real post

Friday January 29:
Friday was the day that we left Costa Rica. Getting through the airports was no problem. We had a direct flight from San Jose, Costa Rica to Guatemala City, Guatemala. There was one big surprise that day. When we got our tickets, we were all shocked to see that we were towards the front of the flight. None of us had ever sat in a seat that is located in front of the wings before. When it was time for the flight, we realized that we were sitting first class! We were given free food and drinks before the flight even took off. We had a huge chair with tons of leg room, and our own private t.v. and headphones to watch movies or tv. Once we landed in Guatemala, we were met by a missionary who took us out to eat. That afternoon, we met up with the rest of the students from Bethel, and went to SEMILLA, the seminary in Guatemala City where we did our orientation for the trip.

Saturday January 30:
Saturday we continued orientation. We went out into the town for a while and toured a national government building. Then we went to a massive Catholic church. It was incredibly beautiful inside. However, after we left, I had an interesting experience. There were two beggars sitting at the gate to get into the church. Everyone in our group walked past and either tried to look involved in a conversation or look at the ground. The irony of it caught up to me as I myself was walking through the gate. Here came a group of 20 (Christian) kids walking out of a church, but we walk right past the beggars near the gate. I by no means am of the opinion that we are obligated by our faith to give monetary handouts to all who are poor, but I couldn't get this question out of my head: If Jesus had been along with our group that day, where would he have spent his time? In the church with the “pharisees”, or outside with the “least of these”? Guatemala is a blast, but there is no shortage of tough questions to ask oneself here.

Sunday January 31:
This was one of the hardest days I'd experienced in a long time. We went in the morning to one of Guatemala's national cemeteries. It was an incredible example of the juxtaposition of the poor and rich that exists in Guatemala. We saw tombs for people that were the size of a small house, while others' caskets were put into large structures about 20 feet high and 150 feel long. They were basically all stacked on each other in these segmented compartmented buildings; but this was only the beginning of the challenges of the day. From the cemetery, we walked to the Guatemala City dump. As soon as we got close to the top of the hill, we could tell we were close by the hundreds of vultures sitting around. When we crested the hill, we saw a large “quarry” dug through a valley, which was the dump. We could see the few dozen people that make their living by picking through the trash each day looking for things to recycle for money. A while ago, the government decided to charge an entrance fee each day to these people because they were obviously able to support themselves by going through the trash. This experience was unbelievable, but it wouldn't have been quite as impacting if it wouldn't have been for the next activity. We went to a middle-of-the-road mall in Guatemala City. It was gorgeous, and in the neighborhood of a nicer mall in the states. Everything was extremely expensive, and plenty of people were happily shopping there (Guatemalans as well as tourists). The rest of the day, I was stuck trying to process going from one end of the spectrum to the other with nothing but a quick ride in a van. Like I said, tough questions. Perhaps the toughest of those is trying to understand the role that U.S. Has had in the terrible turmoil that has dominated Guatemala over the last 4 decades.

Onto lighter topics, Sunday we also moved to Magdalena. Magdalena is the name of the town in which we will be doing our service projects. We stayed with a host family for the week we were there. Our family was composed of: Carlos (father), Therma (mother), Caterina (15 year old daughter), and Pabel (13 year old son). We had orientation that night with our ministry site leader. I worked in the Agriculture site with Mario. More on that to come!

Basic structure of the next 5 days:
6:00 AM -----wake up
6:30 AM------breakfast
8:00 AM------Meet at Mario's house for prayer
8:30 AM------start day of work
1:00 PM------lunch break
3:00 PM------finish working for day
6:30 PM------Supper at Cafecito
8:00 PM------return home
8:30-11:00------hang out with family, bed time

Monday February 1:
Monday was our first official day of working in the ministry sites. Mario told me that our basic mission was to serve people through whatever way we could, be it basic veterinarian services, or building them a chicken coop. I may have lived in Iowa my whole life, but I know nothing about agriculture, animals, farming, or construction! We started work at 8:30 that morning, and by 8:35, I had filled 4 syringes and given a piglet two shots. The rest of the day, we gave a total of over 30 animals upwards of 80 injections. As if that wasn't enough for new experiences for one day, While were in the middle of giving shots, I heard the spanish word “castrar”. If you can't figure that out, the noun form of that Spanish verb is “castración”. If you're still having problems, I caught on that we also had to castrate a bull that day. Now having been friends with farmers, I knew this happened, but I think the third world has it's very own, distinct, and rather troubling method. I want so badly to tell you all about it, but for the sake of those who don't want to hear, I will spare the details. However, if anyone wants to hear a ridiculous story sometime about 3rd world agriculture, just ask! Best way to describe it would be it was scary, fascinating, disgusting, intriguing, horrible, awesome, repulsive, intense, and captivating.
I was tired by the end of the day! That night for supper, the whole group went to a little restaurant called “Cafecito”. It was great to hear everyone's stories from their different ministry sites. Some are working in hospitals, others in schools, some in social work, and others in microfinances.

Tuesday February 2 through Thursday February 4:
Mario and I went to Antigua (a 30 minute drive from Magdalena, but straight down a mountain) to buy supplies for the chicken coop we were going to build. Once we returned to Magdalena, we began building the chicken coop from the designs that Mario made himself. It was built with wood, chicken wire, re-bar, and aluminum. It was a fascinating project that dominated most of the next 3 days. Each day, the family (Rut and Roberto) gave us lunch, which was delicious! Unfortunately, I did get sick from something they gave us to drink, but it cleared up after a few days. During day 2 of working with them, I was able to share a bit of my testimony with the family. Mario, who is also a pastor, had been talking to Roberto for some time. I had the privilege to be there when Mario prayed over Rut and Roberto as Roberto re-dedicated his life to Christ. It was a great experience.

Tuesday afternoon, we came as a group to Antigua so we could have a class. The professor is from Bethel, but he is teaching our class (in English) over the internet using Skype. The class is fascinating, but does include a lot of homework.

Wednesday afternoon was nothing special. It was a little time to rest and relax, so we as a group learned a few new card games before heading out for supper. Wednesday night, we got to watch a little bit of a soccer game, and I enjoyed some relatively deep conversations with my friends from the trip. A deep conversation is always good!

Thursday afternoon we watched a documentary for one of our classes. It was fun to hear more new information about the culture we're living in. After the documentary, we as a group had a time just to sit together and process some of the deeper questions we had. A lot of it had to do with one of two things. The poverty in Guatemala is truly surprising. Despite the poverty, there is a strong hospitality that dominates the culture. The other question many people had was what can we do as students who are white Americans and (historically) have had a lot to do with the social and economic situations that exist here? Many wrestle with this still, and it's interesting to hear everyone work through it in their own way.

Friday Feb 5:
Alas, the day came. I felt like the Chariots of Fire song should be have been playing as we walked (in slow motion) down the hill to our days work. Friday, Mario and I castrated 8 bulls. Again, there are so many stories that could be told, but I will just save those for people either when I get back home, or you can e-mail me. Friday afternoon and night we had off to hang out with friends and our families.

Saturday Feb 6:
We climbed a mountain Saturday morning. It was a great climb. The landscape on the way up was gorgeous. Unfortunately, it was quite cloudy up top, but that didn't dampen our mood. The 18 of us ran around, looked at all the homemade, handcrafted benches, chairs, and recliners that people had made from trees. Saturday afternoon, we had to ourselves to catch up on homework, see our families, or take a nap.

Sunday Feb 7:
We went to Mario's church. It was a 2 ½ hour service with about 1 ½ hours of singing and a 1 hour sermon. It was interesting, but it sure is tiring to try to pay attention that long to a second language. Sunday afternoon, we came to Antigua, met our new host families, and went to the home of the director of Students International (the company that is in charge of our service project sites, and is still involved in our activities as we take class).

Conclusion:
This blog in no sense does justice to last weeks activities, but it is already quite long and I am out of time to keep writing. We have a curfew in Antigua because of safety issues, and I don't want to wait another day to post. Sorry for the journal-style writing instead of the normal. Hopefully this weekend I'll have time to give a more entertaining account of this past week, and put up some more pictures! Keep praying, and check yesterday's post for ideas of requests. Blessings!