I am not blogging in the future about shingles in Guatemala, stay tuned.

My first month in Guatemala will be in language school in Antigua, and then I proceed to San Miguel and vicinity for the mission with the young adults. There is still less clarity around that part of the mission than I would like, but that is good. God has always revealed more of His plan when we are in the field, and one of my primary prayers has been for more of the presence of God to be revealed to me. So instead of being anxious because I see myself as a steward of the young adults that have been entrusted to my leadership, instead I should just relax and look forward to what He has in store for us.

A Home for the Ixcopal's

As I prepare for my next trip to Guatemala (Lord willing), I am reminded of some of my past trips and why San Miguel Chicaj has such a special place in my heart and the hearts of others that have been privileged to visit.  Seven years ago, I was part of an explore team that I described in my prior blog.  I returned from that trip enthused and on fire to return again to San Miguel Chicaj and be used to make a difference.  Our explore mission revealed many opportunities that included supporting the New Testament translation into Rabinal Achi, youth and young adult ministry efforts, women ministry efforts, etc.  I wanted to come back and get the men of my church involved and I know that many of them would initially see themselves as lacking qualifications or gifts to directly support translation or even some of the other ministries, BUT if I could get a hammer in their hands, I was sure I could pull a team together.  So, I looked for a construction opportunity and thought we could help one of the idigenous ministers to start construction on a permanent church.  When this was reviewed with “in the field” content experts in San Miguel Chicaj, it was pointed out that our target church did not actually have property and was not far enough along to actually secure property, HOWEVER there was a local Achi pastor and family who had outgrown their home and as a family, had been pray for the Lord to work a miracle and provide a home where the entire family could remain under one roof.  And so our relationship with Pastor David Ixcopal and his family began in earnest and has deepened over the years.

On our trip we had met with Pastor David and we had walked the hills with him visiting his extended congregation in some of the smaller villages in the area.  We also had opportunity to meet his family and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to meet a real need in the area.  I started communicating with the Ixcopal family and we developed a budget and a proposal and I took it to our elder board and the proposal was approved.  Then I floated the opportunity around the men of the church, and men and families started committing to the mission. By the time July rolled around, we had a construction team ready to depart for the village of San Miguel Chicaj in the northeast part of Guatemala near Coban (famous for their coffee).  For most of the team, this was their first time to Guatemala and cross cultural training was necessary, of course.  Our women had to wear long skirts and could not wear sleeveless dresses, for example; this would make construction interesting.  And I impressed on the team that we were not really building a house; we were building long term relationships.  And if they saw one of their co-workers sitting down on the job and just chatting with an Achi friend, they needed to recognize that was the real objective of the mission.  The house could get built after we left and building lasting relationships was the highest priority.  One morning in July, our team met at the Albuquerque airport and we set out for Guatemala.  Also, as part of our cross cultural training, I made sure that we were NOT all wearing matching T-shirts.  Plan was to blend in as much as possible.  We landed in Guatemala City, cleared immigration, customs and the drug dogs, picked up our rental pick-up and SUV and headed east and north towards San Miguel Chicaj, a 3 to 4 hour drive depending on traffic, accidents, road construction and weather.  Arriving hours later in San Miguel after an uneventful drive (if you get used to cars speeding towards you in your lane attempting to pass slow trucks in their lane as uneventful), we were shown our accommodations, a large bungalow that we could separate the men on one side and the ladies and married couples on the other side.  After a meal, we retired prepared to work the following morning.   

At this time I should probably tell you about Pastor David Ixcopal.  We found our much of this about Pastor David after we had been in country a few days.  Many years ago, David Ixcopal had a solid job with the phone company in Guatemala, and he already had a large family. Solid jobs in Guatemala are far and few between and fathers of families are very lucky to have jobs where they can be providers.  Over the years though, David knew that God was calling him to ministers to his native Achi brothers and sisters and share the gospel and one day he gave notice.  His attempt to resign his job was not initially accepted  and his supervisor told him to return home, think about his  family, think about being a provider and think about his decision.  David did all of that and prayed and returned back to work, resolute in his decision and David Ixcopal became Pastor David Ixcopal.  Immediately, his physical standard of living dropped.  He was dependent on his congregation, and he did not yet have a congregation.  A church from Texas established a missionary relationship with David Ixcopal and was able to provide some income.  The Ixcopal’s were living in a primitive mud dwelling, dirt floors and the family was increasing in size.  Unbeknownst to us, many years prior to our coming alongside in support, the Ixcopal’s had been praying for a new home because all of the family could not fit under the same roof.  Habitats for Humanity was considered as an alternative, but they build a standard sized house that would not permit the family to all live together.  David had a little bit of property outside the village and he tried to sell it, as a last resort, to get enough money for construction, but he was not able to sell it.  After many years of prayer, and perhaps some discouragement, our church came along looking for a construction opportunity to get men from our church involved in the mission field.  We did not know the history of the Ixcopal prayers for a house, so clearly our involvement was divine providence. 

To continue and tell you about all of our experiences and relationships that came from our building efforts would take a few more pages and perhaps I will save a few for future blogs.  We all cherished our time and the friends we came to know and love; each of us went down a day or two due to intestinal issue (welcome to the field), our local construction superintendent, Abraham, was all of sixteen years old and letting us know what we needed to do and how to do it; construction methods and materials were quite different from what we were used to doing but we were there to blend and learn their ways, not to show our “better” ways.  We had an incredible time and when we left, we left enough funds to hire locals to finish the roofing.  And we took relationships with us that we still have today.  I look so forward to returning to San Miguel Chicaj and see the Ixcopal’s again and all of my other friends in San Miguel.  Praise the Lord.