Leaning

The night before we left to return to the children’s home for Christmas, our host family gave us a gift. Sandra (the mother in the family) prefaced the gift by saying that she knew it was a bit strange, but that it had special significance. Then she handed us this cane, pictured below. She explained that she bought it from a man in his 80’s who lives several miles outside of town. He goes up into the mountains looking for pieces of wood that will make good canes, then sands them down and comes into Antigua walking the streets, trying to sell them for 15 quetzales (or about $2) each. I’m pretty sure this guy doesn’t have any power sanders at his disposal, so the amount of work represented in each $2 cane is pretty significant- especially for a man in his 80’s. We happened to see him in town while Kara’s parents were here and got this picture of him.

Sandra explained to us that she wanted the cane to remind us of Moses, and the staff that God gave him as assurance that he would not be alone in leading the Israelites out of Egypt. She said that she wanted us to have the cane so that when rough times come along, we can remember to depend on the Lord in the same way as Moses.

For us the cane was a powerful symbol of why the Lord has brought us here. As we’ve written about before, one of our big motivations in coming was to learn to live more dependently on the Lord. Since receiving the gift, I have been thinking a lot about the image of leaning on the Lord and depending on Him to hold us up. We want to lean on Him more and more in how we live and minister every day among these kids, so much so that we can experience life and ministry as God’s friends, like Moses did.

Muchas gracias to the Oviedo-Soto family and an old Guatemalan from the mountains for a tangible reminder of why we’re here.

Security or Scary?

My sister told me that she was tired of seeing the gross hotdog picture and wanted me to put something new on the blog. There is not too much blog-worthy happening right now... just the normal routine of school and black beans.

I did find this picture of soldiers that I took a few months ago. I think that the slogan for Guatemala should be "we love fireworks and guns!" Everywhere you look, there are guards with guns -- the central park, pharmacies, banks, most commercial trucks (even the ice cream truck!). In McDonald's, a guard with a big gun, stands right next to Ronald McDonald... possibly his bodyguard?

The soldiers (pictured above) are part of a big group that patrol the streets. They are more intimidating to me than the other guards because they always have their finger on the trigger. It seems like they are just looking for a reason to shoot. I will say that they were very nice and friendly when I asked if I could take a picture of them. I am glad that question didn't provide them with a good reason to shoot!

An Interesting Lunch

For the most part, the food in Guatemala is pretty good. However... this meal, pictured above, deserves a blog post. It is a tortilla, spread with guacamole, and then topped with a hotdog, lettuce, mayonnaise and ketchup. That is a list of things that I think just shouldn't go together! To make matters worse, I was served two of them. I thought maybe they would taste better than they looked... I was wrong.

Getting What We Came For

One of the main reasons that Kara and I decided to come to Guatemala was the sense that we needed to learn to live differently. Our lives could easily have continued as they were before coming here, and it would have been a good way to live, but we both had the feeling that if we took the opportunity to come here we would learn to live more dependently on the Lord. That was something we couldn’t pass up.

After our first five months here, I think that goal is being accomplished in us so far. We are learning to live differently- not just by learning that it really is possible to survive by eating black beans for dinner every night- but also, like we wanted, learning to live in a lifestyle that is more dependent on the Lord than what we had been used to. I pray that as we continue here, we will allow God to complete what He has started in us- learning to live in a way where we are constantly drawing our lives from Him.

Since our time in language school is winding down (18 weeks down, 4 to go!), and we’ll soon be working at NLCH full-time, another goal has been floating around more consistently in my mind: now that we’ve begun the process of learning to live differently, once we’re at the children’s home, how can we also learn to minister differently? How can all of these lessons of living more dependently on the Lord translate into a different way of ministering, where we rely much more on His grace and much less on our own abilities?

I’m sure that the answer to this will be something that continues to unfold throughout our time here, but I think I may have stumbled upon at least the very beginning of it. After having been involved in the church my whole life and having been around Godly people to whom prayer is an essential part of life and ministry, I’ve always known that there has to be a connection between prayer and ministry that is of inestimable value.

I’ve usually gone into ministry with the idea that the things that we do for people absolutely must be done on “a foundation of prayer,” or be “covered in prayer,” as we often say. In other words, we have all of these things that we do for people- helping the poor, worship services, Bible studies, etc.- and these things are the ministries that have to be based on, supported by, and enabled by prayer.

But I’m starting to think maybe I was wrong... or at least a little off. What if it’s the other way around? What if prayer is the real ministry and all of the activities are the supporting and enabling forces? What if my main task here in seeking to minister to these kids is to pray, and all of the things we do together are simply to be done to support what is being accomplished through prayer?

If I can start to think more along these lines, I’m sure that I will in fact learn to minister differently. It seems like it could lead to a way of ministry with a lot less pressure on me. How in the world am I supposed to come up with things that will help a group of orphans in Guatemala connect with God? I can’t- at least not very effectively. But, if prayer is my ministry rather than the activities, I can pray. Then I can act- doing things with the kids that will support what’s happening through the real ministry of prayer. This way, thankfully, the results aren’t up to me, but are in the much abler hands of God.

The Things that Entertain Little Boys

My dad took this video of some of the boys playing with their bikes in a creative way. I love little Josue's laugh. You can't help but laugh yourself when you hear it.

Similarities

I have noticed that some of the children here peel off the outside edge of their tortillas. I first saw this at our host family's house in Antigua and then later at the children's home, too. I asked Kevin (pictured above) why he does that and he said it was because the outside is hard. I thought that was funny because I can't tell any difference in the consistency. I guess it is just a universal things for kids to want to tear off the outside -- like American kids do with sandwich bread.

Our Fifth Month

Our fifth month was a full one. We have just returned to Antigua from having three weeks at NLCH during the holidays. Thankfully, we came back to our original host family and we are also able to continue with the same Spanish teachers we had before leaving. That was quite a relief.

Looking back over the last month, we had our biggest block of time so far at the children's home, and we continue to be excited (and a little intimidated) about our ministry there. It still seems like it is going to be a challenge to connect with some of the youth at the home, but maybe not quite as much of a challenge as we thought before. During the week at NLCH that we had planned on being in Costa Rica, we had the opportunity to go to the Bible study that Kendon (our boss) does with the older kids. It was encouraging to see them in that setting and get to think about some of the things that we will get to do with them.

Being at the home for almost three weeks this month has made us love this place even more. We don't know exactly how the Lord is going to use us, but we feel overwhelmingly thankful to be a part of God's work here for a while.

An Extra Week at NLCH

Obviously since we had been planning on being in Costa Rica this week, we didn't have much of anything planned to do while we've been back here instead. Of course, it's never difficult to find things to do here. This week has been really nice because it's been a mix of helping out around the office, spending time with the kids, and also relaxing.

We were thankful to get the chance to know some of our fellow New Life missionaries much better this week, Tony and Carrie Taylor. They live in the town of Chichicastenango, where they are involved in a ministry that trains pastors. It was very interesting to hear Tony talk about some of the challenges they face, including the differences in education among the pastors with whom they work. Some are fairly well educated, while many others can barely read or write. In addition, since the area where they live is an almost completely indigenous population, many of the pastors' first language is a local dialect rather than Spanish. Their work seems very challenging, but they love being here and being involved in this kind of ministry.

Another highlight of the week has been that after dinner, I've started to get into a habit of playing basketball with the younger boys. I'm not real sure if I should call it basketball or find another name for it, since none of the rules of basketball seem to apply other than trying to make a basket. There are no out of bounds, no travelling or double dribbling, and certainly no fouls. But they enjoy it, and since I'm 3 feet taller than any of them, I have a pretty distinct advantage.

When we played the first night, Giovani kept trying and trying to make a basket and never did, so I figured I could give him an advantage. Sitting on my shoulders, he's more than 4 feet above every one else- and proud of it. He does get quite a few more shot opportunities when he's about 8 feet tall, but I'm sorry to say that his shooting percentage still isn't very good.

Hopefully it will get a little better tonight...

A Disappointing Day

Well... we are back at the children's home tonight. We left this morning at 2 am for the bus station in Guatemala City. At 3 am, we arrived at the station, the agent checked our passports and we boarded the bus and were off on the trip to Costa Rica.

Two hours later, we reached the boarder of El Salvador and had to show our passports to the border patrol. Let me preface this by stating that Daniel and my visas are in process right now. We received a stamp in our passports when we came to Guatemala in August and it was valid for 90 days. It expired in November but the lawyer for the children's home gave us a paper from the Migration Office saying that our visas were in process and she said that it would be fine for us to travel with that. I am sure that you can tell where this story is heading...

The Guatemalan agent looked at the paper from the Migration Office and told us that it was worthless and that we could not leave the country. Our director talked with him and finally he told us that we could go on through but that the agent in El Salvador would stop us. We proceeded about 15 feet by bus. We got our hopes up because we thought once we made it out of Guatemala, no other countries would care about our Guatemala stamp as long as our US passports were valid.

Unfortunately, while the agent seemed to only look at the front page of the passports for the other passengers, she looked at our stamps and said we couldn't be allowed to enter the country since our Guatemala stamps had expired. We showed her the papers from the Migration Office but she said the same thing as the first agent, that they were worthless and nothing could be done. We would have to return to Guatemala.

The bus driver told us that another bus would be coming by in an hour and we could ride it back to Guatemala City. It was a pretty sad moment when the bus driver handed us our luggage and we watched the rest of our group drive away on the bus. After only a few hours sleep and that big disappointment, I couldn't hold back my tears. I am sure we were a pretty pitiful sight, standing there holding our luggage looking confused and lost and me crying. A man selling food from a little stand came over and handed me two napkins.

We passed the hour in the migration tent on the side of the road surrounded by a group of rather shady men trying to talk us into changing our money with them to the local currency. It was an interesting experience. Finally, we boarded the bus back to Guatemala City. We were a little nervous when an El Salvador agent boarded the bus to inspect passports. We didn't recognize him but I guess we had become notorious because when he reached us, he said "bye" in English and waved at us.

We then stopped at the Guatemalan border and once again were a little nervous when we saw that it was now a different agent than the one that let us through the first time. I was afraid that we would get trapped in El Salvador and not be permitted to re-enter Guatemala. Fortunately, we when approached the desk, he said that their system was down and waved us through, not even looking at our passports.

We made it back to the bus station in Guatemala City without incident. While we are extremely disappointed and still a little sad, we trust that there is some reason that we were not supposed to go on this trip and thank God for His protection in getting us back safely to the children's home.

Please pray for the rest of the team as they continue on to the conference. We will spend this week at NLCH and return to language school next Sunday.

Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica... Here we come!

We leave NLCH at 2 a.m. tomorrow for our trip to a youth leadership conference in Costa Rica. It will be (at least) 14 hours on a Guatemalan Greyhound-type bus... through Honduras, spending the night in Managua, Nicaragua, and arriving on Sunday in Costa Rica.

The conference will be a mix of folks from Costa Rica, the U.S., and the 10 of us from NLCH in Guatemala. We're praying that it will be a time that the Lord can move in all of our hearts and also give us a chance to develop our relationships with the others from NLCH who will be on the trip.

We most likely won't have any internet access until we return late on Sunday the 14th, so the blog will be silent for a while, but please keep us and all at this conference in your prayers. We'll let you know all about it when we get back.

Don't Try This at Home

CIMG1126
Originally uploaded by dharris50.

The little guys wanted to play a new game with us last night, and we agreed before completely knowing what it was. They wanted to blindfold us and walk us around the property.

I went first, and as soon as started walking I knew I had to watch out for my head because only one of these boys even comes up to my belt. Fortunately I only ran into a few leaves before they realized my problem and then started telling me when to duck.

After I was done, it was Kara's turn. It's difficult, because not all of your guides are even leading you in the same direction... especially in Kara's case, little Josue kept tugging on the back of her jacket, as you can see in the picture. I was a little concerned when they eventually decided to take her up the stairs of the school building, but luckily they stopped after one floor and her turn was over.

My Parents' Visit

We apologize for not posting anything new on the blog in the past week but we were enjoying spending time with my parents. They arrived last Wednesday evening and left this morning. We had a wonderful week together! Before they came, I prayed fervently for safe travel, for all of their luggage to arrive, for good weather and health, and for them to enjoy their time here. It seems that all of my prayers were answered and they are already thinking about a return visit. Hooray!!

Last Wednesday, Daniel and I met my parents at the airport in Guatemala City and we all stayed at a downtown hotel that night since their flight arrived late in the evening. They arrived with four huge duffle bags and two smaller ones, most of which were crammed with all kinds of wonderful treats from home for us. It is amazing how exciting it can be to see American toothpaste, shampoo, and candy. The picture on the right shows us surrounded by all of the things that they brought. Wow!... I couldn't believe all of the things that they fit in those bags -- they even brought a large block of Velveeta cheese, cans of chicken and some delicious homemade cookies. I don't think that I will need to go to the store for the remainder of our two-year term here!

On Thursday, we made a quick trip by the children's home for them to drop off some of their extra luggage and then we went on to Antigua where we spent the next two nights. Daniel and I had a lot of fun showing them the city and the places we frequent the most there -- the language school, our host family's home, central park, the grocery store and of course McDonald's! We also made two trips to the local market, much to Daniel's displeasure. After Daniel and I came down with yet another round of parasites, my parents even took a third trip to the market by themselves. I was proud of their adventurous spirit and their attempts to communicate in Spanish. I was also glad that my parents did not get the parasites and that Daniel and I were near a lab so that we could be tested and treated very quickly. By Saturday, we were feeling much better so they (the parasites) didn't interfere too much with our visit.

Saturday afternoon we returned to the children's home and spent the next three days there. I was surprised when, upon seeing my dad for the first time, a group of the youngest boys immediately ran up to him and gave him big hugs. Then one of them called him Santa Claus and started patting his stomach. I guess they still had Christmas on their minds.

My parents got to spend a lot of time with the kids and even rode the school bus with them to church on Sunday morning. My dad impressed the kids with some juggling tricks at dinner one night (see picture on right). We rang in the new year playing games at our directors' home. At midnight, we watched from the top of the school building as fireworks exploded in every direction. Once again, it seemed as if every family in Guatemala was setting off fireworks at the same time. Both of my parents stated several times that they had never seen anything like that! That is exactly how I felt on Christmas Eve here.

On New Years' Day, my parents helped prepare turkey and rice for the kids. They then helped serve the meal and in the process my mom learned some new words in Spanish.... servieta (napkin) and postre (cake), which she had to repeat about 50 times as each of the children and the workers came through the serving line. The youngest kids quickly became attached to my parents and were oblivious to the fact that they didn't speak Spanish. They just enjoyed the attention, playing with my dad's glasses, and holding their hands.

Yesterday, we returned to Guatemala City and enjoyed walking around Zone 10 in the afternoon. Daniel and I experienced reverse culture shock as we ate at a T.J.I. Friday's and an Applebee's. It was just like being back in the States... except of course for the Spanish menus and conversations. We stayed in a hotel downtown since my parents needed to leave for the airport at 6 am this morning.

I just spoke with them and they (and their luggage) arrived back home safely. They were already showing pictures to my sister. I am feeling a little sad now that they are gone; I quickly became accustomed to seeing them every day during the past week! It is also sad because I most likely will not see them again until Daniel and I make a trip to the U.S. next fall. I am so thankful that they made the trip down here and that now they can know first-hand what we are experiencing here and the blessing that these children are to our lives.