Pictures

Here are some pictures that we took last week. Daniel and I are now back at language school in Antigua. We really miss the kids!

Asbury Missions

Since Kara and I both dearly love our college, Asbury, I decided to make a website with links to blogs of other Asbury missionaries around the world. Even if you're not Asbury-connected, you may enjoy reading some of them. The address is www.asburymissions.bravehost.com.

My biggest problem right now is that I need to find more of the blogs... I'm sure they're out there, but all that are listed right now are friends of ours that we already knew about their sites. So if you are an Asburian and know of others that I can add to the site, please let me know.

Construction Progress

Here are some pictures of the new contsruction. Some of you are already familiar with it, but this property is across the street from the current property. We will eventually have new facilities for everything involved with the orphanage, while the current property will be continue to be used for the school and other ministries. In the picture above, the completed building on the right is Casa Elizabeth, where the girls are already living. The partially completed building on the top-left is the employee apartment building, where we will live, and they're pouring the foundation for the boys' home unit.

We climbed up on top of the storage tower with Kendon to get these pictures. We didn't realize how tall the ladder was before we started to climb... you can't really tell from the picture, but it's about 4 stories.

We also took a few pictures inside the new apartment building. The pictures on the right are of what will be our kitchen/living/dining room. It's a much different construction process down here, since everything is done with concrete- even the countertops and cabinets that you can see here are concrete.

Thanksgiving

Yesterday, we had a very nice Thanksgiving and a wonderful traditional, American feast with approximately 35 people -- the Wheeler family (the directors of NLCH), Emily (the 19 year-old intern), Emily's mother and friend, Patsy (another missionary with NLCH -- pictured right), a couple that visits from the States every year at this time to help with Christmas preparations, and the rest were other missionaries serving in Guatemala.

I have to be honest, I was apprehensive about our first holiday away from family. I anticipated feeling sad and the day being a little strange. However, the day turned out to be such a blessing! It was a reminder to me of the first Thanksgiving. Each person brought something (like a delicious church potluck) and strangers gathered together and became family for the day as we gave thanks for God's faithfulness and provision.

This is the one holiday that the children at NLCH do not celebrate because, obviously, Guatemalans do not celebrate Thanksgiving. Kendon and Wendy explained to us that it is the one holiday that they can sit back and enjoy because they are not busy with activities for the kids.

The celebration was held in the guest dorm kitchen. Before the meal, we formed a circle for prayer and Kendon and his son shared short inspirational stories. We enjoyed traditional favorites: turkey (Emily's mother brought a frozen one down in her suitcase from Pennsylvania!), mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc. Finally, a meal with no black beans!

In the afternoon, we played card games and dominoes, before everyone started leaving for home. Daniel was happy that he was able to watch a little of the Cowboys' game at the Wheeler's house.

We hope that each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We certainly are thankful for your love and friendship.

Daniel's Spanish Debut

For those of you (our parents) who always want to hear us say something in Spanish and we refuse, here is a video that might interest you. This is a 2 minute clip of Daniel's first devotional in Spanish. He did a great job! It is going to say that this post is from Daniel because he is the only one who can post videos, but I (Kara) am posting it. Daniel did not want this video on here but I thought you all would enjoy it!

Anciano de Dias

We returned to NLCH on Friday, because we get to take the week off from school and celebrate Thanksgiving here at the children's home. It's been fun to be back, and we can both tell a very significant difference in our Spanish abilities. It's sort of like someone has taken a cover off of our ears and all of the sudden we can understand a lot (but certainly not all) of what is being said around us.

On Sunday we had a short devotional and worship time with the kids. I gave a little testimony in Spanish, and it went pretty well. I also got to play the guitar while Wendy led a few songs. Kara took some video- enjoy.

Name That Tune

We've finally figured out how to put videos on the blog. We took this video in church a couple of weeks ago- do you recognize the song?

Our Third Month

It´s officially been more than three months in Guatemala now. It was quite a landmark for us when the stamps on our passports expired, and we´re now waiting for our missionary visas to come through.

This last month has brought more progress in the language- Kara and I are both almost through the final tense of verbs that we have to learn, and then the rest of our time in school will just be adding vocabulary and reviewing what we´ve already covered. Hopefully that will bring us more confidence in speaking, which we´re still lacking now.

We´re excited that we get to return to NLCH for a visit tomorrow. We´ll be there the entire week and get spend Thanksgiving there at the home. One prayer request that I´d like to mention: the kids are having a spiritual emphasis weekend at the home starting tomorrow, and since we are going to be there visiting, we were asked to give a devotional talk with the kids. We´re a bit intimidated by the thought of trying to do that in Spanish, although if we decide to use a translator we can do so. The important thing to us is that we can communicate to the kids how thankful we are to be here and that we want to help them realize the fullness of life that the Lord is offering to each of them. So, since it´s our first official ministry activity with the kids, we wanted to ask you all to keep it in prayer.

We´re looking forward to month #4 and getting to celebrate our first holiday season with these wonderful kids.

Haircuts

I am amazed that Daniel can get his hair cut here for twenty quetzales ($2.66)! It is a great hair cut, too! He has been going to a place called Tommy's. Tommy (I guess?) does not use guards, only his comb to gauge the length. This, in itself, impresses me. However, that is not the most impressive part. He uses oil and a straight razor to trim the back of Daniel's neck and sideburns. I couldn't resist taking a picture. I mean, people think we are the crazy gringos anyway, so why not be the only woman in the barber shop plus start taking pictures!

Sure, you have seen a man walking three dogs in the morning but... have you ever seen a man walking three goats on leashes through the city streets?

We miss the USPS

I remember seeing an email before we came to Guatemala titled "You know you've lived on the mission field if..." One of the items on the list was- you've lived on the mission field if you marvel at the speed and efficiency of the US Postal Service. Our experiences here, especially today, have proven that to be true.

Before leaving the states, we sent ourselves some books that we thought we'd like to have during our time here. Other missionaries had recommended that we could use a little-known service from the post office called M-bags. Basically the idea is that your books are going to take a long time to get there, but it's much cheaper than any other shipping option. So we tried it- other people (mostly in other countries) had said that it works great- it may be 4 or 5 months, but your books will be delivered right to your door.

We got a letter last week saying that we had a package (which we assumed was our books)waiting for us at the central post office in Guatemala City. That in itself doesn't sound terribly inconvenient, but let me explain. In order to claim our package, they require that we bring the original letter that they sent us and our passports.

The letter they sent us was dated Oct. 27, and we didn't receive it in until Nov. 12. The inexplicable part of this is that it was sent Oct. 27 from the central post office in Guatemala city, and it took 17 days to make it to our PO box, which is in the same post office! On top of that, the letter states that we only had 10 days from when it was sent to pick up our package.

Since the day we received the letter was already past the deadline, we figured we'd better act quickly. So we had to take the day off from school today, arrange transportation into the city, then accomplish the following:

1. Drive from Antigua to the children's home to get the original letter from the post office. This usually takes about 45 minutes, but today there was a wreck with a truck carrying vegetable oil, so it took about 2 hours. The good thing (for some) was that quite a few local people made off with some free vegetable oil before the police arrived.
2. Drive from the children's home in Villa Nueva to a lawyer's office in Zone 10 of Guatemala City to pick up our passports, which we didn't have because our visas are in the process of being approved.
3. Drive from Zone 10 of Guatemala City to the post office in Zone 1 to pick up our packages. We arrived and they found our books, and then told us we needed to pay the import tax of Q93 (or about $12), but we couldn't pay at the post office- we needed to leave there and go pay at a bank. (My Spanish teacher explained that this is to keep the postal workers from stealing the money).
4. Leave the post office and go to the bank to pay the tax. Unfortunately there was a line of about 50 people and only a few workers, so I had to wait about 45 minutes to pay my $12.
5. Return to the post office- which, thankfully, was still open- and stand in line to show one of the workers our receipt, proving that we had paid the tax. She then told us we had to stand in line and give a copy of the receipt to the person standing right next to her.
6. Stand in line for him, sign a paper, then he told us we needed to stand in line for the lady we had just talked with (still standing about two feet from him) , who would then give us our books.

The worst part about all of this is that we sent two M-bags, and they only had one ready for us today- which means we'll get to do it all over again sometime soon!

Another Interesting Day in Antigua!

Yesterday, we witnessed a strange and very funny event in Antigua. It was the fifth annual Meta race. This race consisted of waiters and waitresses from various restaurants in Antigua and surrounding cities. Each person was dressed in their serving attire and carried a tray with four bottles -- water, beer, soda, and Gatorade. The object was to be the first person to complete the 2 km course through the rocky city streets without any of the bottles falling over. The winner received approximately $300, so the participants took the race very seriously.

The Gallo beer company handed out flags to the bystanders, a Guatemalan flag and a Gallo beer flag. My teacher, Pedro, is pictured left with his flags in his pocket. I enjoyed joining in the others as we waved our flags and cheered on the participants. I especially thought the man pictured on the right needed a lot of encouragement. The uniforms were unfair because some waiters wore jeans, t-shirts and tennis shoes. This man, however, was from a Chinese restaurant in Antigua. He was wearing a wool jacket, hat and clog-like sandals! It was a hot day and those shoes were not very good on rocky streets. He came in last place.

Two separate races were held. First the women competed. Most of them were only speed-walking, so, it was funny but not too exciting. Next, the men lined up for their race (pictured left). They were very serious and ran from the start. One guy was extremely disappointed as he withdrew himself from the race after his Gatorade bottle fell over. I admired his honesty, since I witnessed several others quickly stand back up a bottle that had fallen over on their tray.

Lake Atitlan

Ever since we started telling people that we were going to come to Guatemala, people who had been here before (i.e. Phil Holeman)kept telling us that while in the country we need to visit Lake Atitlan. The opportunity came, and so we took it. It really is a beautiful place, and I'll echo everyone else- if you ever come to Guatemala, visit Lake Atitlan.

We had a great time, although the trip didn't get off to the best of starts. We left after classes on Friday, and we took a tourism bus. The bus was late, I had to brush a previous passenger's snack crumbs off of my seat, and the driver had a terrible cough. Unfortunately we were sitting right behind him. (Kara is home sick today, and whether it's actually related to him or not, we're blaming the driver.) The bus was supposed to take us to our hotel, but when we arrived in the town of Panajachel, the driver stopped in front of his company's office and told us that we were on the main street-pictured left-, and dropped all of us off. It was a bit intimidating, since we had no idea where to go. But I figured downhill was toward water, so we walked downhill and fortunately came right to our hotel. (I could probably get hired for all sorts of adventurous jobs with that kind of outdoor skill.)

In addition, Friday was foggy/rainy, so when we walked down to the lake we couldn't tell what all the fuss about this place had been about- because all that we could see was water. And to top it all off, neither of us could sleep very well because our bed in the hotel consisted of a 4" mattress on top of solid wood.

Thankfully, Saturday and Sunday were different stories. The weather cleared up, and we could see why they advertise Atitlan as being one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. We took a boat tour (just the two of us for about $15), and got to see the lake and take a lot of pictures. If you'd like to see more of the pictures we took, click here.

More Pictures of Day of the Dead

A family decorating a grave.
A monument stating "in memory of the children who were not born; innocent victims of abortion."
An open grave in the wall.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of these two things. On the right is the morgue. It was a small room with a gap between the doors and a chain lock. Outside was this rolling table which is missing a wheel.

In Guatemala, bodies of the deceased are not embalmed, so a person is usually buried within 24 hours of death. Typically, when a person dies, they are layed out that evening in the family's home. Friends and family members come to grieve the loss and show respect -- at times hundreds of people cram into the person's home and the crowd flows out into the street. There is a service the next day and then the casket is carried by friends or family members to the cemetery. Usually, a band of musicians accompanies the funeral procession.

Day of the Dead

Yesterday was the Day of the Dead in Guatemala. It is a national holiday to remember those who have passed away. There are several Guatemalan traditions on this day. First, families go the cemetery to decorate the graves of their loved ones with a fresh coat of paint, flowers, little mementos, etc. Second, children make large and elaborate kites to fly in the cemetery. I think that this has something to do with representing the spirits of the deceased. Finally, families gather together to eat a meal of fiambre (pictured below). This meal is only served on November 1st. It is a dish that seems to be a mixture of everything -- all kinds of vegetables, sardines, cow tongue, several kinds of sausage, ham, fish, etc. Everything is soaked in vinegar and then served cold. I had a few bites... interesting, not too bad, but I certainly didn't ask for seconds!

Daniel and I were curious about the activities at the cemetery so we went to the main cemetery in Antigua around 10 am. We were amazed by how many people were there. It was a strange scene because outside the front gate, vendors had set up booths and were selling things like flowers, food, bubbles, kites, toys, and ice cream. There was loud funeral music playing in the streets but it seemed to be a happy atmosphere within the cemetery as families worked together to decorate the graves.

The more wealthy members of the community have very large, elaborate graves (mausoleums) where all of the family members are buried together. Poorer members of the community are buried in a wall. No one is buried in the ground. I was discussing this with my teacher today and he shivered at the thought of being placed in the ground. He thought that was so strange.


Flowers decorating the graves in the wall. The wall on the right is only for children.

One of the many elaborate mausoleums.

I Love Hot Water!

Most Guatemalans shower in cold water and do not have hot water in their homes. One of the "house mothers" at the children's home said that she does not feel clean unless she takes a shower in really cold water. Yikes! I tried to fit in by showering in cold water... once!... but I just can't handle that; it takes my breath away. Thankfully, our host family does have hot water. There is a neat little device in the shower that heats the water right there. This device does have a few downfalls -- the water temperature is unpredictable and often scalding hot and it is a little scary to look up and see all of the exposed electrical wires right above you as you are standing in water, but at least it works!

The sink does not have hot water. This is not a problem except for when I want to wash my face at night. Cold water just doesn't seem to work as well for removing makeup. So... I stand on the toilet and wash my face with the water from the shower (as shown below -- just in case anyone is curious). November officially begins the dry season in Guatemala. It is nice that it will no longer rain every day, but it also means occasional water shortages. These have already begun. The water is turned off with no warning and no one knows how long it will stay off. It has been happening in the afternoons. However, the other night Daniel was in the shower, covered in soap and the water stopped. It was out for the rest of the night. I couldn't help but laugh because of the irony of the situation. Of course, I wasn't the one covered in soap though! Daniel was much less thrilled.