Plans? What plans?

I realize I suck and it's been 2 weeks since I last blogged  but we got SUPER busy all of a sudden and also our internet has been a bit spotty lately. So, here's an update on what I've been up to!

Trip to Peten!

Carlo's brother lives in and owns an event center and restaurant in Peten which is a state 5 hours north of Zacapa. Nora didn't have to work for a week so they decided to take a trip there and Cassie and I got to tag along! While there, we got to visit Tikal the park where the Mayan ruins are which was incredible! The park is HUGE so we spent most of the day there and I was exhausted by the end of it. My legs hurt for like 4 days afterwards from all the walking so I think that's a pretty good sign I should probably start working out when I get back to school. We climbed 4 of the ruins and one of them was super high, even over the trees, so the view was beautiful with the clouds settling over the ruins. Being that I'm not the biggest fan of heights, I did my best to ignore the fact that I was a million feet in the air and the ledge  had no barrier on it. The ruins are spread out all throughout the park and have rainforest separating them so while in the park, we saw toucans, coatis which are like a weird racoonish animal with a long tail, and spider monkeys in the trees which I was pretty pumped about. Oh and we saw a tarantula while in peten which i was not quite as excited about.

The next day we got to go to Petencito which is a little zoo that has animals native to Guatemala in it. To get there we got to ride in a lancha, a typical guatemalan boat across the lake. The rest of our trip was spent hanging out with their family, relaxing by a pool in hammocks, and eating delicious food. Not too shabby for a mission trip! I also ate tepezcuintle. Look it up, its a nasty little rat looking thing. Im pretty proud of myself for eating it though and it was actually pretty tasty.

Teaching English

Last week we helped our friend Nancy, a 22 year old english teacher, with her english classes in a high school nearby. She has three classes and her students are really sweet and welcomed us with gifts they had made for us. They're also a blast. We played some english games with them which got pretty intense and competitive. At the end, I felt like a celebrity because they all wanted their pictures with us on their cameras, not that they are anything to treasure considering I was sweating gallons and was not looking in tip-top shape. We also played some fun games that Nancy taught us, for example tie a string to the bottom of a balloon and light it on fire then pass it between your students while they try to say a word that starts with another letter in english. I'm not sure this will fly in my future classroom at home but it was definitely exciting!

We've gotten pretty close with Nancy and it's really nice to have a friend from here that's my age. After class she invited us to go to some natural pools with her and her students. We spent a few hours swimming, hanging out with students, and eating pizza.

Mari's Family

On Friday night, we spent the night at Mari's house, a woman we met at church who has a family that needs to practice english. We ate dinner with the fam, then played games with the sons. Scattergories in spanish is quite a challenge. The next day they took us to the river which had waterfalls. Cassie is a little explorer woman and wanted to climb through all of the rocks down the river so of course I had to join her. It was super nice of them to invite us to spend time with them, hopefully they got some english practice out of it! 

El Maguey

We have also gotten to tag along with Carla, the english teacher and CALMS worker, to a VBS that she does each week in the village that she grew up in. Carla is amazing and someone that I really admire. She has  a selfless heart and such a gift for working with children. The kids in her village are full of energy and a lot of fun. At the beginning of each class they sing a bunch of praise songs which is my favorite part. They all belt them out and give it all they got with the motions. Then Carla reads a story from the bible, asks them questions about it, and then they make some kind of project. It's great to watch such passion for God coming from such tiny, innocent, faces. 

San Pablo

Since Sunday we have been working in the village of San Pablo with a group that is here from Wisconsin. They are running a medical clinic all day, building a house, and also doing a VBS in the afternoon. I have been helping at the clinic, holding as many babies as possible, translating the basic words I can, taking weights, taking pictures and printing them for families, and helping out wherever possible. There is such a big need there and on Monday 91 people came through the clinic! It's been a really great experience since I've never done anything like this before. At the clinic yesterday I met a 5 year old little girl named Maoli who nearly instantly became my little shadow. She's the most adorable child ever and giggles about everything, not to mention she's super expressive and sassy. She stuck around the clinic all day and became a helper delivering pictures to people in the waiting room after I printed them. I talked to her mom for awhile and met her brother and little sister who is about 2. They were there because her little sister has a horrible rash which we were later informed could possibly be scabies. This is after I've been holding her all day so I'm praying and trusting God to take care of me! Today we had 75 kids show up to VBS and it was a bit controlled chaos but really ran pretty smoothly. I can't get over the amount of precious kids that are here, it will never get old. 

Life here has been busy but so good! I had been asking God to show me exactly where He wants me, providing a sense of direction for us while we're here and boy, has He come through! I never really know what's going on and as soon as I think I have a good idea of my plans for the day or week, something completely changes and I'm once again left in the dark. But not really, this uncertainty and flexibility has allowed me to clearly see EXACTLY what God wants me to be doing day by day and I truly feel like He is holding my hand throughout this whole experience. Though I may not always see huge miraculous moments, I see glimpses of God here every single day. He is surrounding me, I just need to open my eyes and look. It has been through the the joy of a child, the beauty of clouds settling over the mountains, the generosity and love of those around me, and the encouragement and support I receive from Cassie and those at home. I am so thankful for my time here and pray that God teaches me a lot through this. 

Please continue to keep Cassie and I in your prayers. Pray for health and safety of the group that we are working with this week and those that they will be serving in the community. Also pray for safe travels as we go with  a group to spend a week in La Avanzada starting Thursday and that we are able to point others to Christ.

Muchas sorpresas

The past week has been filled with muchas sorpresas! (many surprises) as a lot of things have popped up along the way that Cassie and I had not expected.

On Sunday we went to church in Zacapa with the family that we are staying with. Although I didn't understand much of the sermon at all, I did recognize several of the hymns. At the end of the service the pastor had Cassie and I stand up as he introduced us to the congregation. The people in the congregation are so sweet and were all coming up afterwards to welcome us and give us hugs. We found Carla, the english teacher at the school where we will help at because we wanted to find out what times she has classes. She asked us about our daily schedule where we responded by telling her that so far we don't really have one and that our day consists of hanging out with the students and giving informal english lessons. Carlos and Nora (our hosts) came over and the three of them began talking about what to do with us. During this, Cassie and I were only catching a few words here and there, waiting for them to tell us what we are going to do. Another woman walked up and started gesturing towards us and talking to Carlos. Turns out her and her family are trying to learn english and she was asking if we could stay with her for a few days so we could practice spanish and they could practice english. She also asked us if we brought tennis shoes and mentioned something about working out though we had no idea what that really consisted of. Anyway, Carla was super helpful and we left the conversation with more of a concrete plan of what our week will look like and the new-found knowledge that we were leaving to go to Guatemala City later that day to stay the night, that we were going to work out with that woman on Monday when we returned, Thursday we would go with Carla to her Village to help with a class, and that at some point in the week we will be doing a VBS type thing with the kids in La Fragua.

After church we packed up the truck and left for Guatemala City. With Carlos driving, the trip only took 2 hours when it usually takes 4 from the airport, so I'm not exactly sure how that happened. We went shopping with them to pick up various things that they needed from a Guatemalan Costco and the mall and then stayed overnight at Carlos' brothers house because it is empty. Cassie and I are happy because we've finally secured our friendship with their adorable grandsons who are 2 and 5 years old. At first the 2 year old was terrified of us but now he wants to play with us all of the time. When we woke up the next day we were told that there was an earthquake during the night but unfortunately we had slept right through it and had no idea. The actual earthquake took place near Mexico, so there was no damage around us but apparently we would have felt tremors had we been awake.  After breakfast at McDonalds, they took us to the city center where we got to walk around a bit, see the beautiful city, and feed some pigeons. While in the city, Cassie and I enjoyed playing a new game similar to Where's Waldo? called Where are the white people? However, we were not successful at it so we had to change it to Where are the Non-Hispanics? For awhile we had found about 2 but then I ended up winning when I found a mission group walking around. The trip was a lot of fun and we got to spend a lot of time getting to know Carlos and Nora better.

Later that day when we got back to Zacapa, we went with the woman who we found out is named Mari and she took us to a sports complex where we waked around the track with her and talked for awhile. Like us with spanish, she can understand a fairly good amount of english but just needs practice in conversation. When we were done we got in her car thinking we were going back to the school and ended up at her mom's house to meet her family and then found ourselves at her house. We talked some more, finding out more about each other and then ate dinner with her and her family.

Today we thought that we were going to help with english classes at the high school in the afternoon but when we arrived we discovered that there were no classes going on today because the world cup game was on. So, we watched the game with all of the students and then the rest of the day was spent hanging out around the school. Tomorrow we are going to help Carla teach english in the morning at the elementary school then Thurs afternoon, we're going to her village with her to work with more kids. It sounds like on Friday, we may be leaving for Peten, a city about 5 hours away that is a tourist location where there are Mayan Ruins and where Carlos' brother owns a resort that we will stay at. Obviously, I'm pretty pumped for that trip and hope that ends up working out.

Once again, we haven't had a chance  to really work with the students much yet, other than just hanging out with them. At times I have felt like we aren't doing much and wonder how God is going to work through this to bring more people closer to him. However, I need to do my best to quickly push these thoughts out of my head because by doing this, I'm putting him in a box and doubting his abilities, which is absurd. When reading my bible today I came across several verses that really brought this point to light.

Saving is all God's idea, and all his work. All we do it trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! Ephesians 2:8-9

Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills with light. Matthew 6:22

Be content with obscurity, like Christ. Colossians 3:4

God doesn't NEED me to do anything and I don't NEED to know everything. He has given me this opportunity for a reason and will choose to use me how He wants. The results and effects of my actions may not be obvious to me but that doesn't mean I shouldn't trust that He is strong, His ways are good, and He has it all under control. He is alive and therefore always active so I need to trust that He is at work even when I can't see it immediately. His plan is so much bigger than I could ever even comprehend and if He uses me for even a small part of it, that should be enough for me.

Ps. We've been hearing noises at night that we were terrified were mice. Turns out, they're geckos! Who knew geckos even made noises!?

I held a duck!

We are safe and sound in Zacapa!! On Wednesday I flew to Houston, met Cassie there and then it was on to Guatemala City. As we flew over the mountains, it was hard to believe that all the months of anticipation were coming to an end and there was no turning back now! Out first mini-adventure was trying to find our luggage. We waited at one  baggage claim for at least 15 minutes until we realized that we had watched the same bags go around about 3 times without seeing ours. We figured this would be a good time to ask where the bags were coming from so Cassie asked a man that worked at the airport and he responded with "America." Well that was a bit more broad than we hoped for so we wandered around until we found another one where our bags were, thank goodness. After customs, we headed outside to the mass of people waiting outside of the airport. We were slightly nervous about knowing where to go since we didn't know who was picking us up but luckily I saw Ramiro's friendly face in the crowd waiting for us. After loading up the van, we stopped for lunch at pollo campero where we did our best to make conversation with the three Guatemalan men who speak pretty much no english. Cassie and I were fascinated by a purple drink we kept seeing at the restaurant thinking it was something exotic and Guatemalan only to find out it was normal grape soda. The men were very confused as to why we kept asking about it, only the first of many times that we've been laughed at. 

We started out on the 4 hour journey to the Zacapa. Just riding in a van is a bit of a thrill here as traffic rules are an arbitrary idea. Surprisingly by the end of the trip I was getting used to our driver was passing cars on curves while driving up a mountain. Not to mention, seatbelts are apparently not important here. When putting mine on yesterday, Nilss said, "Yackie, you do not need to wear a seatbelt, you are in Guatemala!" After stopping a couple times for Ramiro to go to the bank and then buy some corn on the cob at the side of the road to chomp on as a roadtrip snack, we pulled into Zacapa. We were greeted by our hosts, Carlos and Nora who are in charge of the school. We dropped off our luggage then headed with them right away to the hotel to bring dinner to a mission group staying there. We had dinner and visited with the group who were super friendly and welcoming to us. They are from Kansas and I was surprised to find out that we had some mutual friends. After dinner, we went back to the school and Nilss, our translator that we had on spring break stopped by to say hello and invite us to go with him and the group the next day which we were excited to have the chance to tag along. After that we were shown to our room and went right to sleep, exhausted from a day of traveling. Our room is actually pretty big and we have our own bathroom, I'll put up pictures later. Though we don't have air conditioning, it's really not as bad as I would have expected but it will take some getting used to. 

The next morning we slept through breakfast, explored the school a bit, practiced our tortilla making skills (we will need A LOT of practice) and then went with Carlos to the hotel to deliver lunch. After lunch we went with the other group to the village where they have been working all week and we got to help with VBS. We were welcomed with endless hugs and smiles from all of the precious little faces of the kids excited for another day of VBS. Cassie and I were pretty pumped that there were lots of babies to hold.

After VBS we got to go with the group to the house dedication service for the family that they had build the house for all week. The group built for an elderly couple who were overwhelmed with joy and gratitude. I felt blessed to be able to witness them receiving their home and to see the amazing relationships built between them and the group from Kansas. It's amazing to see what strong bonds can come out of only one week. It was a good reminder that God is doing big things here and is working through all kinds of people to show his love. St. Marks is just one of the many tools that he is using here in Guatemala. It is an awesome feeling knowing that brothers and sisters in Christ all over the place are working together for his glory.  

Everyone here is incredibly welcoming and kind to us, going out of their way to make this feel like home as much as possible. Last night we spent a lot of time talking to some of the high school students that live here at the boarding school. It was fun to start to get to know them and they were all super friendly and patient with our slow and broken spanish. I pray that these relationships continue to build. I've also had many encounters with my friend, Santos who I met on our previous trip. Yesterday we had about a 20 minute conversation where basically all I got from it was that he was going to bring food to the hotel. About 50% of our conversations with each other are laughing at each other, 30% of it is spent being confused, and 20% is actually understanding. But even with that I'm surprised at how much we can communicate anyway through the few words we know and lots of gesturing. I may become a pretty skilled actress after this summer! 

Though this is only our 3rd day here, it already feels like much longer. The country of Guatemala is breathtaking and the people are beautiful in every way possible. So far we are doing our best to fully embrace Guatemala, with the laid back lifestlye, no emphasis placed on the concept of time, and living by the motto, "No problemo!" I think that Americans have a lot to learn from the Guatemalans, to learn to treasure what is important and not rush so quickly through life that you miss some incredible moments. For Cassie and I some of those moments are super exciting to us and normal life for those living here, for example, holding a wild duck, riding in the back of the pick-up through town, making tortillas, and watching iguanas around the school. I'm not sure exactly what God has in store for us yet, right now we're just hanging out and getting our bearings but I know that I wouldn't be here if He didn't have something up His sleeve!