only one week left...

phewf, its been 7 weeks here in guatemala, and i only have one left. i love it here! chiquimula is the place to be. i do miss all you family and friends a lot, though, and i'm pretty excited about coming home in a week and being able to see you/talk to you.
its been a really fun week. on saturday i went with brenda and lestor (the two missionaries from cambodia that live with us) to the movies to see un noche en el museo 2. it was pretty funny, but i haven't seen the first one and it was in spanish, so i didn't get a lot of it. anyway, then after church, we went to this restraunt in town. delicious food, soo good.
sunday night jon and lester and i set out for ipala, a city pretty close to here. there is a volcano with a lake on top, so we were going to hike up that on monday. we slept in a church, it was a crazy adventure haha. then we woke up pretty early and it was sorta raining, but we still hiked up the volcano. at least the sun was not out, it was hot enough (and we got sunburn anyway). but boy was it gorgeous at the top. i have some great pics! We spent the afternoon in ipala with lester's girlfriend's family, which was also a lot of fun. that was an exhausting retreat!
the rest of the week was pretty normal, a lot of farmacia vending and such. we went to see transformers 2 on wednesday... in spanish of course! i just hope that Up comes to the theater here in town before i leave!
last night we went as a family to this hot spring place. it was really neat. they channeled all the hot water into different little pools and we just went and relaxed for awhile before eating our picknick of the usual bread and frijoles. today was a record setting day for me. i sold over Q1,500 worth of medicine in the farmacia this morning!! i really like working there. i get to talk and have a lot of fun with the other workers, and its a great opportunity to practice numbers and listening skills with the customers.
i really like the church that i'm going to as well. it has been much different than i thought. i thought i was gonna be in a really low chrisitan populated area, and work at a church that had hardly anybody there, and have a lot of freedom to sort of come in a be the missionary for that church. but all the churches here in chiqui are pretty much like ones in america. they have a good established membership and don't need the kind of mission work that i was looking forward to doing. thats ok though, God knew what was up when he put me in chiquimula, so praise be to him!
well, i think thats about enough for one post. i'll try to post again before i come home, but if not, i'll see you all next week!

bastante

well,
its been another week. i only have two left out of 8! life in guatemala feels pretty normal now. i work in the farmacia from 7 or 8 in the morning till about 1, come home for lunch with the family, and return to the farmacia from 3 to closing at 6:30. at night we usually go to some sort of church service. my dad is really involved in one church, my mom mainly goes to another one, and my sister is involved in another. so there is never something not going on. mostly i'm going to be involved in the church of papá. anyway, there is always a lot going on, we stay really busy.
living in chiquimula is pretty sweet also. the city is like big, but not really that big. but the farmacia is right next to the mercado so there are always a lot of people coming in and out. i know a lot of names of drugs in spanish now lol. at first i could not understand anybody that came through the door. now i can generally understand the distinction between their question and the statement of the medicine that they want, but i dont know what medicines exist, so its really heard. for example. at first i just hear: blah blah blah blah blah. now i hear: disculpe, que vale una docena de blah blah blah. practically, here is what i think is happening. i am getting a lot of practice at learning words extrañas oraly. so now when people talk and i know most of the words, i am able to listen and repeat with some accuracy the words that i dont know.
anyway, i can get most of the simple medicines that we keep out front no problem. also, filling bottles with aceite in the back is pretty easy too. its just the middle room with crazy medicines that i need a lot of help with still lol. anyway, its a lot of fun working there because i get to talk to a lot of people. the morning is really busy, and the afternoon is usually less busy. in the afternoon i get to talk more with co workers (of which there are only like 5 mas sometimes my brother, my sisters and my parents.)
anyway. there is a mall here that ive been to a couple of times. it is almost like the ones in the us. there is ac, and the cine, discount clothes stores, mcdonalds, subway, and pollo campero! the discount clothes store gets old clothes from the us, my sister's boyfriend joked that while we were shopping i could say, look here's my shirt! haha it was funnier if you were there, and in spanish.
anyway, life here is a lot different than i expected. keep praying that God would do sweet stuff. i love it here, but i also can't wait to get home and see everybody.

4real

Well, we finally got things sorted out!
I haven't blogged in a while because i've been really trying to focus on spanish alone (which is crazy by the way), and also technically im not suppsoed to be speaking or listening or whatever in english unless its on the weekends anyway (as instructed by the internship rules).
anyway, good news! i do have a house and a family!! Los Vazquez.. they are soo cool. (just a random thought right here... this is the first significant amount of english i have thought in days and it is reallllly weird.... i keep wanting to type in spanish (plus the keyboard is wack) so excuse me if i let a word or two slip). my dad is called Mario, and aside from not having a mustache, he looks just like mario from nintendo!!! I never could understand my moms name, i just call her mamá. I have three sisters and a brother. Two of the sisters are older and married. one, Candi or Candy lives in the U.S., the other, Delila, lives around here and i see her a lot. she has a cute son named pablo. my other sister is called sarah, and she is 20, and my brother's name is mario also (they call him marito or josué(his middle name) not to be confused with mario the senior. he is 16. Also, living here are two missionary kids from cambodia, i forget their names because i met them like one time before they both went to the capital for the weekend. but they are really nice. they are both studying medicine in the university here. i dont get to have the family all to myself, i do have to share with jon from my team. he was one of the guys that got stuck in the other missionary house with english speakers and my parents were asked to take him too. but all is well, he is pretty good at spanish, and although i cant learn native spanish from him, we can help each other out. i dont have to see him all the time either. we have different jobs, and it looks like we are going to be getting involved at different churches too.
which brings me to the job. i am working at a pharmacy! who would have thought right? my dad here owns a farmacia right next to the market, so i've been there learning a bunch of crazy medicine names in spanish lol! it is pretty fun and i get plenty of time to talk to everybody else that works there (which are mostly my family here). and of course getting the time to talk in spanish is important.
what a blessing! God has worked everything out, and it definitely looks like i'm going to love getting to know my family more and the church that i'll be attending.
if i update between now and next weekend, it will have to be in spanish, i am sorry lol

pictures!

ok well i lied, i figured i should upload some photos before i possibly have no connection tomorrow!ok so this is some of our vbs kids doing contagious christian!

this is a fountain in zacapa where we did some street evangelism!

this is an old building in antigua where we went on monday!

That is definitely rollandito eating his first fly that i caught him in his new home that i made him. that is bobby in the background... cool pic

freaky bug! what the heck is it?

freaking sweet bee (the blur) that brings leaves to holes and weaves its house!!!!!!! the coolest thing ever. we pulled out the house, and it was straight up four inches long !!! 1!!!

ok well these are some pics of the team! the first is one night when we made marshmallows around a campfire. it is kelsey, bethany, jen, andrew, and john, left to right. the bottom one is us chilling after some hard days of painting.

well for real now, im about to go to bed. we had a fun *last night* (i hope) here in the mission house. at this point im super ready to get out there (hopefully in a legit home not another mission house with lost a english). but we did have cake from scratch tonight for my friend sarah's birthday! there is a girl staying here in the mission house for a few weeks that felt like making cake... it was sooo good! probably the first chocolate ive had in over a month! mmm

crazyness

so

we got a call tonight here at the mission home from the guys that are already that the other mission house that i am supposedly moving into. and they were saying how it was not looking like it was going to work out very well. the whole atmosphere is not the nice guatemalan family one. and apparently the dad there doesnt even speak spanish as well as we thought he was supposed to. also they have other missionaries and groups coming in and out all the time apparently, so we would not be alone, and there is english all the time. this is not the desired atmosphere for living 'immersed' in another country/language. so it sounds like they are going to try to get something changed for us, but they will have to find four more families willing to host us for three weeks.

apparently what happened with the situation was that when the bosses contacted the connection in chiquimula (a pastor there) he was supposed to find families or something for us, but apparently he just hooked us up with this mission house.... sort of the wrong idea.

anyway, whether finding a new house works out or not, God has me here for another month, and he will work in whatever way is pleasing to him... im sure now that it is nothing like what any of us were expecting!

so anyway, this is definitely the last post for today, and hopefully the last post until at least the weekend!

keep praying that we who are trying to figure this stuff out will have a God glorifying attitude and that God would work everything out!

bom bom

wow ok

crazy day

so not only do i not have a job, but they had to leave me and sarah at the mission house today because our host parents in chiquimula had not confirmed yet that they could host us... so we have to wait until tomorrow to get dropped off

but the story is not done! so gerber (who is straight up like a guatemalan brad bradley) said that he got us houses when he got back from taking the other kids to chiquimula. so anyway my house apparently is going to be another mission house like the one i am at now, my 'mom and dad' are americans but they have been living here for 12 years and have vowed only to speak spanish around me. but thats not the end, because my house to be also happened to be the fall back house for three of the other guys on the team. apparently they got to chuiquimula with their stuff and didnt have houses either so somehow they found this mission house. so all this is very surprising. but anyway, i think it will be really fun. i'm sorta disappointed about not teaching in a school, but now hopefully i'll be able to work closely with a pastor. i'm also sorta disappointed about living with an american family and having three other guys from my team as roommates because i'm afraid that i wont get the immersion that i would have had. although, we are definitely not allowed to speak english, and i will be in the city at a job alone all day, so i will have plenty of immersion.

well, im gonna go eat dinner.

dun dun dun

well,

all the excitement from yesterday has only lasted until today. they announced today that they are closing all public and private schools across guatemala for two weeks due to the swine flu. so i will definitely not be working at the school that i thought i was going to be working at. now they are frantically trying to find connections with stores and things so that people from our group can work there. hopefully now i will get to work at a church with a pastor. what a crazy time!

but seriously dont worry about the flu or anything, there have hardly been any infections here. the world health organization cites only 60 cases here and no deaths. i think the closing is just a precautionary move, plus the schools here have just had their end of term tests, so it is a good stopping point.

so definitely be praying that we would all find jobs to work for the next weeks and that God would keep us all safe from sickness!

antigua, chiquimula

well, we had a great day yesterday in antigua. it was a long 4 ish hour drive both ways, so we had to wake up at 4:30 and leave by 5! it was really nice though. we spent a lot of the morning in the market buying souvenirs, then a few of us went and walked around the town. it was so pretty. there was a volcano really close, and the architecture was wonderful. we finally made our way to the central square if the city, looked in a few shops, and then got a horse and carriage ride back through the city to the place where our group was meeting for lunch.

speaking of lunch, there is this chicken restaurant chain here in guatemala that seriously is the foundation of their national pride. they have a pollo campero about ever other block here, about as frequently as a mcdonalds in the us. the little slogan for the restaurant is something like "we are making from guatemala our best work!" haha and all the servers and cooks come out and sing the national anthem every once and a while. and the cups and everything have really cheesy illustrations with real people photo shopped in holding paint brushes and building things etc. its a lot of fun.

anyway, we finally have found out where we are going to be living and what we are going to be doing for the second month. i have been placed in a bigger city called chiquimula and they have me working in a little Christian school. This was actually quite a surprise for me. a couple weeks ago when they asked us where we wanted to live and what we wanted to do i said that i really didn't have a preference of area and that i would really like to work at a church. i thought that i would be in a small town close by because it seemed like everybody had requested to work at a school in a bigger town like chiqui, but there is where i am. so now hopefully i'll at least be able to get involved at the church that my host parents go to. most churches here meet every night and on sunday mornings, so there will be ample opportunity for me to get involved and or share testimonies and or have a neet little study group.

well, that is that. most of the people that are going to be living closer by will leave this afternoon, but those of us that are going out to zacapa or chiqui or gualan wont be leaving until tomorrow.

it is finally about the time to meet my family, but its also sort of sad that i wont be seeing all the other kids on my team every day anymore. however, there will be two other girls from my team working at the same school with me in chiqui, so i wont be totally isolated. hopefully i wont be terribly tempted to speak english, though, it would be really neat to just be around spanish for a whole month!

because of that, and although im sure that i'll have access to internet cafes in a city like chiquimula, i probably wont be posting much on the blog next month, just to keep my english down. i'll try to post an update and maybe some pictures about once a week.

woo, this is exciting!

done!

well, i just finished my final exam, and then i walked up the stairs (for real though, they are like mayan temple stairs and you almost die every time you go up them). now i feel really good. the test was not as bad seeming as the first one, so i hope my grade gets a boost because of that!

the rest of today is for relaxing... and tomorrow we are going out evangelizing in a town where there is a new little church. On monday we are going to antigua, which is supposed to be really neat. it is more of an historic/touristy town, so hopefully it'll be fun. tuesday is the big day! we will be finding out where and who we are going to be with for the next month, which is pretty scary and exciting at the same time!

Los Limones

we just finished our second work day at los limones! what a blessing it has been to be there. The church is almost all leveled out, and it has a couple feet of wall all the way around it already! Also, the community is turning out to be very receptive to the Gospel. On tuesday, we had eight or so people that responded positively to it. Today when we went back around to houses, we brought food and medical supplies, and shared the Gospel again. Five more people committed their lives to Christ! Praise God! I cant wait to see these people come together in this new community as new believers ready to witness to their neighbors.

well, i'm pretty tired and my final is on saturday, time for rest and studying!

Today was really tiring! we work all day digging the foundation of this church in a place called los limones. Apparently what happened with these people is that there was a big coffee plantation that hundreds of families worked and lived on. then the owner sold it to some other rich dude and he straight up fired everybody. so suddenly this community had hundreds of families without work. the governor of the town or something then allotted all these families with some small plots of land in los limones, but there is no work there yet. we went out evangelizing this morning, and there is a pretty good mixture of not so religious, pretty set catholics, and some evangelicals. hopefully this church will be able to really minister to these people! This is one of the poorest places we have been yet.

anyway, last night was pretty neat. it was pouring rain and thundering and lightning(ing) and i just sat out in a hammock on the porch and listened to some matt papa. i was listening to that song, i think it is called Our God Reigns or something. it was so humbling just sitting there with thunder, lightning, rain, and wind all around, listening to how holy God is. then in got to this one part where he keeps repeating hallelujah, our God reigns. it just seemed cool because, well, it was raining pretty hard. hallelujah, our God reigns! it made me think of learning about God's attributes this semester and it made me think of this set of verses rightchea:

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:43-48

finally a few pictures

It is sort of difficult to upload images from here just because of the time and internet requirements, but i've managed to get these couple up before next week when i may not have as nearly reliable internet.

This picture here to the left is from the drive from guatemala city to llano verde. it was a pretty long drive over a long windy and hilly road.

this one to the left is some of the kids that are in my third grade class. well, i think only three or so of them are in there. the kid on the far left is called hector/junior. the girl with the orange backpack is named sandra, and i think one of the girls in the back is a girl named beatriz. the boy in the front right is also in the class, but i dont know his name. anyway, they are a lot of fun.

Today was the last real day of classes for us this first month. on wednesday we have oral testing to see how much we have improved since day one, and on friday we are reviewing for our final on saturday. i'll be glad when i dont really have to worry about the school work part of this trip. anyway, we are going to build a church tomorrow, sounds like pretty intense work.