Views that will last a Lifetime

As I lay in the back of a red jeep my heart sank as I left our outreach to San Gabriel early do to a stomach attack. For five years I have struggled with these strange pains that consume my entire body and once they start there is no way for me to control them, all I can do is sleep. I guess that is why I started to go to the doctor almost eight months ago and still I find myself in the same situation, missing out because my body attacks itself (or at least that’s how it feels).  I lay there and think; what did I do wrong? As I remember my day nothing abnormal stinks out in my mind. Just an hour ago I was walking the streets of San Gabriel being blessed again by more home visits and yet again in awe of the boldness the OR4 guys have in Christ. I must find thankfulness even in my situation and so I do. I find the eucharisteo’s. “And when I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me” (-Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are).

My 6:00 AM wake-up call once again comes way too soon. On the bus ride up the mountain before a grueling hour hike to the remote Latin village of Chopen I am thankful that my stomach pains have subsided. I should have had a bigger breakfast. For some reason a small bowl of yogurt and a slice of pineapple wasn’t quite enough food to make it up the mountain. I found myself in between my small prayers of “Lord, don’t let me throw up” and “Lord give me energy, don’t let me pass out”, in awe of the fields of corn, rolling clouds, and moss rocks (my dad would have wanted to take every one of them home, he loves moss rocks). My heart leapt for joy as Hector announced, “Five more minutes”. However, I should have reminded myself that five minutes in Guatemala time is more like fifteen.

 One of the families we saw on our house visits. The father just 9 days before was trampled by a horse. God has abounding grace.

 Our outreach began. Here is the small village of Chopen comprised of seventeen families without a single church. I have never seen more beautiful people than the people that live in Chopen. I found myself surrounded by dark skin people with blue and green eyes, not sure how that Punnett square worked out. All afternoon I was surrounded by beautiful smiling and laughing children as we played game after game; from duck, duck, goose to balloon futbol it was pure bliss. I watched the sunset as our group hiked back to the school where we would be sleeping on yet another concrete floor. We made ourselves a bonfire, cooked what was supposed to be Chorizo, and went to bed. The next morning I was glad to have all ten toes as no one informed me that Chopen would be freezing! On a lighter note: I have a weird obsession with baby pigs. For 6 years now I have dreamt about owning my very own tea cup pig. With that being said, my dream of getting to touch a baby pig finally came true.

Look at that FACE!!!

I should have worn sunscreen. We hiked down from Chopen (3-4 miles) we were waiting where the road ends for the bus to pick us up to take us back to San Miguel. Eder and I decided that we would walk down the road until the bus drove by and then we would just hop in the car to ride the rest of the way. The bus was an hour and a half late so by the time the rest of the team got picked up Eder and I had already made the six mile or so hike down to San Miguel.

Blessed would be one word that would sum up this journey that I have taken to Guatemala. As Eder and I hiked down to San Miguel we shared stories; stories of Eucharisteo. For two hours we recounted stories of God’s faithfulness in our lives; of God’s provision, grace, and blessings through suffering. This will be something that I will always remember.

I thought that I was sore when I woke up the next day, but nothing could have prepared me for how I would feel after the hike to Chilasco Falls. We arrived at the falls for a fun day off from outreach and more relationship building with the OR4 guys. It was the most breath taking waterfall I have ever seen; all pointing to God’s ridiculously skilled creativity. For a solid hour we crawled over slim covered rocks laughing and splashing each other as the cold water fell from the sky on our shoulders. It was an absolutely once in a life time event. I say that because I think if I ever had to hike back up from the falls again I would die!

 The fog and scenery was amazing!

 From about 1km away

Very excited to be crawling around and the base of a giant waterfall!

 Yes I was that girl. 

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. 

 The Guatemalan way of sitting two people in a hammock :)

Rachel and I rockin' it the Guatemalan way

San Nicolas

My days seem to be flying by. As each new day starts God seems to always have something new in store for me. This past week the rest of the Desert Springs team (12 other people) headed back to the states. As for Rachel, Brian, Marvin, Tana, and myself we have stayed back for an extra month. I have truly seen and experienced God using us in way that I have never experienced on any of my prior mission trips.

Wednesday Brian, Rachel, and I went to a dear friend of mines (Irma) school to help her teach an English class. I was expecting an elementary class because I knew that she worked at an elementary school however, I found myself standing at the front of a class room teaching thirty 20-48 year olds English. Brian and Rachel, who had never taught an English class before, were obviously hesitant, a little awkward, and clearly out of their comfort zone. However, in the end it turned out to be really fun and a really big encouragement for all of us. At the end of the class Irma asked her students if they wanted to say anything to us. One of the older men in the classroom stood up and said, “Thank you for helping my people”. You could see in his eyes how sincere he was and it was such an affirmation to me. I am here in Guatemala and I am doing good, even when I feel like I am not doing enough or that I could be doing so much more. God brought me to that school to tell me just what I needed to hear and to leave encouraged and praising God for using me.

 Bus ride up to San Nicolas with the lovely Adela.

Hector and I talking on our cucumber phones=)

Thursday was a long day of outreach. Yesterday we went to San Nicolas for an outreach with OR4. OR4 is an organization that a group of Achi men started 8 years ago. They created this organization to reach out to the young people in San Miguel and in neighboring villages. We arrived at San Nicolas late in the afternoon; we soon split up into three smaller groups and walked around the village, door to door, inviting people to come to our event and prayed for any specific needs they had. Many people asked for prayer for illnesses, family problems, and spiritual growth. One girl even asked for help accepting Christ into her heart. Her mother-in-law gave us all cucumbers as a “thank you”. It was a sweet time to lay hands on the Achi people as we continue to build relationships with them. At 6:45 we started a big fogota (bonfire) out in the middle of a soccer field where Rachel gave her testimony, we had a time of worship, and a local pastor Omar gave a sermon. I was very encouraged my Omar’s teaching. (Insert small rabbit trail/background info) A lot of the Achi churches have many of these same issues as American churches. One issue that seems to be reoccurring here is that many of the Christians want to put on a “spiritual show”. This is difficult to explain, because I do not know what is really going on in their hearts (maybe im just being insensitive and judgemental), but I think I see it for what it really is and it has become more evident to me with each passing year that I come down to Guatemala. It is most obvious in their prayers. It seems that many of the Christians here force themselves to become overly emotional, to the point where they are weeping, and just repeating the same things (like “God you are big and great”) over and over to try to prolong their prayers. Maybe if it was an unusual thing, it would be more believeable, it happens almost every single time they pray, as if they were taught that this is just the way you pray. In a large group setting, this is compounded as they try to “out-spiritualize” each other. Does this sound familiar? Yes, it happens all the time in America, and I think it’s exactly the kind of thing Jesus warns against in Matthew 6…

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others…and when you pray,do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. ”

Luckily this is one of the things Omar addressed in his teaching last night. He told the people that many time people do “spiritual shows” as to show how spiritual they are however, they are not pointing to their relationship with Chirst, but rather, they are just pointing to a religion. I write all of this with some hesitation, because maybe it really is all legitimate. I have seen that these people truly know what it means to fully put their hope and trust in Christ. They don't have material things to appoint as their gods as we do in America. They have to constantly trust in God that he will provide everything - even their next meal. Maybe their hyper-emotion is simply the natural response to the fully-realized goodness, love, and mercy of our God. Regardless, I think one thing is sure: we need more of Omar's Mark Driscoll-style conviction in America.

Pit and Peak of the Week

It’s crazy to think that I have already been in Guatemala for a week, but that is a truth I cannot deny. We have (as we do almost every trip) ‘hit the ground running’, from traveling hours to get to villages to all day medical clinics, we have been busy to say the least. Friday we started our first session for the pastor’s conference (it was an all-day event) but it was great to see a community of pastors together being encouraged in their shepherding of a church. The pastor’s conference was at a beautiful retreat center which made for the perfect setting to concentrate on the teachings during the different sessions. This week could also be known as the week of firsts, this might be my seventh trip to Guatemala but it was my first time to ever give my testimony. Saturday morning I was asked to give my testimony to the pastors in Spanish. I was nervous, but by God’s peace I was able to tearfully express what God has done in my life.

We started our first day of medical clinics on Monday; these clinics have been a whirlwind for most of us. Monday was a great day full of a ton of memories, laughs, and sassy comments between team members. I am in awe of our team. Everyone is so helpful and funny! It is truly a testament of Gods goodness, only He could unit twenty-one gringos ranging from age 18 to 65 together. Like I said this week was a week of firsts. Monday I ate my first sanpopo, for those who don’t know sanpopo’s are flying ants that are about a half an inch long and apparently in Guatemala they are a delicacy. People catch these flying bugs, and some cook them with salt while others cook them and then squeeze lime juice over them. Let me just say they tasted like popcorn, they were delicious! Monday was definitely the peak of this week so far.

Today, (Wednesday) I write this post with a heavy heart. Tuesday was the pit of my week. Tuesday was a very hard and difficult day of clinics. I had just gotten back from getting a soda at the tienda up the street from where our clinic was when Pastor David come walking up to me. He asked me to come into the vitals room because there was a very sick patient that he wanted me to take the vitals of. We hurried ff into the room. When we entered the room Rachel (one of the team members who is staying the entire 5 weeks as well, she is also a nursing major and is almost 19) was sitting there taking the vitals of one the patients. As I sat down David motioned for this sick patient to come in. The mother handed me the baby’s paper which had his name and age on it. As the mother untied her wrap there was a little boy laying in his mother’s arms. He was a year and a half old and weighed thirteen pounds. His eyes were huge and black with equally thick black hair. After taking his vitals Rachel and I took the mother to the doctors. So here sat this young mother with her 13lb year and half year old and next to her sat her sister-in-law holding this lady’s other son who was three years old and weighed 18.4 lbs. She was also 20 days away from delivering her third baby. Here are the facts: these boys had juvenile diabetes, their mother refuses to take them to the hospital because it cost too much even though she was wearing a very expensive Achi shirt which she could easily sell for a lot of money, she refused to give her boys any insulin because she said that injecting a child everyday was cruel. The three year old could not walk, eat, talk, and could barely breathe; essentially he was a vegetable. He had fungus growing on his tongue which made him grind his teeth, his kidneys were failing which in turn made his legs and feet swell as his body in a last ditch effort tried to conserve hydration. For the first time in my life I laid eyes on a child that was days away from dying. He had been and still is suffering in a way that I will never understand. As the gravity of the situation set in all I could do is cry. In the United States these boys would be taken from the mother and put in the hospital and the state would gain custody of these boys however, in Guatemala it is the parent’s responsibility to care for their children. As our two doctors explained the gravity of the situation to this young mother not an ounce of remorse, sorrow, or sadness came across her face. For the next two hours we pleaded with her to let us take them to the hospital, but she refused. We tearfully prayed for her children that they would no longer suffer as they have and that the pain that they feel but cannot express would diminish. Her boys will die a slow and painful death that could be avoided and the saddest part of the situation is that her heart is so closed off that she said she is just waiting for them to die. Our hearts broke as we watched this mother smiling and laughing with her friends as she held her dying son. The eldest son’s death is inevitable, even with the most advanced technologies; the effect of this disease is irreversible. However, there is still hope for the youngest of the boys. Although it would take a year for this boy to fully recover there is still hope for him. We pray that this mother’s heart will be opened, that she would value her children’s lives as a precious gift instead of a waste of money, and may our eyes be open to the world; may we see Guatemala for what it is. May we see this place of beautiful mountains, waterfalls, crops, rainforests, and tortillas , but may we also see these broken and lost people and may we be reminded that we too were once like them lost in our sin. May we cling to the cross and know that God is sovereign in light of this seemingly horrible situation.

Stop and Smell the Roses

Today was my last full day in New Mexico. These past two days have been crazy to say the least; from driving all over town to last time visits with friends I have had little time to take a step back and just take it all in. Overwhelmed could start to describe how I feel at this moment, but today I was reminded and encouraged by a simple man at the bank. When I went into the bank today I had just left from my last meeting with my discipleship leader Kate (whom I adore) I needed this stop to be an in and out, five minutes tops type of stop. However, God had different plan. The teller asked me why I needed such crisp bills and as I explained to him that I was leaving for a five week mission trip to Guatemala, his expression completely changed. He asked more questions and this seemingly fast money exchanged changed into a deeper open door conversation and witness. Funny thing is, I was the one being witnessed too. In the mid-afternoon on the Wells Fargo on Central the teller told me just what I needed to hear. I had to take a step back and smell the roses. All this busyness, all this running around, all this...life! I had lost focused, I had lost sight of this mission God has set out for me. I was so busy with things I 'had to do' that I forgot the plans that He has for me. I needed this teller to speak to me to encourage me not only for my trip, but in my walk. God used him to get me back in line to take a moment and thank Him for all of this. To thank Him for all this craziness. To thank, to thank, to thank....Its all Him that's just it. It's all glory to Him. I am an easily stressed out ball of nerves, but here He is again faithfully loving me. It is all grace and my response is joy and thankfulness. Even though I leave in less than 12 hours and my bag is but half packed I am humbled and truly blessed that I will be going home tomorrow. I am completely excited to see what God does.