Oh yeah, I went to Guatemala. In fact I am there now. I am with a team doing stuff. We have a blog dedicated to this whole thing. I posted on that site tonight but here it is . . .
This is the first time since we've left that I, Chris, have had access to the internet. It has been a glorious fast! I have really had no desire to connect and didn't really want to tonight but since I do have access, I thought I'd let you know what we have been up to.
Working back in time:
I am currently sitting at the table inside the hostel that we are staying at tonight. We are in Guatemala City. We need to be at the airport really early so rather than stay at Fe Viva and get up super early, well, you understand.
We spent the day and the conclusion of our time in Guatemala touring Antigua. A beautiful city! We'll get some photos posted when I manage to get them onto a computer. (It takes to long I am tired - don't ask).
I'm trying to thing of what we did yesterday. It's funny how fast we get our experiences mixed up. Really, the whole trip has been a pile of experiences mashed into one.
Yesterday morning I showed Mike, a guy from Peachland who came to spend time at Fe Viva after we left, how to install Windows XP (in Spanish) and Office onto a bunch of computers that were donated. This was a project I was working on all week at a leisurely pace. Initially, I was told that they had 6 computers they wanted up and running. No problem except that they were plagued with problems. I did get them running, sort of. But like I said, I worked at leisurly pace until they told me yesterday that they have 200 more! What? Yup, 200! There was a communication breakdown somewhere. Well, needless to say, I couldn't get them all up and running so I developed a assembly line system that they can pass onto people as they come and they may have most of them going in a couple of months.
While I did that, the rest of the crew were working on painting a new youth centre that Felix and his wife Teressa are starting. Felix and Teressa were our hosts and you will get to know them as we relive our journey.
In the evening, we said good-bye to the Casa kids. We sang songs with them one last time, Brad shared a devotional with them, and then they sang a special song for us. It was in Spanish so all we could make out was that it was about frogs. It was sad to say good-bye. You wouldn't understand the unique bond that is formed between these kids in such a short time but my heart was sad.
Self portrait - Elvis (the oldest of the Casa Kids) and I
My teammates will have to help me remember some of the kids' namesOnce the Casa kids were in bed, we threw tennis balls with Maria's kids just inside the courtyard. You will get to know these kids. They are a family living in extreme poverty that we invested in as a team while in Guatemala. Some of the money gifts that SAC gave, we gave to Felix to help care for this family. Felix personally is making sure the kids are going to school and being cared for.
We finished the night with a coke, a chocolate bar, and a good visit. A new team had arrived from Saskatoon and it turned out Angela knew one of the girls from over 10 years ago. That's not the only "small world" connection that was made on the trip. Tracy could tell you about hers.
And that was yesterday. Hopefully we'll all find time to recap the other days for you.
Thanks for praying. I was thinking tonight that in a lot of ways, the trip was fairly easy but I caught myself because it was in the air of "we didn't really need to pray that hard after all." Not true at all. If indeed we can say that in a lot of ways, the trip went off without a hitch or that things turned out to not be as difficult that we thought they were - all glory goes to God. He answered our prayers!
Tomorrow will be a long day and we kinda hit the wall of exhaustion tonight. Please pray for good rest, strength, endurance, grace, patience, and a good sense of humor.
See you soon!
