Guatemala Update#1: Operacion Jabes

Hola a todos!!

Well…I know it has been less than a week since my arrival in Guatemala, but I thought I’d let you all know what EXACTLY I am doing here since it was pretty vague before I left…
So I arrived in Guatemala at approx. 5:30am to find out that they had lost my luggage…AGAIN. Out of the 3 times that I have been to Guatemala my luggage has only been lost….3 times. So you can imagine how thrilling this is. I mean 1st time- I’m ok with it, 2nd time- I’m ok with it…3rd time-not so much!! But I am in constant contact with the airline and plan on getting them soon, even though it’s been 5 days. Ridiculous!!
I was picked up at the airport by one of my former Missionary Training School classmates, Allison and she was also there to pick up Nadine (who traveled with me AND got all her bags) and 2 ladies from Finland who are attending the MTS at Fe Viva. I already know some Finnish words!! Awesome!!
So I got a few hours to hang out with some of my friends who are still down here and people I didn’t get to see all summer and then got driven into Chiquimulilla, where I am now living with Carol Gleeson, the former director of MTS at Fe Viva. Our house is very cute and there was a team here who painted it all nice. I just put up curtains in my room. And the house is a nicer part of town although a little far from everything. But quiet. And we often have friendly visitors. Along with Pastors Erik and Olga Esquite from Guazacapan (10 minutes away) we are part of a new ministry called Operacíon Jabes (Operation Jabez) which is based on Jabez’s prayer in I Chronicles 4:10:

“And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested.”

And what we do is we go to churches that Erik and Olga helped plant in our area (Chiquimulilla, Guazacapan, Taxisco, Esquintla, etc…) and we teach them tools they can use to evangelize. So we are basically training Guatemalans to be missionaries. We have 5 lessons: Evangelism, How to lead someone to the Lord, Sharing your testimony, Street Preaching and Divine Healing. (I teach ‘Sharing your Testimony’). After working with students we hope to take them out and let them practice what they learned.
Today (the 1st) was our first seminar and we went to a church in Campesino which is on the outskirts of Taxisco (15 min. from our house). It was nice going there because it was a church that we had went to last time I was here. Carol and I don’t know enough Spanish yet so Olga translated for us and did a miraculous job!! Considering she is 7 months pregnant.
That’s about it for now. I was going to include some pictures but my chord for my camera is in my luggage and my luggage is…yeah.

Oh yeah and right now we still have a few needs. First of all, we are still in the workings of getting a vehicle. Right now we are depending on tuk-tuks and microbuses to get around. So prayer for that would be good- that we find a good dependable second hand vehicle that has good papers i.e not stolen, and within our budget. Second, we do not have a washing machine right now so we have to do our laundry out in our pila, a big sink in the court yard. And also right now Olga, who is 7 months pregnant, is due in November and knows she needs a C-Section however, they do things a little differently here. Instead of just having a planned C-Section, like in Canada, they wait until you go into labour and then after TWO DAYS when they know for sure you need a C-Section, then they’ll do it. Imagine that!! Anyways we’re still waiting for funds to come in so we can buy a washing machine and be able to send Olga to the private hospital to have a proper planned C-Section. Finally I need MUCHO PRAYER for my luggage to arrive here safely with nothing missing and quickly because imagine how attractive one gets being in a tropical climate with umm…2 changes of clothes….by the way, the temperature right now is 30 degrees celcius. P.S I just checked and it’s 6:30pm.

Gracias!! Y que Dios les bendiga!!

Home again, home again

Well...
I have now been at home in Canada for about 2 weeks. I was actually way better prepared than I thought I'd be. It took me like the weekend to readjust and sleep and stuff. Although it is still weird for me to throw toilet paper in the toilet and to drink water from the tap. I still can't do it without cringing.
Going back to work wasn't too bad. I was a little overwhelmed with all the product because we certainly didn't have that much when I left in february and there is also alot of new staff, some that I am still just meeting for the first time. And it's weird for them to think that I have been there longer than they have because they just met me. Oh well, but I'm getting back into it.
Canada Day I had my family over and I showed them pictures from my trip and they got to ask questions and get caught up. I just got off the phone with my grandmother and she said that she noticed that in all the pictures that I was in, I looked happy and she hoped that everyone else noticed too. I love my grandma!
Which brings me to say that...I am going back to Guatemala!!! I leave August 27th and arrive very early in Guatemala on the 28th. And then I don't come back until December 10th. Carol, the director of MTS at Fe Viva, is starting up a new Missions Training directed towards Guatemalans and she has asked me to help lead it with her. I'm very excited and after being back in Canada for 2 weeks, I realize how much I am ready to go back.

Praise the Lord for widow makers!

Ok everybody I am now in Antigua and it is soo cold!! So, you can all stop being jealous of me now because I have to wear long johns and socks to bed. But luckily the place where I am staying has a widowmaker and thus hot showers. Awesome!

So I'm now officially halfway done my first week of spanish school. It's actually pretty fun. It's not quite as a I imagined it. So far we have been doing alot of stuff that I have already learnt so it's all review but it's really good practice because I have a habit of forgetting things. And my teacher is really getting me to talk because I am awful. I have classes for 4 hours in the morning and then I spend my afternoons and evenings hanging out, walking around Antigua, finding random places in my "Walk Antigua" book to just go and find and of course doing homework and studying. Yesterday actually, I went with the school to visit Museo Azotea which has a Mayan music and clothing exhibit and a coffee exhibit as well. It was pretty interesting and I took some pictures.
I live with a Guatemalan family however there are 6 other students living there from the States and Canada and one from Israel and so it's more like a guest house and not so much immersion but a few of them are leaving this weekend so it'll be better. Plus this weekend my friend Charity will be joining me for the second week and I am very excited about this as I am missing familiar faces. Even though it's very easy to make friends here, but you know, it's just still not quite the same.

Ok well my half hour of free internet is almost up but I just wanted to say thanks again to whoever reads this and to pray for health as I got really sick again this morning and I get tummy aches still in the evenings. Which really sucks.

The time has come....

The time has come for MTS to end! *tear*
Man alive I cannot believe how fast time has gone! It is unbelievable. But tonight we did reflect a little bit over the past 3 months but not alot and just kinda discussed what we learned and how we have changed and stuff like that.
I mentioned that MTS made me feel well equipped to become a missionary and I felt that the tools we developed has created a new willingness in me to go and tell people about Jesus. And I also never knew how much Jesus makes me smile and I find a new found joy in Him.
But yeah, tomorrow is our grad and it's going to be so fun and maybe a little emotional but it's so hard to focus on that with spanish school coming. I almost can't wait for MTS to be over. Well it's bittersweet...

Plus, I don't think the Belize blog is coming. There is too much to write. Maybe I'll do a photo blog when I get home or something. Sorry about that. And I also got sick a little bit this week and just for the record...I'm almost never going to drink Super Cola again. So I'm going to have to change that...The triune has officially fallen.

How much longer can she take it???

Well...at least 2 more weeks.
That's right everyone I will be staying in Guatemala for an extra 2 weeks to attend Spanish School. So instead of coming back on the 2nd of June I will be coming back on the 19th of June.

Yeah so the school is in Antigua, Guatemala. Antigua is like the big tourist city here in the country and it's where all the tourists go and they have ruins and and volcanoes and a really big market area and they have like a million spanish schools. Actually it was totally a God moment that I'm actually going because probably a few days before I was having a hard time really deciding on what I was going to do after MTS was over. I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay and go to a spanish school, or go home and come back here in the fall or go home and take a year of school and come back in the summer and blah blah blah...it was really stressing me out. And then one night I was talking to my good friend Charity (who is actuallly joining me at the school) and I was just asking her questions and then shes like you know what why don't you go for 2 weeks to a different spanish school that everyone here goes to and I'll join you for one and then we can come back here to Fe Viva and then we can fly out together and with one of the other staff members. And so I decided right there I was going to spanish school and so I called my family and asked my dad to change my flight. Then the next day she went to Antigua to book us and it turns out the school was full. So I was absolutely crushed and had nothing to do for 2 weeks because my flight was already changed so I was freaking out. And then Carol, the director of the school was cleaning out her room and found a brochure to this other school and it looks totally awesome and so I e-mailed them and they said that they would be happy to take us!! So Praise the Lord, I am going! And plus while you're there you stay with a Guatemalan family and you can do volunteer work around the city and I signed up for teaching french. So I might be able to get by on the 2 weeks without having to speak english at all.

I'm pretty excited.

Belize update to come....

Oh the heat....

It is friggin' hot.

So this is the last update before Belize. I hope you enjoy and feel free to e-mail or leave messages while I"m gone. I'll get them eventually.

My Birthday- so yesterday (the 17th) was my 20th birthday. It was actually like the best birthday ever. I am so blessed by knowing the people here. They treat us very good. Anyways so I was woken up at 5am with firecrackers outside our room and they brought my ice cream with an oreo on top that I could eat in bed. It was so yummy! And then at 7 am they threw rocks and mangoes on our tin roof and it was very loud. Then after lunch they surprised me with a pinata and cake and the tradition is that you have to take a bite of the cake without your hands and you just used your face, but then they smash your face into the cake and whatever you touched is your piece. And they had all signed a card and Jasmine made me a journal. Then later that night we went out for pupusas.

Las Lisas- This morning we went to another island called Las Lisas and we went to the school to present a children's program to over 300 kids. If you can imagine. We took another boat and we did our puppets, clowns, Jasmine did her kids testimony and sang some songs and then we handed out some tracts and pencils and crayons to all the kids. It was blaring hot and we had to walk around in our clown stuff. My face was pretty much melting off. But it was super fun and the kids just loved us and wanted to show us around their school and play with us. Then they served us lunch after- fried fish and tortillas that we ate with our hands but it was so good. And this was a little challenging because alot of the kids probably don't go to church and it's not a christian school so alot of these kids were hearing the Gospel for the first time. So we had to be very choosy in the words we used and how we presented things and we had to do the wordless book and tell them the entire story of salvation. But they seemed very enthusiastic. Course it was probably also the first time they have seen white people.

Agua Dulce- Last sunday we put on a church service on an island called Agua Dulce (sweet water) and we had to take a boat to get there and then the chapel was someone's house with a palm treee roof and everyone just kinda sat around. But it was soo fun and the island was beautiful. We did our drama, puppets, the evangecube and Jasmine preached and I gave my testimony. After the service we took our boat over to a family who runs a salt plantation and I know you're thinking like big factory but it's this little hut and they run the water up and do something and then there's salt. I wasn't entirely paying attention because it was hot and I was watching some kid torture a dog. Plus, we had to go through all these mangroves and like through the jungle to get there. It was like the Jungle Safari ride at Disneyland. I was waiting for some hippo to come bursting out of the water. But here's some pictures from there: (sorry that they are all scattered and not nice looking, This is my first time putting pics on here and you will have to tip your head sideways. I hope you don't mind! )

1) This is Jasmine preaching at Agua Dulce.

2) This is a picture of the congregation that morning (mostly kids)

3) This is our boat and with the pastors grandchildren inside.

4) this is one of the pastors grandchildren. She is just so cute I couldn't resist putting her on here.

5) These are some of the mangroves we had to go through. Sometimes they were so low you had to duck.

Off to Belize!!

Hey everyone!!
We are going to be going to Belize for 7-9 days. I'll make sure to update as soon as we get back and hopefully I"ll have figured out how to get the pictures on here!!

Dios le bendiga!