Well, I have now been in Guatemala for just over 2 weeks. Things have been going quite well! Through this blog, I want to walk you through my normal schedule, talk about the groups we had here these past 2 weeks, share some stories from my ministry site, and say more about my host family. As always, I'll put prayer requests at the end! This will be a lengthy blog, so feel free to come back to it if it's too much at once!
Normal Schedule:
Groups tend to arrive in Magdalena on a Monday and stay for 12 days (leave Saturday). Our responsibilities don't begin until tuesday morning. We have most of their first day in Magdalena set up for orientation. Then, Wed-Fri of the first week and Mon-Fri of the second follows this schedule:
6:00 AM: Breakfast with host family
6:50 AM: Meet at church
7:00 AM: Worship Time
7:15 AM: Devotions (led by staff or summer staff)
7:45 AM: Quiet Time
8:15 AM: Corporate prayer and worship
8:30 AM: Prayer by Site
8:45 AM: Leave for site
2:30 PM: Begin to pack up from site and head back to Magdalena
3:00 PM: Free time (or staff meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays)
6:00 PM: Supper at Cafecito
7:00 PM: Time for teams to have additional bible studies, discussions, or games
8:30 PM: Time to talk with our host families
10:00 PM: Lights out
Saturday and Sunday are completely different:
Saturday we meet at church for devotions at 9:00AM
We hike up a mountain to an ecological park from 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Supper is at 6:00 followed by game time or a movie
Sunday we have church from 9-12:00 followed by lunch.
Teams then can go to Antigua from 1:00 until 8:00.
This weeks teams:
This week we were blessed to have 2 amazing teams. The first was a group of 18 people from all over Canada. They were bound together by all being members of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. The second group was an IVCF group from Sonoma University in California with 11 members. Both teams were made up of college students with exceptionally mature leaders. I can honestly say that I have never worked with a better group for this kind of trip. The maturity on these two teams was amazing. People were really ready to think through tough questions, seek God's presence outside of their normal comfort zone, and invest in the people they met.
I saw students form very close friendships with their host families (even when the students could hardly speak spanish). I saw people truly invest every ounce of energy they had in their ministry sties. Most importantly to me, these students were so incredibly invested in the bible studies we did each morning. They were thirsty for more of the Spirit, and searched intently for wisdom through Scriptures.
Carpentry Site:
As many of you know, I am spending this summer at a new site for SI Guatemala--the carpentry site. The site leader is Mario Jr Mendez (Marito=little mario). I have been assigned to work alongside Marito as he tries to launch this new site. The dream that Marito has is to eventually open a school for the poor children in the community who were not able to stay in school beyond 6th grade (the normal dropout age). At this point, the children are expected to pick up learning whatever their parents do. This means that boys learn farming or another trade and girls learn to do dishes, laundry, climb the mountain for firewood, and babysit. Marito's school would provide another alternative for kids who were not able to stay in school, but didn't want to fall in the same path of poverty that their families may have been in for generations.
At this point, we are still trying to prepare the shop, and dream up what the logistics and details of the shop would be. These past two weeks, we spent a considerable amount of time building a new workbench for the shop. The quality of tools and materials here is significantly lower than in the states, but we made do with what we had. I continue to learn more each day about carpentry, how to use different tools in the shop, and ideas about how we can teach kids to use them eventually.
To sum it up, my main roles during the work day are:
1) Encourage and work alongside Marito as he continues to bring his dream to reality.
2) Translate conversations, prayers, instructions, etc. both from Spanish to English, and English to Spanish.
3) Learn as much as I can about carpentry while I'm here
4) Continue to brainstorm ideas with Marito about ways we can bless the community around us through the work we are doing.
This week, we had the opportunity to work with 2 of the leaders from the Canada team--Tim and John. They were both a blast to work with. John majored in carpentry in his university and actually has a dream of doing a very similar project to what Marito is doing. John wants to start a carpentry shop outside a housing project in Canada to help teach a trade, pour into the community, and have a means of sharing his faith.
Clara:
As a team, we had the blessing to work with Clara and her family a few times this week. You will meet her in the pictures section below. Clara's family (uncle, 2 twin boys [4 years old] and 2 daughters) make a living by working with sweet peas. They have one of two jobs depending on the days. One is to break the head of the pod of peas, and pull the little string off the tail. The other is to take all the peas out of the pod. In an attempt to more fully understand solidarity, I asked Marito if we could work with Clara for an afternoon. The five of us (Tim, John, Marito, Clara, and I) sat down for about 50 minutes and snapped the head off the pea pod. As we worked, we talkded, shared about God, etc (Clara is a believer and had some very incredible stories of how God has worked in her life in the last few years). At one point, I asked Clara how much they make for the work they do. I was appalled to find out that they only get 25 quetzales for every 10 crates they go through. To put that into perspective, let me explain how much we made. The five of us worked for nearly an hour and all together, we earned roughly 28 cents (or about 5.5 cents a piece for an hour of work). This is the harsh reality that many Guatemalans--especially those in El Gorrion--live with. I will say more about the story of El Gorrion in the next blog.
Host Family:
I will say more about my family throughout the weeks since this blog is already quite lengthy. I will say this for now. This is by far the best family I have ever had the opportunity to live with. They are so willing to share and talk with us each and every night. They take great care of us. We eat breakfast with them every morning, and usually spend between 30 and 60 minutes talking with them every night. Their daughters are a blast. lately, we have had fun sharing magic tricks, talking about the legends of Guatemala, and sharing different parts of our faith traditions with each other (they are a Catholic family).
Pictures!
It is my goal to "introduce" you to each of the summer staff and all the full time staff via my blog over the summer. In this blog you will meet 1 summer staff (micah) and 3 full time staff (Mario, Jose, and Marito).
This is Micah Wilson, my roomate for the summer. He is working with Mario Mendez at the agriculture site. I worked with Mario at this site for 6 weeks in 2010. Micah is a 19 year old engineering major from Chico, California.
This pictures is of Sherri--one of the leaders of the Canadian group. She was a great leader. I found her to have an abundance of wisdom and an enjoyable personality.
This is the group from my site for the week. From left to right: Tim, John, Me, Marito. This day we did a "mosaic tiling" of Clara's stove. We mixed the cement, washed and broke the tiles, and designed it ourselves. Marito has been working with SI for 3 years. Until this month, he was at the "appropriate technology" site as an aid to Matt. Matt recently left Guatemala to return for his PHD in the states, so Marito started his own carpentry site.
This is Clara. The above picture is taken in her house. We spent a few days working there. Our projects included making some repairs to her stove, making her a shower rod/brackets in our shop, sharing our testimonies with her, and working with her family for a few hours (with peas).
Clara's family (uncle, 2 twin boys [4 years old] and 2 daughters) make a living by working with sweet peas. They have one of two jobs depending on the days. One is to break the head of the pod of peas, and pull the little string off the tail. The other is to take all the peas out of the pod.
You may recognize Mario Mendez. He is the local pastor in Magdalena, and runs the agricultural site. Marito is his son. Mario has been on full time staff with Students International Guatemala longer than any other staff member (18 years--from it's foundation).
Jose Farres is the leader of the media site. Most of the pictures you will see on this blog over the next few months will be taken either by him or his team (students can choose their worksite during their time in Guatemala--sites include agriculture, carpentry, education, social work, media, art, health care, etc.)
The group from this week outside of the church.
Peeling peas.
For continued strength and health for summer staff--many have been sick
For the teams that are coming next week--we're going from college to high school.
For continued unity among the staff and summer staff.
For family and friends back home!
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