Tikal - March 7 & 8

Val and Paula went to Tikal to visit the Mayan Ruins. They stayed overnight in the Jungle Lodge and had a tour the morning they arrived and then had a sunrise tour the next morning where they hiked in the dark with flashlights to Temple #5 which is the second tallest temple in Tikal. Once they climbed the ladder to get to the top of the temple, they enjoyed the beautiful sunrise above the jungle canopy and could hear the monkeys and birds waking up. Did you know that the Howler Monkey is the second loudest animal on the planet? And Tikal has them. The elephant is the loudest animal on the planet. It was quite an adventure. Natives still use the ruins. Before Tikal became a park, the natives who were already living in the area were allowed to stay. Val saw a native in the early morning in the residential area.

You are Invited!

The LWW mission team is having their monthly meeting on Wednesday, March 17 at 7:00 p.m. at the church and everyone is invited. We will be talking about our trip and would love to share our experience with you. If you are interested in hearing about our trip, please come to the meeting!

Also, I am going to try and post slideshows of pictures from each of the days we were on our mission trip. To view the slideshow, go back to each daily post. The slideshow will appear at the beginning of each post.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

We left early this morning for Antigua to begin our journey home, arriving at about 3:30 pm. After some time shopping, we went out for a nice dinner, and reflected on this past week. Through your prayers and hard work, we accomplished a lot in our short stay here. We helped to build a home, repaired several water systems, signed new covenants, and made new friends.

We have been truly blessed to be here, and could not have done this important work without your support, and the support of our families. Thank you all, and we'll see you soon. God Bless.... We're coming home!

Friday, March 5

Today we took a long bus ride up the mountains to visit two schools in Tsizba to make two minor repairs to two Living Water Systems that Bay Presbyterian installed in January. The kids were happy to see the Gringos and the director welcomed us with open arms. We had some suckers for the kids and once the word got out that we had suckers, the kids all came running and it was quite a scene.

Tom, Ellen and Chris from Bay Presbyterian Church went back to the Habitat house. They poured two more columns and continued to level the floors with dirt by hauling buckets of dirt up from behind the house.

Our work ended at noon and Eliazar and the construction crew picked us up with Elvira and little Jose. They took us up the mountain to a look out point to view Jacaltenango from above. We could also see San Marcos and San Andres and the hills of Mexico.

After a few sodas, Eliazar took us to a church that had a beautiful large white cross in front of the church overlooking Jacal. Then we headed home.

We ate our last dinner together with Eliazar and after dinner, it was time for a celebration put on by Eliazar from Habitat and the committee. We danced the night away and each of us was given a hat as a thank you for all of our hard work. The people thanked us over and over and over again. They appreciate everything that we have done and everything we are planning on doing. Mr. and Mrs. Rojas joined the festivities also and we danced many dances together and laughed the night away.

Once the music was done playing, we said our good-byes to the Rojas family and a few tears were shed. They invited us back again to stay with them and continued to say...."Mi casa es su casa."

Thursday, March 4

We apologize for not blogging yesterday. But some of Jacal was without power for most of the day and the internet cafes happen to be on the grid that was without power. We had power at the hotel, but no internet. Then around 1:00 a.m. the power in the hotel went out. It was so peaceful. Then around 3:00 it came back on and it looks like the elctrical problems around town have been fixed.

So yesterday we spent our day back at the Habitat house shoveling and dumping buckets of dirt for the floor in the other bedroom. Some of us mixed concrete and poured it down the walls. We also made an attempt to tie u hooks onto rebar with wire. Kind of tricky, but we gave it a go. The house is coming along nicely and although there is a lot that needs to be done on the inside yet, the outside structure is almost done!

After dinner, Kristina from the Peace Corp, lead us on a walk to her house in the dark with only flashlights and headlights from passing cars helping us see where we were going. Kristina has a studio apartment in Jacal that is cheerfully decorated. It was nice of her to open her door to us. Kristina will be leaving the Peace Corp in a couple of months.

Once we returned to the hotel, we sat around the table and ate fresh mangos from Mexico that Johanna had prepared for us and microwave popcorn that took about 15 minutes to pop in the microwave. Johanna cooked the mangos in a sweet nutmeg sauce. Mangos from Mexico can make people sick if not prepared this way. You are not supposed to eat them "raw". So we had a wonderful night sitting around the table talking about our day and laughing.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Today was incredible. We got to sleep in an extra half hour, which Fred REALLY needed after his adventure as chief stone smasher, had devotions and then breakfast. Then both teams - Fox Valley Pres and Bay Pres - loaded into the bus and went to Des Rivera (of course I am only guessing at the spelling... will follow up if this is wrong) and San Andres to sign covenants for new installations. The first stop was in San Marcos to view the installed system there because those of us who have been working at the Habitat home had not had a chance to view the installed system. Again, we felt the "love" from the crowds of school children who treated us like we were celebrities (or maybe animals at the zoo???) Anyway, it is an amazing feeling to see how many lives are being touched by clean water. After this stop we drove about 10 minutes to the next school in Des Rivera. The economic conditions here are about the worse we have seen. This is the village that Bay Pres. is doing their next install. Once on the school grounds we were led into a class room to meet with their committee, parents and teachers. Their covenant was finally signed after Claudia had to read and have translated from English to Spanish to Popti the 8 or so pages of legal jargon on the covenant. (YAWN!!!) Anyway, it was eventually understood by all and signed. The seed money was exchanged and even though we couldn't understand the language you could understand the gratefulness and excitement of this village to have clean water in their future. Wait until you see the pictures from this stop, again the children surrounded us, poked us, laughed with (at??) us, and just thoroughly enjoyed seeing Gringos! (We will upload photos later, the internet connections are just too poor here to post photos)

Next stop, lunch along the roadside in the bus. Yummy sandwhiches, bananas and oranges.

After lunch we continued our ride up the mountainside to the small village of San Andres. When we arrived we were greeted by Gilberto, the head of the school there and welcomed. Again, we were lead into a classroom where we had greetings, thank-you's, and explanations of what the system is supposed to mean. Both Claudia and Leslie Rojas (our host at the pencione) gave wonderful explanations of the partnership by us with the eventual ownership of the system by them. The contract was then read aloud so all could understand and then signed. We were SO impressed with Gilberto's preparation and planning for this system. Although the location of the system is not built yet it is planned and located. The building should be complete in May and is located on the school grounds. The atmosphere in this small town was completely different from what we encountered in the previous two towns. It is kind of hard to explain, but it seemed much more peaceful. Again, you could feel the greatfulness from those surrounding us that they were going to have a system like the other near by villages that would supply them with clean water. I think we are all feeling very optimistic about our relationship with San Andres and are looking forward to a successful project here.

We then returned to Jacaltanego with a quick stop at the BEAUTIFUL Rio de Azul (it truly is Azule). When we returned we re-tested the water from the samples we had taken at San Andres and found them to be consitent with what had been previously done.

The day was finished with a fried chicken, french fries, rice, soup, veggies, and cheesecake dinner. If anyone thought they would lose weight in Guatemala I think they will find it a challenge with Joanna Roja's preparing our meals!

Thanks to our wonderful Saviour for this opportunity to serve in his name. Thanks for protection and blessings on our journey. In his glorious name we look forward to our adventures tomorrow.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

What a great day it was today for both Bay and Fox Valley churches! We signed covenants with San Marcos and San Andreas schools, respectively. After a quick stop at the existing LWW system at the first school in San Marcos, we went to the second San Marcos school (about a 30 minute drive from Jacal). After a few opening remarks, Bay Pres signed the covenant with San Marcos. It was remarkable at how well prepared the school officials were... Claudia (the incountry LWW representative) did a great job on the front end, and has been with us every step of the way in Jacal.

After a lunch stop along the road, with some PB&J sandwiches, and some ham sandwiches that Joanna made for us, we arrived at San Andres, at around 1:30pm. San Andres is a very isolated community, where Popti (Mayan) is the main language, and students learn Spanish as a second language. There is great need for clean water here as one in 10 children die before the age of 5 from waterbourne disease.

We were welcomed by the principal, Gilberto, and another school official (who will be in charge of operating the LWW system)to a classroom with teachers and parent organization. An emotional speach was given by Leslie Rojas, and gratitudes from school officials. Val presented the FVPC monitary contribution (seed money), and the coventant was read and signed. It was very emotional, and the feeling of joy filled the air.

The school officials took us to the area where a water house will be built, and afterwards we spent time with the children outside. They offered us peanuts and high 5´s, and enjoyed the attention. It is very rare that outsiders (let alone Gringos) visit San Andres.

Tomorrow we had back to the Habitat house to put on the roof and finish filling in the dirt floors... Yes, back to the hard labor! Keep us in your prayers... Your Gringo frends.

Tuesday March 2, 2010

Whew! Another day hard at work at the Habitat house for Tracy, Fred and Paula. Christina the Peace Corps volunteer accompanied us to help with the language barrier. Paula and Christina started the day bending and cutting wire to tie the re-bar and Tracy and Fred were given a large pile of big rocks to break into small rocks. The tools given were small mallets ... later Christina and Paula joined in with a large sledge hammer. It took all of us all day to get this task accomplished. We sure could have used a jack hammer.

Alvira and Jose were working along side us all day. Christina commented that it was unusual to see a Guatemalan women working so hard at such hard physical labor. Alvira must be very exceited to get into her new home.

All of the block walls were pretty much completed by the end of the day. Eleazar (the Habitat Representative) thinks that they will be ready to put the roof on Thursday or Friday. That will be exciting and rewarding to see!

Val accompanied the group from Bay Pres to the school located at San Marcos. There they retrofitted a three year old Livinng Water ozone system. Three valves needed to be replaced which ended up requiring the dis-assembling of the system and included an audience of hundreds (?) of precious Guatemalan children. When they were finished the system was back up and running and the children had a good fill of "Gringo" entertainment.

Monday, March 1

Today was a very productive work day for all of us!!

Val, Fred and Paula went with Tom from Bay Pres to work on a Habitat for Humanity house that is within a (steep) walking distance from our hotel. There was a lot of shoveling of dirt to level one room in the 20x20 house and mixing of concrete and carrying buckets of concrete to pour down into the walls for support.

We also met Jose, the son of Elvira who is the owner of the house. Elvira was hard at work alongside the block layers building her house. Her son Jose watched as we worked and offered much needed relief for us because we had the opportunity to teach him how to play baseball with a ball that Fred brought and a bat we made out of a banana stalk. (Fruit is very plentiful here....mango, and bananas grow alongside the roadways and so do oranges and papya. All very delicious!) Jose enjoyed learning about baseball and we had a chance to all laugh together as we played.

The other half of our group which included Tracy, took a bus ride to Tsibaj to check on two Living Waters for the World systems located at two schools to make minor repairs and adjustments. They also performed some water tests and will be returning later in the week to tweak the systems a little bit more. The systems are being fully utilized by the people. And other people have mentioned that they would also like to get a system installed. The need is great and the people know that we are here to help.

We met Christina who is from the Peace Corp this evening. She is going to be our translator for the group that will be returning to the Habitat house tomorrow.

Buenos Noches.