Antigua R and R

Today we have some debrief and rest and relaxation time in Antigua. It is clean there is fun music all around and Joel is becoming quite and expert at bargaining at the market while Rachel and Christopher translate. Alayne is staying at the hotel with Pierce who is in bed with a stomach ache. I guess that is why they put the "rest" in R And R. Here are some pictures from our hotel room of Antigua.

Adios San Pedro! Hola Antigua!

Saturday morning groups of people went out to see and bless all of the homes that were being built this week. Joel, Rachel, and Pierce went out with one of the teams. Alayne, Minzi, and Christopher stayed back. Christopher had a rough night Friday. The house blessings were very moving. The families were there that were receiving the houses were there also. We ate lunch at our hotel. Then the teamwork began... Everyone spread out along the walkway to the hotel and we passed all of our bags out to the street. We had two vehicles take the bags to the dock. Then we spread out along the dock and loaded all of the bags onto a large boat. We all boarded the boat to ride across Lake Atitlan to Panajachel. There, all of the bags were loaded off of the boat and onto two busses. We rode to Antigua and arrived about 7:00. We again formed a chain and loaded all of our bags into our hotel for the next two nights. Dinner was at a great restaurant with some fun music. They asked us not to take pictures at the house blessings. But we did get a great family picture.

San Pablo today

Well, I am not sure what to say about today. This was definitely the most impoverished city that we went to. The homes were cement or corn stalk walls with tin roofs. The school classrooms were cement blocks with no real doors or windows. Education was not the first priority in this town of mostly agriculture. We did our children's show in a big gym-like room in the morning and out in the street in the afternoon. Pray for this town, all we could feel was hopelessness. They do not have a real dock, so people don't come here unless they have a purpose. It was tough, tough on the kids and all of the teams today. This was our final day of ministry. Tomorrow we do house dedications, and travel to Antigua for R and R. Here are some pictures from today.

Fourth day of ministry...

Today we stayed in San Pedro where our hotel is. Which meant no boat rides across the lake. Alayne was happy, some of the afternoon rides back have included white knuckles! We walked the streets of the town as we went to our schools. The kids did well today even though they were in the sun for the first performance and in a room with not a lot of ventilation for the second one. It is hot, the kids are wilting, but when other kids come to play, they are able to play in a second! We have each had our moments of selfishness and worked through it. God has given us strength and words to help the kids. Here are some pictures from today and yesterday in San Lucas

A special day

Today was a big day. It represents the twelfth anniversary of the day we became parents! Or, as someone else in particular may see it, today, Feb 22, is Pierce's birthday! So even when we have been working hard to make a difference in the lives of people we visit we still are able to take a moment to celebrate the gift we've been given. The hotel w are straying at does not have an oven and pans capable of making a cake, the owner was good enough to go into town and buy one from the bakery (one of our cultural lessons, things aren't always planned, but just seem to happen in Guatemala), and after dinner a round of "Happy Birthday" was sung to Pierce by sixty or so people.

All evening I thought about how with all we are doing that each day should easily have at least one takeaway, but it seems muy dificil to appropriately summarize each day, and by the time we are able to find time at the end of the day to write we are very tired, making the task even harder. Each day we are confronted with the dichotomy of working all day in very poor towns only to return to a comfortable hotel, good food, and fellowship. The relative inexpense of the accommodations show the comparative financial wealth of our own lifestyle follows us wherever we go. But yet we still travel far from home and ask for your support and prayer all in obedience to a belief that we are to not be satisfied with the status quo of whatever life we have and yearn to share the good news that you are loved regardless of wealth, country, culture, race, ability, or whatever tag you find appropriate. Our hope is to radiate this love as a reflection of a creator who has made us in His image.

So maybe that's the lesson for the day. We do not deny where we come from while living on this earth, but moreso we cannot deny the more we turn our eyes to God that, as the Biblical writings tell us, he will give us the desires of our heart. No matter where we live or where we travel we are given the gift that we can both show God's love as an overflow of the fullness of our being while at the same time celebrate the blessing He has given us. He gave his son for us to be redeemed from our selfish choices, and he gave us our own son to care for to teach us to understand unconditional love. Both which exist to glorify Him.

Happy Birthday Pierce - our prayer for you is that you radiate the joy in your heart and grow to mature into a man who remembers this love and exists to bring your love to the next generation.

Cool!

Today we went on a boat over to Santiago. We went to two different schools and had lunch at one of the churches that we are working with in between. The kids are doing well. They put on a show at every school with Louis, a full time missionary and clown from Guatemala and his 21 year old son, Emanuel, who is also a clown and studying to be a doctor. The kids are loving all of the kids from Guatemala, being able to play with them soccer, basketball, or just generally running around, and telling them about Jesus. The one thing that blew me away today was how willing the public schools are to let in a presentation about Jesus. How cool is that!!

Kids are kids

How to describe our day... Everyone who is familiar with central American cultures keeps taking about being flexible and we need to just make things work with what you are given. We were given a warning that the first day getting nine teams and sixty people off to six different villages around the lake may be a bit chaotic. Apparently that involves Joel being left at the dock by his team, then taking a boat that went to a different village than where I was supposed to go. But God works for the best, and as He says he will give you the desires of your heart I ended up in the same place as Alayne and the children's ministry. So even though I managed to avoid getting in front of the groups of kids and dancing and singing it was a wonderful experience seeing our kids flourish in front of a bunch of Guatemalan kids, speaking Spanish, making them smile, making balloon animals, and just showing them they are loved.

I have to classify the best moment not the presentations for the kids, but after the morning group we had some down time when an empty water bottle turned into a soccer ball and suddenly a handful of neighborhood kids appeared. It was a great example of no inhibitions, kids just being kids, and cultural differences melting away. A soccer ball appeared from somewhere and someone from the church decided it probably wasn't a good idea to play soccer in the sanctuary (which really more resembled a gym for our kids). The back alleyway with hanging clothes and pots cooking lunch didn't quite seem enticing to the young players when one of the local dads appeared and said he would show us a much better soccer field. We walked as few blocks through alleyways that would make our inner city look nice and ended up in a large bright (dirt) soccer field. The kids fun promptly continued until everyone was to hot to continue (it was siesta time, after all) and conveniently there was a tienda (store) with ice cream right there. In the end the kids saw how most locals live, and were a beautiful example of loving your neighbor, regardless of looks, language, or geography. They truly showed the love of God and the pureness that shows how we are meant to be.

Quick side note: the local pastor we worked with asked Alayne: why is your kids Spanish so good? What a great compliment!

Prep Day

We drove to panajachel this morning after breakfast. We took a ferry boat across Lake Atitlan to get to San Pedro La Laguna. Our morning ride was very interesting, different scenery, beautiful, lots of agriculture. Sunday is market day, so we saw lots of people walking around the streets. Our bus turned sharp corners, to get up and down the mountain roads. Once we got on the ferry boat, we enjoyed the sunny warm weather!! It was windy, and ride was about an hour. Then, we arrived at a small dock and could see our hotel from the water. Everyone says the water is very high here and you can see some buildings are under water. We had lunch, unpacked, and met in our ministry teams to prepare for the week until dinner. Here are some pictures from today.

Our hotel

Here's the courtyard of our hotel. A pool, aviary, good food, but no hot water in the rooms!

We're in the hot culture

Well we made through travel day, and we're in Guatemala! Overall, travel went well with only a few hours delayed through customs when seemed to not like something in our documentation, an then suddenly they said: fine, just take your stuff and go. And off we went.

We traveled part way to our destination before dark and stayed at a nice, although very different than U.S. "nice", hotel. But it's a beautiful spanish building, and this is the first hotel we've been at that has an aviary with several macaws (or something like that) that are brilliant shades of red and green.

Today we're off across the lake for a final day of prep and organization before heading out to the local churches we're supporting tomorrow. We keep bein reminded to leave our scedule-driven culture behind as we prepare to serve in this "event-driven" one. Things start when they start, and end when they end!

Last Day Before Travel

One more day to go, and our bedroom is an explosion of clothes, bags, and stuff we're bringing!  We often think that most of the people going on this trip are going by themselves, and have only one person to pack for.  Multiply that by six and it becomes an endurance event to make sure 9 days of clothes are actually all clean (and still have something to wear for the last day or two of this week).  We are very ready to be done with planning and get this adventure underway.  We both have things pretty much wrapped up at work, have some homework for the kids to take along, and have checked, re-checked, and revised our packing list.  We're ready to go!

One big thing we would love prayer for is family health.  It will be a full-time task to make sure the kids remember to not eat or drink something that will make them sick.  In addition, Pierce is trying to get over a cold/virus this week and Rachel is starting the same cough he just had.  Not what you want the day before leaving!  We know this trip is well established, and maybe even somewhat of a cushy trip as far as mission trips go, but we still have four young kids to look out for in an environment they have never been in.

Other than that, we are ready and excited to go!  We are told there is WiFi at the hotel we are staying and are planning on giving updates as the days progress.  Stay tuned!

There is also a group blog they are planning on updating with each day's activity:
http://dailychickenbus.blogspot.com/

Six days!

We are starting to pack our things. Clothes for warmer weather, check, flip flops!! Check, medicines in case anyone gets sick, check...... The kids are excited, we have been listening to some of the Spanish songs that the kids will be singing, of course they have picked them up quickly. We have now perfected how to make a heart and giraffe from a balloon! The kids are memorizing their favorite bible verse in Spanish. Alayne is trying to learn how to be organized and flexible at the same time for a family of six! Joel is running whatever errands need to be run and keeping sanity amongst the rest of us. Cody, the dog, has no idea that he is going to the kennel and can't figure out why no one will play ball with him!


Our flight leaves at 5:00am Saturday morning, we have to be at church at 3:00 to get on the bus. We are dropping off all of our checked luggage Friday night, so we don't have to deal with it Sat morning.

We are planning to keep updates coming. Our hotel does have wifi, so we will see how that goes! If you look at a map, we will be staying in San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala.

Thank you all for your support and prayers. We are excited and know that none of this can happen without God.

Alayne, Joel, Pierce, Christopher, Rachel, and Minzi

What can we offer?

So, we have many years of college studying engineering, seventeen more learning even more in practice, twelve years of parenting, fifteen years learning how to be married, and many volunteer leadership roles across a wide range of places. So how can we use these experiences in rural Guatemala, with people who may not speak English? And we don't speak Spanish? (although the kids do!). Well, that is one of our biggest growth and learning experiences so far.

We have lots of practice designing, fixing, leading, and generally getting things done. Now we are faced with a new challenge: a region, culture, and circumstances where "get 'er done" is much less important than "how are you doing?". For all the "love your neighbor" Bible studies have we discussed academically, it's now time to stretch the comfort of our habits and take action on what we say is the most important aspect of live: people. This trip isn't about telling those that we meet the great things we've learned, but using the wisdom from our experience, letting others tell us what they need, and simply being there to help make someone else successful in the efforts they already are working on.

Our job in Guatemala is to meet with several churches there and help make them successful. It's not about how we can change what they are doing, as if we know better what their own people need. It's about us taking the time to understand them and step in to lift them up in their efforts, provide encouragement, and show them that love can cross cultural and social boundaries just because that's what God wants us to do. He made us in His image, an image of love. And that's the best we have to offer!

We are starting the countdown!

We have now realized that we are leaving two weeks from today!! Our family has been assigned teams and we are preparing for what we will do on those teams. Joel is on a computer team that will be setting up a computer lab at one of the churches. The laptops are being configured this morning, and will be brought down in carry-on luggage by some of the adults on the team. Alayne and the kids will be working with a children's team that will be putting on a little show for the local schools and playing with the kids there. We are also preparing for this. The kids will have the chance to give their testimony (in Spanish) in front of the Guatemalan school kids, as well as recite their favorite verse, in Spanish. The pastor who is organizing this team is a professional clown, so we are learning how to make balloon animals!! Our dog has not been happy about the balloon experiments!! As we are getting close, here are some specific prayer requests for our family:

Joel and Alayne

To not be so caught up in the details that we miss what God wants to teach us

For smooth preparations

For both of our jobs to not be too demanding so we can get everything done before we go

For our funding

The kids

To open their hearts to this n experience

To be helpful in getting their part of things done these next two weeks.

Thank you for you support. We appreciate and love all of you!