Missions in Guatemala-Summer 2011

This summer I was assigned to work in Casa Alabanza, the toddler house, so when I learned we would be staffing the houses every other Monday night for staff meetings, I anticipated I’d be in Alabanza with my kids. Julia informed me before the second to last staff meeting that I’d be in Casa Lamar, the house of all girls. I was slightly confused but up for the challenge. That night, the house wasn’t only full of girls- the house parents had decided to leave their developmentally disabled, Down syndrome son, Angel Daniel as well. I had never met him before, but from the moment I saw him, I knew my heart went out to him.

He has the brightest, biggest smile of any child I have ever seen; even though he is crippled, developmentally delayed, and still wears diapers at age 7, he perpetually beams. I have seen lots of kids over the years with great smiles, but none compare to the joyous grins of Angel Daniel. You can see each one of his little teeth and his face radiates with sweetness and innocence.

So that night, Bekah and I got the pleasure of working in Casa Lamar with a dozen lovely preteen girls and Angel Daniel. One of the girls living in the house was assigned the role of looking after Angel for the night, and once we realized he couldn’t sleep until his parents returned from their meeting (since he slept sandwiched between them in their bed), we offered to stay up to watch the little sweetie. The girl was relieved to get to go to sleep early and I know I was even more excited to get some time with our new friend.

There were not many toys in the room that were interesting to Angel Daniel- he simply wanted to read Goldilocks and the Three Bears…over and over and over again! Picking up the book for the first time, I immediately assumed I remembered everything about the story since I had grown up reading it, just like him. Yet as we read the story aloud to Angel, I was surprised to notice how little I remembered of how the story ends in an oddly jarring and unsettling way. As the story goes, Goldilocks dangerously breaks and enters into a house, eats all the bears’ porridges, sits in and breaks their chairs, and lies in and sleeps in their beds! When the bears return, she runs away to escape from them forever. It’s probably not your typical children’s fairy tale, because it does not directly instruct readers or offer a concluding moral. All this to say, I was jolted to see how little I actually thought and processed fables and stories like these that I had read as a child and had grown up hearing. Once I took a closer look and read between the lines, I came to realize how important it is to give a discerning eye to things we thought we learned in our youth.

In my own life, I grew up learning simple truths about God’s character- how much he loved me and was always with me, but in that moment with Angel Daniel, I was reminded that it isn’t until you experience God personally in your life in a more powerful way, that you reevaluate what you learned many years ago. I asked myself how much of my faith was just repetition rooted in memories from my childhood or just because of my family’s faith and how much of it was actually my own.

This encounter with Angel Daniel was truly an encounter with God, as he prodded me to examine my faith and to figuratively dust it off. I was given the opportunity to see through the eyes of a toddler (because Angel wasn’t beyond the mental capacity of a child the age of 3), to see things anew from a curious and inquisitive lens. Very practically, Angel Daniel has to lift his eyes and look upwards when he gazes at you because of his poor eyesight- because of this his smile meets your eyes directly at eye-level. It was almost as if God himself was beaming at me, right then and there, offering me encouragement and showering me with his overflowing joy and love.

Throughout the summer I observed my toddlers take in the world around them with that same curiosity and wonderment that Angel Daniel possesses. I realized how much kids look up when they walk, rather than look down at their feet or the pavement. A simple observation such as this shed light on the what God was teaching me—look up and see me in your daily life! I don’t think twice about looking down when I walk, to watch my footing or to anticipate my next step. But God doesn’t call us to walk relying on our own vision; He desires for us to gaze upwards and look to him for direction and a clear path, very much like how kids walk with their eyes focused upwards.

Through my experience with Angel Daniel that night in Casa Lamar, I was able to see how important it is to relearn things as if through a toddler’s eyes- there are so many simple truths that we have grown up learning about Jesus and God’s divine character, but they are so essential to our understanding of the Gospel; we simply must slow down and look up to see what he desires us to see. I desire to do just that: to look up with a similar childlike faith, and to have the sight, curiosity, and joy of sweet Angel Daniel.

- Morgan Sorenson

All the Attention.  Rosita wasn’t one you wanted to upset. Yet, too she was one of those who, simply by trying to be fair, you couldn’t help but upset somehow. She took equality between all the kids as something like a personal attack on her right to fun. She was particularly bitter when it came to the swings, either when her time was up, or when someone else had claimed “her” spot first. You knew you had done it when she folded her arms and put on the classic put off look: pursed lips, head turned down, and eyes on the ground; she might even give a little kick at the gravel to punctuate her disapproval. I remember vividly the first time I triggered the “Rosita-pout.” I knew, of course, that appealing to fairness would be futile as it was fairness that had lost her the spot in the first place. It was someone else’s turn on el columpio and the girl I knew to be a sweet, smiley, seven-year-old transformed into this fuming ball of folded arms and stubbornness and refused to have any more fun. Well, I wasn’t having it. I, too, can be stubborn, even so much as to be able to compete with this Guatemalan seven-year-old. This was only the first week of these swings, and with seven weeks to go I wasn’t going to let this girl get to me. I knew what she wanted, and with week-long group after week-long group, all the coming and going, I knew, too, that it was easy for her to get it. She wanted the attention. She wanted the gringo who is always on the look out for a frown and who will drop just about anything to “turn that frown upside down.” The swing didn’t really matter to her… or if it did it could easily be substituted with cosquillas (tickles) or helping her with el pasamanos (the monkey bars)—as long as all the attention was on her and none of it was invested anywhere else. And, of course, I also would have been happy to give cute Rosita every ounce of attention I possessed if I didn’t have sixteen other kids to pay attention to, or, if she were really deprived of attention in life. But I knew she wasn’t. She was too happy already, and definitely too good at this pouting-act to actually need attention. She got attention all the time and she knew it because she was good at getting it.

It went on like this for a few days. Me being stubborn, Rosita being even more stubborn. I would eventually make concessions here and there to let her take another turn on the swing, or help her across the monkey bars one more time, but we remained in a stand-off of sorts. Me and Rosita. Then one day I adopted a new tactic and became a seven-year-old myself.  It started off the way it usually did, someone else got the swing first, and the arms folded up right away. I walked up to her and did the same. I looked her in the eyes, scrunched up my face, gave it my best attempt at looking as grumped out as possible, and said, “Soy Rosita. Hmph.” She looked up with an inquisitive pout. I then kicked the dirt, turned and walked back to the swings and kept pushing one of the others. I started becoming Rosita every time Rosita got upset. I eventually pulled another card out of my own childhood and dared her, during one of her episodes, not to smile. I put on my own pouting face and got up close to her own and said, “No sonrías” (“Don’t smile”). Well it’s amazing how hard not to smile it is when someone tells you not to, especially when you’re seven. Thus started mine and Rosita’s real friendship. She eventually caught on that her pout didn’t work on me, nor was I going to be leaving any time soon. Before long, when she didn’t get the swing, she went off to play somewhere else with the others (there was, after all, seventeen kids and only two swings). And we continued to have pouting contests when we stared at each other and whoever smiled first lost. By the end of the trip, it was Rosita who came up to me, stared me in the eye and said, “No sonrías.” And it was incredibly hard to look into her big, purposefully sulky eyes and twisted, pretend frown and not smile. In fact, it was almost impossible not to break out in uncontrollable laughter. It became something I looked forward to, staring contests with Rosita, because it was always one of those moments when what you are doing and why you are there and who God is and how much he loves you and how much he loves Rosita all breaks through to your consciousness in one overwhelming spine-tingling fit of laughter. Rosita ended up getting my attention after all, yet I also had all of hers, and we both had all of God’s.

-Riley Mulhern 

Our last day here.  Time has flown so quickly.  It hardly seems time to leave, and yet here we are, saying our goodbyes, doing our last this or that, cramming as much time as possible in with the people we’ve grown to love here, and of course packing (eventually).

In such a seemingly small amount of time, so much has happened, especially in my house where Chels and I are able to experience so many firsts with the kids.  We saw one little boy go from all frowns and anger to a happy boy with a beautiful smile and joyful laugh who loves to hug our legs, and has within this past week and a half begun to speak.  A little girl went from scooting to running, and another is beginning to take her first steps.  I’ve grown so close to these kids, as I’m sure each one of us has with the children in our own houses, and we’re all going to miss them terribly.  I cannot help but think about how many changes are going to occur when I am gone.  The kids will continue to grow and experience new things, and if I am able to come back even as soon as a year, they will be so completely changed.  On the one hand this is a beautiful concept, but it also makes it a bit more difficult to leave.

If you could all pray for us through this goodbye process, both for ourselves as well as the children we will be leaving, that they not feel abandoned another time.  Pray for the staff of Casa Bernabe, as we are the last large group until December coming through, and they will be readjusting to having only 2-4 adults for 12-20 children daily.  Encouragement and stamina as well as love for the children are necessary.  Finally, prayer for safe travels would be appreciated.  We will be leaving the orphanage somewhere between 4:30 and 5:40 tomorrow morning.  The three team members from Wheaton (Riley, Morgan, and Sam) in addition to our team leader Julia will fly out at 7:30ish to Atlanta and then Charlotte, N.C. for debrief, while the three of us from California will be flying out at 9:40 through Dallas, and then Chels and Cheryl will go on to L.A. and I’ll fly out an hour later to San Francisco.  After being with this amazing team for so long, it is going to be so difficult to say goodbye, especially to those from Wheaton, as I will not see them in the fall as I will the others.  I would also ask for continued prayer for an individual missionary and friend Jamilynn, who has two more weeks here, as well as for another solo missionary, Sam S., who will be here for another 10 months.  Sam actually arrived the same day our team did, and I think it will be especially difficult for him, because his whole experience has been with us, and he is basically one of us, so prayer directed his way would be wonderful.

I will be seeing some of you very soon; others I may never meet.  But I want to sincerely thank all of you for your prayers and support for us this summer.  It has been felt and appreciated.  If any of you feel drawn to support the mission of Casa Bernabe financially, I would encourage you to go to their website, which is linked to our blog, and sponsor a child.  You can do a partial sponsorship for $45 a month, or a full for $90 a month.  And support through prayer is very important as well, so please don’t stop just because we are no longer here.  The ministry still continues.  Dios les bendiga!

Simply the fact that this blog post comes only one day after yesterday’s blog post is, I’m sure, a surprise for everyone. Something we have realized is how dangerous the phrase, “I will later” is. Basically, this is the phrase which prevents us from being fully present, from fully listening to what God is teaching us, from writing on this blog with any frequency, from having even that one afternoon when we are 100% giving ourselves to the kids, from praying even the most simple meditations of our hearts, or from introducing ourselves to new volunteers. But I mean, it’s all just so exhausting! We are tired! And so… well, I will later. But wait, sitting having a conversation about how close! we feel to God, yet still so far away, how much we love the kids! yet how we are counting down the minutes until nap time, how sad and weird it is that there is only one full week left, yet how, what’s today?… just get through this week… having that conversation, well I don’t know… I should do something, or something. I guess, as the amount of later we have left steadily dwindles, I suppose we are learning something about endurance, about steadiness, about discipline, and about how these dry, lifeless sounding words can translate into love. Really though I just made that last sentence up. That is an ideal that helps to make sense of this place, but really learning that? Not sure yet. I want to be able to tell people great things about my time in Guatemala when I get home, but I don’t want to make anything up. I want to be honest about this whole thing, and if I am honest with this experience, I can tell you highlights, but I can’t tell you that I changed much of anything in anyone’s life but my own, but I’m sure I will figure out what it all means… later.

Friends and family,

We’re in our last two weeks at Casa Bernabe; it’s hard to believe how fast time has flown! We all agree that each day seems to go by slowly, but the weeks are what catch up to us faster than we can process. Given that we have only twelve days left at the orphanage, we want to be especially intentional about our time with the staff and kids in our houses. Often times it’s easy to let the final days of a trip passively take place, as if they are the dwindling resolutions following a climax. We don’t want that; we want to be surprised each day with new climaxes- lessons and wisdom God desires to teach us and put upon our hearts. At the same time, it is necessary to begin a process of withdrawal from the children to avoid creating the feeling of another loss in their lives. This is very difficult for everyone involved and also looks a lot different for each house. Essentially, we want to make ourselves unnecessary to the kids’ daily lives by the time we leave by diverting the Living Water into different channels of service in the time we have remaining. A new team of thirty will be here during our time of transition, which is a testimony to God’s perfect timing. Nonetheless our twelve days give us ample opportunity to continue to absorb even more of the life and culture here.

Even so, some of that process of absorbing looks a lot like just sitting on a couch watching the kids do homework, or watching them swing on the playground. This seeming laziness has given many of us on the team qualms about how effective or successful we are. We try to justify that we are making a difference in these kids’ lives, even if we can’t see it on the surface. However, as true as that may be, it has taken us this long to also realize that sitting around patiently waiting and watching is often exactly how God loves us in our lives. One of the beauties of the Spanish language is the ability of words to take on multiple meanings- one such example is the verb “esperar,” which can mean both “to hope” and “to wait.” These are not only common actions of God in His relationships with us, but also how He calls us to act in our relationships with others. So, in imitating how God loves us, we can’t measure our own success, but a posture of simultaneous hoping and waiting, as we learned from Henri Nouwen during ROH orientation, is all about being fruitful instead of successful.

It is “fruit” after all that will bring healing to this place, not our own successes. The suffering of some of the children here cannot be relieved even by mountains of earthly success, yet the love of the Father is bound by nothing. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4.

We will leave you with the chorus of one of our new favorite songs, “Toda la Gloria.” It is not uncommon to hear the toddlers shouting these words to the world on the swing set. In fact, it is not uncommon to hear members of ROH shouting these words to the world in any number of settings. May God receive all the glory.

Movie 623

Love,

The Rainbows of Hope Team

Special shout out to our faithful blog followers, Nana Means and Granny Mulhern!

The situation with Pedro has become increasingly complex.  They unplugged the respirator at 5AM on Saturday, and he is breathing on his own now.  Donnie would like to bring him home to die in his own bed, but before he can come home he must be at 50% (I’m not exactly sure what that means, but that is what we’ve been told).  He’s been at 50% several times, but he always comes back down before he can be sent home.  Last we heard, he is joking and talking with his family, which is a miracle in itself, but they caution us not to become too excited, because he still has no liver, no kidneys, and cancer in his lungs, pancreas, and stomach.  Though we all realize God is powerful, and, if he chose to, could heal Pedro completely, most of us are expecting him to pass away and only pray that Donnie be able to take him home first.  Our first prayers have been answered though.  He is out of his comma and was able to talk with all of his family.  God is good and faithful, Amen?  Now we pray that he be able to die in peace in his own home.  Thank you all so much for your prayers!

This week, and yesterday especially, have been a difficult time for the orphanage.  Pedro, who helped found Casa Bernabe with his wife, Donnie, is in serious condition.  Vans full of people, including some of our team members, have been going to the hospital to donate plasma (type A positive only) to help keep him alive just long enough so he can come to and say goodbye to his family, who are trying to get here as fast as possible.  The entire orphanage had a prayer vigil yesterday for him and his family.  Without an astounding miracle (which God can do) he will not survive much longer.  His kidneys and liver have shut down, and he is on a respirator to help with breathing.  So please pray for a miracle or a peaceful passing, whichever be God’s will.  And if passing be his will, pray that all of his family arrives and he is able to wake up enough to say goodbyes.  Pray also for his brother who is the house father at Casa Samuel (where Riley works) that he has time to grieve while still caring for all of the children there.  We will try to keep you posted as we get more information.

Our group is slowly getting smaller and smaller, and each person who leaves will be sorely missed.  Technically no one from our team has left (yet) but we’re in such close quarters here at Casa Bernabe, and we are all united as the family of Christ, so we just refer to those not technically on our Rainbows team as our extended team.  This Friday, however, one of our own Rainbows team members heads back to the States to begin her soccer training.  I’m speaking of our much loved Jenny, better known as “Jyenny,” part of “JyennyMaaawwwwgawn” or “MaaawwwwgawnJyenny” in Casa Alabanza (the toddler house, thus the pronunciations).  She will be sorely missed by all of us, but I’m sure most by Morgan, her partner in crime at Casa Alabanza.  Prayers for safe travels and easy readjustment to the States for Jenny and for endurance for Morgan now that she will be working alone with the toddlers would be very appreciated.

Thankfully before this very sad time in the trip we had an amazing high together.  Thursday was Riley’s 20^th Birthday, and his house parents at Casa Samuel helped us throw a surprise birthday party for him, complete with Mickey Mouse piñata, two cakes, nachos, and platano atol, his favorite Guatemalan drink. The kids were so anxious for him to arrive.  One boy called me over, telling me he needed help.  I asked him what he needed help with, and he looked right into my eyes with such a sad puppy look and said “Riley’s not here!”  It may have been the most adorable thing ever.

Then later in the evening we continued the celebration with brownies and gifts that we’d brought from before we’d known him, so that was fun.  The gifts may have included Cars socks, glow sticks, and a pin the tail on the donkey.  It was rather amusing to see what people thought to get someone they didn’t know at all.

Then Friday was our day at the local amusement park, which was really legit.  It took two very school buses and two overcrowded 15 passenger vans to get everyone there.  My van had 27 persons in it, but 12 of those were 3 or under.  The little one I was holding on my lap got sick and vomited on himself, so that was sad.  But I think he started feeling better after we finally arrived.  After a ridiculously long wait in line for our wristbands (literally and hour and ½, which is not fun with impatient kids) they allowed us to go in.  There were very few rides the littlest ones could actually go on, but that didn’t matter for the little one in my charge.  He loved the “caballos” more commonly known as a carousel.  I must have went on that at least 10 times with him, sometimes 3 times in a row.  At lunch some peacocks from the zoo in the park were stalking our tables, and the kids went back and forth between being terrified of them to thinking they were really cool.  It was rather amusing.  After lunch I got to ride some of the bigger rides with my house parents children and house parents.  I also went to go buy some water with one of the little ones on my hip, and got some weird looks.  You could tell everyone thought he was my child, which was amusing.  The baby house ended up leaving about an hour before everyone else was scheduled to leave, because the kids had not gotten a nap that day and were very tired.  This turned out to be a very wise choice, because not only did we miss the usual traffic, but we also escaped the city before it basically got shut down from the murder of an Argentinean singer.  I guess the other vehicles just sat, with engines turned off, for at least 45 minutes.  The other van containing Casa Samuel, was able to escape down a side road after 45 minutes, but the large school buses did not have that option, so they arrived much later.  It was a rather rough ending to the day, I’m sure.  I can’t even imagine trying to keep the kids entertained for that long.  Even in Casa Samuel, which escaped early, one poor little boy peed his pants.  But other than that ending, the rest of the day seemed overall really awesome.

Saturday began our strictly Rainbows team vacation.  We all piled into the van for the 3-4 hour drive to one of the most beautiful places on the planet: Panajachel, right on the side of Lake Atitlan.  It felt like we were missing lots of people, both because we usually have more people at our team devotionals who are technically not Rainbows, and because we are use to having at least 3 people beyond the van capacity when we go anywhere, and there were empty seats!  We all enjoyed the drive, seeing the beautiful Guatemalan scenery.  Upon arriving we took a boat across the lake to another little town, Jaibalito, where our hotel was located.  Volcano Lodge, our hotel, was a piece of Eden.  Seriously.  We had a suite and a room downstairs.  From the suite was a beautiful view of the lake and some volcanoes across the way, with tons of tropical flowers.  It also contained a hammock and chair hammock that all of us made use off, and a few of us even slept in them (Jenny and myself).

We went swimming in an amazing pool, which we got to by taking a police escort (which means we rode standing up in the back of a police pick up).  It was pretty legit.  The pool had two sides and a diving board, and was so relaxing.  We also  decided to swim in the lake and enjoyed that immensely as well.  This pool was actually not the one we’d boated across the lake to use, but it turned out to be way better than the one we were suppose to use, so that was pretty sweet.

That night our hotel provided a candlelit four-course dinner, complete with stirfry and homemade banana ice cream with strawberries.  We were in heaven.  Or Eden.

The next morning, after an awesome breakfast of pancakes, bananas with cinnamon, strawberries, and all sorts of other yummy stuff, we took a short 20 minute hike from Jaibalito over to the next town, Santa Cruz, to go kayaking on the lake.  It was quite an adventure.  Julia and Sam had never kayaked before, but they enjoyed it very much.  Jenny had an extremely hard time staying in her kayak, and after tipping Riley out of his and trying to steal his unsuccessfully, she ended up having to swim back while he towed her boat.  We all had a blast with it though.  The water was so nice, and the views were of course gorgeous.  After an hour on the water, we took a boat over to San Juan, where Riley had been for Springbreak teaching at a school, so we got to see where he’d been.  We grabbed some lunch from a local restaurant and then headed out to do a hike Riley had done when he was here: the Mayan nose.  Because of the altitude and various health issues, four of the eight of us reached the top.  It had been raining off and on for the entire 2 hour hike, but it was so worth it.  The view was beautiful and the company was great.  We then went back to our hotel for another four-course dinner, and watched part of Prince Caspian afterwards.  There may have been an abnormally large spider that crawled into Jenny’s bible that Sam and I were called upon to kill.  That was a team bonding moment.

Then on our last day of vacation, we boated over to Panajachel and went ziplining in the nature reserve.  It was beautiful and we had a blast.  Then lunch, which took a long time again, and sprint shopping for an hour before we had to catch our van back to Casa Bernabe.  Overall, a pretty sweet weekend, and lots of team bonding time.  The general consensus is that we are much closer as a team now, and are much more friends than simply coworkers.  It was so nice to have that time together before Jenny’s departure.

So now we are back at Casa Bernabe, working our normal hours with our wonderful kids.  Want to give a shout out to Matt Jones and his mom, who arrived Tuesday.  He’s a student leader for the part of our team from Wheaton, and he was on the team that came here last year.  As far as prayer requests are concerned, I can only give the perspective from the baby house, with a few others that I am aware of:

1)   one of our little girls has an extremely bad diaper rash, with blood involved, so prayer for healing would be great.

2)   Another of the girls had an audience yesterday, and they drew blood to see if the woman claiming her is really her mother.  Our house parents don’t know if the woman actually wants her or not, so just prayer for what is best for her to happen would be great.  I guess it takes 3 months to do DNA testing, so I don’t think we’ll know before we leave for sure, but the house mom who accompanied her to the court said the little girl is clearly the woman’s daughter.  They look exactly the same.

3)   Safe travels for Jenny and peace over us as we adjust to her being gone.

4)   One of the older boys in Nuevo Pacto needs reconstructive surgery on his ear, and was suppose to accompany his sponsor back to the States to have it done, but something happened and it doesn’t seem like that is going to happen, so just prayer as they figure out what the next step is.

5)   As always, the health of our team can always use prayer.  I’m not aware of anything major right now, but protection and strong immunities are needed.

6)   There is a group of 5 students leaving for New York this week for a music camp, so prayer for them in this new experience, safe travels, and all that.  Also, two of the girls are girls I work with on the weekend in the baby house from Casa Ester, and I will miss them dearly, but I hope they enjoy themselves.  They’ve worked hard practicing their instruments (we’ve heard them

Thank you all for your support and interest in our team!

This past Wednesday (7/6/11) was a day full of activities and fun, but also extremely long.  It began for myself, Cheryl, and our new friends Sydney, Sarah B., and Sam S. bright and early at 4:40 AM when we awoke to accompany Marlone to the market by 5 AM.  Sam, who will be here for 11 months, drove one of the trucks.  It was only his third time driving stick and his first time driving in Guatemala, and he did amazingly, praise the Lord.  The market, as I believe has previously been mentioned by Morgan and Riley, is amazing.  There are rows upon rows of buildings, each filled with different types of fruits, veggies, spices, and a little bit of everything else.  It was amazing to see Marlone look at his list from the kitchen, then drive directly to the building where he could find what he needed.  The wheeling and dealing was fun to watch as well.  Some you could tell he was friends with, and there really was not much negotiation, and others, he simply walked away from until either they came down, he found it cheaper elsewhere, or he was forced to buy from them.  I was really wanting to buy some fruit for breakfast, but it all seemed to be in bulk, so I chose not to try.  Also I think some of the vendors were a little concerned with my appearance, because my arms are now peeling from that lovely sunburn from the game a week and a half ago, and I look a bit like I have leprosy.  So I was getting quite a few concerned looks they seemed to indicate that people were trying to figure out whether I had a deadly disease, and if so, whether or not I was contagious.

The thing that impressed me most about the market was the ability of some of the venders to throw and catch 2 cantaloupes or pineapples at a time.  It was amazing.  And they did it with such ease!  We were fascinated by their abilities for a good while.  In the end, we left the market with two truckloads full of pineapples, cantaloupes, veggies indigenous to Guatemala, bananas, sugar, cinnamon, and goodness knows what else.  It was a lot.  We were in the market driving from vendor to vendor from 6-8:30.  By that time we were so ready to eat, especially after seeing all the food in the market.  So what did we do?  We stopped at McDonald’s of course.  No, I’m not kidding.  I had hotcakes and the cinnamon melt (which was super good, I wish I’d gotten two).

When we arrived back on campus at Casa Bernabe, we helped unload the trucks into the kitchen and bodega, and then I was able to take a break until lunch.  Jenny and I worshipped together for a bit (I love when we get the chance to do that!) and then after lunch I went to see my babies.  I love them all so much.  I watched them jump on the trampoline for a bit, which they always love, and helped feed them lunch and dinner and then put them to bed.  After bed, however, I had to hurry up the hill (all 153 steps from the baby house to the building we are staying in) to be in time for our activity of the evening.  Our friend Danielle left us Thursday, so for her last night, we went to the mall and saw Transformers 3.  The plan was to see the 8PM showing, but there actually was no 8 PM showing, and the next showing was at 10:30 PM because the 9 PM sold out.  So we purchased our tickets, and then wondered around the mall, grabbing dinner in various groups (there were like 25 of us all together, so we did not all stay together).  I opted for Pizza Hut, very Guatemalan I know.  I ate with Lauren from Texas, Sydney (also from Texas), Lauren from Indiana, and Sam from Wheaton (originally the Philippines).  We had wonderful chats and I ate two caramel ice cream cones.  Yes, two.  I’m owning up to it.  I am my father’s daughter.  And btw, when I say mall, I mean a huge 7 story mall with a high tech parking garage that tells you how many parking spots are each direction, with green lights in the open spaces.  Such a contrast to the rest of Guatemala, which is the poorest Central American country.

Like I said, 7 stories. So ridiculous

After dinner, since we still had an hour and a half, we decided to play the couch game, Rainbows team (which is our team) against everyone else.  Except a lot of the others did not want to play, so I ended up switching to the other team, playing the part of Judas according to Julia.  I would just like to say that my team won 7 of the 8 times played.  We were very proud of our accomplishment.  Then came the movie, which was in English with Spanish subtitles, something for which most of us were very grateful.  We were not grateful for the length of the movie, however, which turned out to be 3 hours (aka a really long time).  So it didn’t end until 1:15, and we didn’t get back to campus until about 2:20.  So we were rather sleepy to say the least.  It was a long day, but filled with fun.  Perhaps a little too much fun, but we will leave that open to debate.

Thursday was Riley’s 20th birthday, so hopefully he will post how that went, and today we took all 160 kids to a local theme park, so a post about the day is soon to come I’m sure.  For now, I will bid all of you lovely readers adieu.  Thank you for your interest and your prayers!

Bekah

Our apologies for the long silence. With school out this week, we had plenty of activities to keep us occupied. Usually they were surprises to both us and the kids… we usually don’t know what is going on. Well, not entirely true. But nobody told Morgan and Jenny about the cake and ice cream party at 9 am one morning, nobody told us about the nightly pizza parties, nobody told us about the impromptu dance-off on la cancha between all the houses, nobody told us about the multiple puppet-show-craft-time activities. We also added to the chaos ourselves by arranging surprise trips to Pollo Campero (essentially Guatemala’s KFC) and Applebees (which may or may not have given Morgan food poisoning). The first event we were actually prepared for was the trip to the soccer stadium in the city, which we thought was supposed to be a Guatemalan national team game followed by a personal testimony by famous Brazilian soccer star Kaka. This however, still turned out to be inaccurate. Korea showed up, but Kaka was nowhere to be found. Also, nobody thought to bring sunscreen and there ended up being two games and several musical performances so we ended up baking in the sun for about 7 hours. Perfect. At first we were excited about the lack of rain… by the end we were praying for deliverance. Still, it was fun. We did find relief in frozen, chocolate covered bananas for only 3 quetzales (about 24 cents) and in throwing bags of water at each other.

Bekah burned a bit at the stadium.

We can’t speak for how fun the experience was, but Sam and Cheryl also took laser tagging trips this week with their kids. We were kind of jealous that our kids were too small to hold the laser guns. We were all looking forward to this last Friday for a planned trip to a giant water park to finish off the week. Yet according to typical Guatemalan flexibility the trip was cancelled. We had another pizza party instead.Riley’s reaction was rather thuggish when he found out his swimming debut was cancelled.  This next Friday we are supposed to go to a theme park/zoo combo in the city that no one here has ever been to before. We are looking forward to this only slightly less than the water park, but we must always be prepared for another cancellation. On Saturday though, we were still able to go to Antigua to explore the endless maze of markets. By the end we were soaking wet from a sneaky rainstorm with our hands full of gifts and freshly baked banana bread from a local bakery. Then this Saturday we are for sure leaving for Panajachel on Lake Atitlan for a three day R&R. There’s rumors of hammocks and four-course meals and ziplines. Can not wait.

In other news, the official dedication of Casa Bernabe’s new medical clinic was yesterday. It is truly a blessing to be here for a part of this monumental accomplishment for Casa Bernabe. Within the next year, the clinic is projected to be open for the surrounding community as well as the kids here. As has become our team’s motto, “PTL!” (Praise the Lord!). Tonight–today being the fourth of July–the Americans at the orphanage are uniting for a hearty American meal of mashed potatoes and steak, grilled by a true-blooded Texan. We eat incredibly well here, but it will be a nice break from the rice and pizza.

Finally, we can’t stress enough how relentless God has been in his work within all of us here. Our conversations, our prayers, our actions, our relationships, are all slowly becoming more in line with God’s will each and every day. Funnily enough though, it leaves us still wanting more out of this experience. Not in the sense that we are unsatisfied, but that we are finding a greater understanding of God’s unsearchable greatness. Psalm 145:3.

Peace and Blessings-

Riley and Morgan