Things Are Picking Up

Greetings all!

Things are really picking up now.  Thursday was my last day for now teaching at the little school in Fragua.  I have some pictures below that I took that day so you can see little bit of what I was doing.  To start out I would teach English- rather simple phrases for conversational use and then I would share a Bible story with them.  I had lots of fun doing this and I felt God was working through me to reach these kids.  I hope that I will have time to return and teach some more- I believe I will, primeramente Dios (God- willing).

Last week I fell terribly ill with a bad headache and an upset stomach.  Luckily, I didn't have a whole lot to do last week, but I think this made things worse because I was sick and without a real tangible purpose.  Things felt kind of dark and I prayed God would support me and lift me up, and He did- He always does.  I met with Pastor Miguel on Friday, he came a day before the group from Divine Shepherd (my home church)  and we had some time to catch up and to talk about our mission work for the upcoming months.  This got me really excited for several reasons- for one, I could speak English to somebody, two, I had a friend and a familiar face, and three, he helped me solidify in my mind what it was I was doing down here in Guatemala.

                          Go Sean Go!

We picked up the team on Saturday without one hick up, we all ate Pollo Campero (KFC of Guatemala) and then headed out for the Gualan-Zacapa area.  The trip went rather smooth- we just had to stop at a gas station a while and let the brakes cool off on the van Sean was driving.  Us flatlanders have to pay special attention to brake usage in mountainous regions (oops).  All was well and the team dropped me off in Zacapa, where I live, and they proceeded to Gualan. 

Saturday afternoon, Zacapa won the championship for the premier league in Guatemala and there was a large gathering in the town square in Zacapa to receive the team.  I went there with Jossymar and some of his friends from school.  We waited for over three hours for the team to get there.  They kept telling us the team was right around the corner- but it was all good because they had this awesome local band with trumpets, marimba, guitar, drums- the whole nine yards.  The music was fantastic!  The singers had some sick dance moves too- the only problem was that they were the only people dancing!  Nobody else was dancing!  I couldn't believe it.  Maribel and Jossy had told me that they didn't have dances here in Zacapa but it still shocked me.

I just could not help myself- I danced...  If I didn't already get enough attention with the light skin, hair, eyes and being a head taller than most people I certainly did when I was literally the only one dancing in a crowd of 1000 people or so.  It was contagious.  First my friends started dancing and sure enough we had a little pocket of brave souls dancing up a storm.  But they seriously don't dance here in Zacapa.  It's incredible!  I asked about it and they said the girls like to dance but they won't dance until a guy asks them and the guys don't think it is cool to dance (machismo- look it up).  

Anyway, the team finally came at 12:30 am and by that time I was exhausted.  We watched a little bit of the receiving- which was interesting- the Zacapa soccer team has it's own song and so does the town itself- and all the townies knew both- it was awesome- Vamos Euipo! (let's go team) Super Gallo!  (super rooster- their mascot).  

Sorry it's a little fuzzy (camera phone) but here is the stage in

Zacapa's Central park

Today, Ramiro (CALMS housing coordinator) and I met the Divine Shepherd team at the Miravalle Hotel in Gualan and took off for La Avanzada.  This is always an interesting climb up into the steep mountains.  We made it with no casualties and set up for our Sunday service in the community center there.  We had maybe 30 townspeople there, the majority of which were women and children.  We sang, read some Bible scriptures focusing on God's beautiful creation and the specifically the crown of his civilization- man, and Ronni- one of the young leaders there in La Avanzada read a devotional for us.  

There was a young boy that was needing some medical assistance there in town we had some of our medical people take a look.  The boy's father Donaldo Sr., said that Donaldo Jr. fell out of a tree and hurt his leg.  You didn't need to be a doctor to tell that the little boy's leg was broken- a pretty bad fracture, and he told us it happened 8 days ago!  Yikes!  We put Donaldo Jr. in my pickup and Ramiro and I took him and his dad to the Hospital in Zacapa.  I'll let you know how he is doing tomorrow, I don't know anything as of now.  

We filled my pickup pretty well full with pop, water, popcorn,

and medicine

That's it for today.  Thanks for reading!

Prayer requests:

For Donaldo and the doctors working with him

For the Holy Spirit to rest upon and enrich the people of La Avanzada to participate in the different activities we have for them this week

For God to be with our team as they perform the various tasks tomorrow: dentist clinic and Bible study

Safe travel for all

Adios y Dios les bendigan!