Lic Chom Feet: Thanksgiving, Grace, Joy

It is a little word called Eucharisteo that I will probably spend my entire life trying to accomplish. Eucharisteo means thanksgiving. The root word Charis meaning grace and from that the root word Chara meaning joy. As I live my life I try with each passing day to find things that I am thankful for, you could say my 1000 gifts. These are gifts that I hope to count, they are meant to be found in the simple things they don’t need to be big, just things that you can thank God for. I have learned that when you search for things to be thankful for you realize just how much there is to be thankful for. It is all by God’s grace nothing else and from realizing my thankfulness for God’s grace in the small things I have found a joy in my everyday life.

Atol

The Catholic Church on the next hill over

Catholic Church

The back of our pick-up. Safe?

As our team arrived in Santa Inez for a two day outreach I was immediately taken aback by the breathtaking views. We immediately were invited up to the church to meet the community leaders and eat what I thought would be our breakfast. As a huge bowl of Atol was handed to me I sat down to drink this bowl of mush. (Atol: texture: glue. Taste: liquid tortilla + a hint of chile and salt). With each swallow I could feel a complaint coming to my lips, but then I stopped and remembered Eucharisteo. This moment I know that I can find something that I am thankful for.

· ~Safe traveling up to this beautiful place

· ~A bowl of warm food, as others have empty hungry bellies

· ~the sacrifice people must have made to feed me this bowl of mush

There, I have done it I have found JOY! As each new mouthful went down the taste became better and better and just like that I was done. I then found out that that was our appetizer and that we needed to walk down to the pastor’s house for actual breakfast. After our breakfast we piled into the back of a pick-up and drove to the soccer field for some fun with the youth of the town. When I say ‘we piled into the back of a pick-up’ I mean our team plus about 15 other Guatemalans.

Fast-forward to 3:30 PM. We had just finished lunch and just like that we were off to make house visits. As I stood and the bottom of an 80 degree incline hill I questioned our leader again just to make sure I heard him right, “the houses we need to go to are up there…?” Our leader was not mistaken. For about a mile we climbed, well I might as well make this fun! “Ok Eder lets race, you and me. Who can get up to the top the fastest? Ready, set, Go!” And just like that we were off running up this hill, leaping from rock to rock, laughing our heads off. (I would also like to take a moment and just point out that I think Guatemalans have the home court advantage or maybe it was just that fact that Eder didn’t want me to make him look like a fool if a girl beat him) I lost -_- . We stopped to catch our breath and waited for the others to catch up, but then between our heavy breaths and laughs and somewhere lost in translation I soon found myself running after Eder up another hill. This process repeated itself at least another five times. We stopped at our first house and I found yet another thing to be thankful for: Morro (Blackberry) juice that the family gave us. Up another hill to another house, running after Eder down the hill, over to another hill to see another family and yet again more races to the top, and then back down and over to the next hill. Up, over, down, up, over, up and then finally back down. Four hours of hiking/racing/praying/blessings that was my afternoon.

My morning of finding thanksgiving was just a prelude to my night. “Well time to go to bed, wait I mean floor.” Fast-forward to 3:00 AM and there I lay wide awake on the hard concrete with a throbbing hip. For those who know me going to bed is quite a process; from washing my face and applying my skin medicine to needing at least two blankets, a face mask, and earplugs ‘roughing it’ is not really in my vocabulary when it comes to sleeping arrangements. So here I lay under a mosquito as a cool breeze chilled my bald head from the window above. Yet again I had the opportunity to grow a seed of bitterness or of thanksgiving. I found myself laying there counting my eucharisteo’s:

· ~ a soft pillow to rest my head

· ~ a warm blanket

· ~ a roof over my head

· ~ going to bed with a full stomach, as others go hungry

· ~ a mosquito net

· ~ more hours to spend with the Lord

· ~ snores from the room next door

· ~ flashlights for Bible reading

For hours I laid there, I counted, I thanked until the sun rose over the hillside and a new day broke.