El fin

Well, this will be my last post for our trip!  What a whirlwind.  Though we agree that the week seemed to start slow, in retrospect it blew by (isn't that how it always is?)  The final debriefing we had last night was really great because Ashley (the VP of HRI) joined us and filled in some holes in stories we heard or experiences we've had which were really meaningful.  For example, we weren't quite sure of our purpose going to visit Santiago and play with the children there other than the fact Felipe lives there and we could hear his story.  Ashley told us that the reason she has set up this visit is to make Felipe a leader in the eyes of the people in his village.  When HRI groups come, he chooses the children that go with them to eat lunch, and keeps an eye  out as we play with them.  This is because Felipe is the black sheep of his village due to his gang-banging past. Even though he is no longer apart of a  gang, he has that label stuck on him. When Ashley first came to visit Felipe, a member of the village stood on the steps of the church and screamed at her for associating with Felipe because he was a criminal and a horrible person.  Ashley retorted by telling that person that he without sin can cast the first stone.  (Did I mention Ashley is about the strongest girl I've ever met? And that just prior to this conversation she and I were comparing notes on all the seasons of the Real World back into the 90's? Hilarious.)  

Felipe and others like him with seedy pasts are very likely to have tattoos-gang associated or otherwise. In Guatemala, however, it is near impossible to be employed if you have any on your body.  Applicants are subjected to "physicals" where doctors must report findings of tattoos anywhere on their person.  So, something Ashley is doing currently is taking the ex-homies working for HRI or studying with them to get tattoos removed.  This is a long, difficult, and very painful process.  She showed some pictures of Alex--the Ghetto construction coordinator--and his face while he was getting the work done. No bueno. 

I think this new information we took to heart last night really sums up our experience here. It is the story of redemption through Christ's salvation for some of the lowliest people in the world (criminals, ex-gang-bangers, impoverished, etc.) and our responsibility as Christians to see all people through the lens of Jesus.  Rich, poor, criminal, saint, Christian, or not--they are no greater or lesser than us and we are called to love them (see Roman's 12--our devotional study for week). But love doesn't mean letting sinful behavior slide (Ashley gave us a great story of scolding her workers for being late and how ex-criminals will cave under  her anger like little boys), nor does it mean lavishing handouts on the underprivileged so that they never know an honest day's living.  I'm excited to see how this team will apply these principles back on our home turf.

Finally,  this experience was a great one in team unity. This is only my second mission trip, but the first one where I bonded with the other members of my team and truly got to know them on a new level.  There was a LOT of laughing this week. Like, I'm talking "tears in our eyes, bent over, can't breathe" laughing.  We have our fair share of inside jokes from the week, and if you are in Momentum you should be able to get in on some of them on August 25th when we share out in ABF.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself with them and now can call them all closer friends for this time.
Thank you for all of you who followed this blog faithfully,  encouraged faithfully, and prayed for us faithfully.  If you have felt called to be apart of this journey in any way, definitely check out Hope-Renewed.org for the chance to sponsor a student, donate to the ministry, or perhaps even go on a trip with HRI yourself.  

Muchas gracias y bendiciones! 

The women's prison

What a great day! Unfortunately I have no photos to share as they are not allowed in the prison, of course. 

En route to the prison, we stopped at the dump to pick up some tile to work on the mosaic at the prison.  Unfortunately, the people needed to open up the workshop weren't there. But that meant we got to get out of the van during the search for keys to the workshop and play with the kids--a few that we recognized from earlier in the week. Then, we were on to the prison.

At the women's prison, we had to check in through security, then got a tour. The prison is divided into sectors based on social class and gang affiliations. The justice system is reversed here in that you are guilty until proven innocent. So, many women have been sitting for a year or more in prison awaiting trial.   Even those guilty may spend an excessive time in jail for relatively small crimes, and some owe huge fines for their crimes which they must pay off before they can be released. There is a section for mothers and their children. The children can remain with their mothers until age 4 when they must either live with other family or go to an orphanage. 

The first stop after our tour was to a small isolation cell where 5 women were living. We got to hear their testimonies--all revolving around changes of heart which brought them closer to God and their faithfulness that He will provide for them even with very long sentences and no hope to be released. We prayed with them holding their hands through the bars and a few of them cried. It was an emotional experience.

After that, we went to the screen printing workshop where women have volunteered to take accredited courses on making shirts and can get a diploma without mention of their incarceration. We sat with a group of ladies there and shared a bit about ourselves. Most of the women own up quickly to their bad decisions, but miss their families terribly. Most have other family in jail. Money laundering is a common offense. After we shared, we prayed with them and then ate lunches with them. We had some fun conversations with lots of laughs. Many knew some English and I even tried my hand at some translating. 

After lunch we headed to the recreation area to hang out and play games with the ladies. This area used to be a mix of the men's prison on the other side of the wall, and the women.  Understandably this set up the opportunity for rape and other horrible things. 2 years ago, HRI had a wall built to allow separation of the two groups. HRI also improved the conditions  of the court and basketball hoops. 

Up to this point, I had still not been feeling so well, but after lunch I prayed God would give me the health to play games with the women. I jumped into a volleyball game with everyone and amazingly started feeling instantly better. We also played basketball and soccer. Every once in awhile, a ball would go flying to the other side where the men were and we had a good time shouting for the ball ("¡la peloooota!) until the men would throw it back. 

A few of us sang with the ladies and I sang a solo for them in exchange for a solo from one of them. We just had an awesome, awesome time. Not your expectation of inmates whatsoever. The highlight was getting to give a gift to one of the inmates, Jessy, from Liz Franzen as they had connected on the college trip in June.  Jessy asked if I would deliver a letter in return and, at the end of the day, she gave me a beautiful bracelet and a gift for Liz (Liz, we have to meet up soon!). What a wonderful heart! I was actually much more emotional leaving there today than the orphanage.

An interesting end to the trip was that Monica-our intern for the day ended up checking out one of the boys, Jesse, for the weekend. The children can leave the prison to visit family, but Monica has developed a relationship with Jesse and his mother and he is staying at the house and seeing the sights with Monica this weekend. I leave you with an angry face from Jesse.

We are having our final debrief tonight and we leave for the airport at 10 tomorrow. We have a quick layover in Houston where we have to go through customs, so prayers that we make our flight to Chicago on time!

¡Buenas noches!

Zip lining and the HIV orphanage

It was a lovely day--much cooler than yesterday. We "slept in" today into the 7 AM hour. The horrible hotel saga continued with the same girls who got locked into their room finding 2 cockroaches in their bathroom.

But we're told it's pretty common here. 

We had a nice breakfast nearby, then drove the quick 5 minutes to the zip lining  place. 6 of the 10 of us decided to do the excursion, plus Monica who had finally gotten the courage to do it in her time here. We all opted for the new Extreme course which is apparently one of the longest in the world. We were zip lining on a mountain overlooking Lake Atitlan and the views were AMAZING. It was a bit intimidating to make the jumps off the platforms half a mile in the air, but the trip was well worth it. Perhaps the worst part was all the hiking between platforms that had us gasping for breath and taking scary rope bridges. But we all made it!!!

From there, we went back to the BK for lunch, then on to the HIV orphanage. It is relatively new, founded in 2006, and is run by nuns. The children-ages 0-15 years-have lost parents to the disease, or been removed from homes where neglect has been reported. Everyone a year or older is HIV positive. Those under 1 are waiting to be tested, and will be sent to another orphanage if cleared. 

The place was very well run, and the children all seemed happy there.  Katie, Carissa, and I spent most of our time with the infants and Gregorio-an older child with cerebral palsy. Everyone else had a blast playing with the older children outside. It was very hard to leave the orphanage for most knowing these precious children do not have parents to love them. 

The low of the day is that I am the first casualty of our group getting sick. We have done so well so far! So you can pray I recover quickly for our last full day in Guatemala at the women's prison. 

¡Hasta mañana!

Panajachel

¡Que Feliz!  Didn't think I would be able to update tonight because our hotel in Pana is...interesting. But here I sit on the floor in the middle of the hall with Doug and Ryan the computer whiz just outside the room with the router. 

Everything in Pana and Santiago besides this hotel is spectacular. Some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. We left GC at 6 AM then travelled the 3 hours to Panajachel with a stop at Burger King.

After devotional time at our hotel, we exchanged money for Quetzales and walked down to Lake Atitlan for a beeeeeautiful boat ride to Santiago. Lake Atitlan is surrounded by 3 volcanoes-one active and two dormant. Santiago is a beautiful town along the lake where they speak a language more native in nature-Mayan influenced. 

We were worried about this as our day consisted of dining and playing with the children of a refuge colony called Alfa y Omega created for them by the church after Hurricane Dan wiped out their homes. Ashley, the Vice President of HRI,  reached out to the community and currently there is an HRI worker and student, Felipe, living there.

Once our boat docked, we piled into the back of a pick up truck and headed up the mountain to the village. There, 10 children were chosen and squeezed back into the truck to go back down and have lunch at a great restaurant called El Pescador. We were paired with a child to share the meal with. We were very worried there would be a new language barrier with their exotic language, but the students were old enough that they are learning Spanish in school. So we did all right considering the generally low amount of Spanish skills among us.

After lunch it was back to their village to play volleyball, soccer, and have fun conversations with the kids. They took us down to the beach-BEAUTIFUL-and finally we heard Felipe's testimony of coming to Christ after jail and gang membership. 

After the long, hot play date with the village, we headed back towards the boat to go back to Pana. First, we stopped to shop a little. Shopping here is frustrating. Things are pretty cheap with the exchange rate and you can haggle, but the vendors are relentless when they see gringos coming and it is overwhelming when you just want to look . Still we got some good finds. We had another beautiful boat ride back to Pana as the sun set behind the mountains, then had more time to shop in Pana.  

The highlight of this time was when we came back to put our things in our hotel and Elizabeth, Katie, and Carissa's inside door knob broke off and they were locked in their room. Doug's room was next door so he climbed across balconies into their room to help them.  When he couldn't fix it, he and Elizabeth climbed back into his room to get help. Picture a bunch of gringos scaling a hotel wall in the middle of a busy street. Hilarious. And there's a Vine to prove it! (Carissa)

Tonight, we walked to a nice little restaurant on the Main Street for more awesome authentic food. It was a hot and tiring day but we enjoyed the tourist experience, the awesome kids, and the sights. 

Tomorrow: zip lining and the HIV orphanage!

¡Adios!

El Basurero, Zoologico, y La Limonada

Woo! Our longest day yet. We started today returning to El Basurero to pick up the students at the school who were chosen to go on our trip to the zoo. Each student got to pick who they wanted to be their amigo, and I got the luck of the draw with Selvin--the cutest little, angelic 4-year-old ever. We piled into our van-a child in each of our laps-and we spent 3 or 4 hours having a blast at the zoo which had all your basic animal favorites. Many of the children fell asleep on the way back from the fun. When we returned to the dump, we did some work together moving furniture in the school then broke up painting, continuing to work on the mosaic (Katie=master mosaic-er), and trying to prevent the children from killing each other on the playground. Katie and my mosaic work ended early when the sky opened up and the dump transformed into a river. The others finished up their work inside and the rain let up just enough to allow us to run to the car dodging puddles. 

After a much needed shower back at the house, we headed back to the ghetto to meet with the 12 students currently under a scholarship with HRI to get an education. We ate pizza and the students shared their work with us. It was encouraging to hear how, as adults many of whom did not know how to read, have chosen to further themselves and are succeeding.

The highlight of my day personally came while waiting for the students to go to the  zoo. A little girl was peaking out the door of her house next to the school so I came  up to her to talk. A few of her other siblings appeared and they gave me gifts of a few twist ties, a comb, and part of a lanyard. It is rude to refuse gifts so

I took them happily. I walked back into the school and a few minutes later the youngest sibling, no older than 2, appeared at the door with a bucket of melted ice cream for me.  A few minutes after that, she returned with a Hello Kitty jumper.  It was so crazy to see firsthand the impulse of children so young to be generous with their things. Super cute!

Tomorrow, we leave bright and early for Panajachel and Santiago-towns a few hours away-for some "rest and relaxation". 

¡Nos vemos!

El Basurero

Today was day 1 in the city dump with Lauren, the intern who oversees work at El Basurero. The dump houses the poorest of the poor in Guatemala, but it is governed by an alderman of sorts named Teri who is a solid Christian and has a great heart for her people. Recently there was a fire that claimed 9 homes, but the people really band together in the community and they repaired much of the damage in the first few days. 

When we arrived, we went to the preschool started by HRI to work on organizing the school materials there l. When we finished, we were able to go into the classrooms and interact and run games with the children. When school finished we played with them on the playground. In actuality, they played with US. We transformed into jungle gyms with children climbing on our shoulders and demanding to be carried everywhere. It was tiring on our already sore bodies, but what a delight to be able to love on them and get to know them for 

the first time.

After lunch, we split into two teams again. My team went first to make a house visit. We picked up several children along the way to the point that we didn't know who lived in the house we visited and who didn't. The woman there, Andrea--is a grandmother caring for both children and grandchildren and struggling to stay afloat, but she repeatedly thanked God for the blessings she's had and was gracious to us about being here, reminding us that we have an impact.

After that, we switched places with the others and worked on the mosaic on the wall in the park. This was admittedly the most frustrating part of the day as it was difficult to piece together the tiles, get them to stick, and fend off the children playing and trying to help. We have jokingly started calling it the zombie apocalypse, particularly when we are in the preschool and the students are banging on the doors to get in.  Still, they are precious and make you feel so loved and we hope we've done the same for them. 

It can feel like drive by mission work when you pop into a place for a matter of  hours, get people attached to you, then disappear. Luckily, we get to return tomorrow for a trip with the students to the zoo!

¡Adios!

La Limonada

What a day! Today was the team's day in Limonada--the largest ghetto in Central America with 100,000 people. La Limonada is divided into colonies, some that are hostile towards each other. There used to be a large gang presence, but they more or less killed each other off. Gun violence has greatly decreased as well. Ashley, the Vice President of Hope Renewed, has lived much of her life in La Limonada and experienced some close calls with bullets coming through her bedroom window in times past. 

We started our day in Limonada watching the end of a soccer game with the HRI sponsored team playing. After our tour of the ghetto--including a stop at the site of the community center HRI is putting in- we broke into two teams. First, my team went to work with Ellie on a construction project which is the process of constructing the concrete walls of the future residence of a family that is being served by HRI after their original house was destroyed in a landslide. It was pretty tough physical labor carrying buckets of water, rocks, and sand, then mixing it up. It was broken up by playing with two cute little kids-Crystal and Usiel-who pretty much cracked up at anything I did.

The second half of the day we swapped with the other part of the team and we joined Luis-one of the HRI interns-to make house calls to people being served by HRI. The first experience was the most emotional experience for me. We met Alex and Pati and their son, Steven-the family for whom the house is being constructed. Alex used to live a life of crime and once when he was trying to steal, he was shot and paralyzed from the waist down. Pati became his nurse and served him through quite a lot. She cried recounting how God has helped them through and blessed them. In return for his new house, Alex had to put in a few months of labor. He hopes to become a computer tech despite his physical limitations. Unfortunately, they are in danger of losing their current house before the new one was finished but they were hopeful. Each family we met was very grateful for everything they've received, but they have worked and are working hard for it. With each family we met, we prayed Korean style which is where everyone stands in a circle and prays out loud at the same time. 

Needless to say it was a long and tiring day but full of blessings. The Guatemalan people are very open and relational and they make the cultural divide seem much smaller.  Our first full day was a success and we're looking forward to the next two days in the city dump.

¡Hasta mañana!