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.

posting

woops i realized that it was impossible for people to post a message unless you signed on to google or aol or something.... i had no idea that anonymous posting was disabled by default.

well, now i have enabled it! so everybody should be able to post encouraging comments!

anyway, painting yesterday was pretty crucial, it was incredibly hot and there was hardly any shade!

we built a campfire last night and roasted marshmellows. that was a pretty fun team bonding experience.

and today is pretty much a free day. we dont have anything on the schedule until tonight when we visit another church.

with just one week left until we all make the big switch to living alone with spanish all around us, everybody is getting a little anxious. it's definitely going to be a big adjustment.

it looks like this last week we are actually going to be helping to build a church on tuesday and thursday while still doing our usual ministries on monday, wednesday, and friday. hopefully it will be a good and fruitful last week!