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!?