Guatemala 2009 - Day 7 - Técpan

Even Harder Work

I woke up to our last full day in Técpan with sadness and expectation. The trip had gone by too fast and I wasn’t ready to leave yet, but was ready to have a great last day. The men had started their day far earlier than the rest of the team. They joined with 30-40 men from the church who had taken time off work to volunteer with our men. They poured concrete for the 3^rd floor of the education building they are constructing. Last year our men had worked on the demolition of the old education building (a poor quality one-story area) and their goal was to come back and help with the construction of the new building. I’m not sure how this kind of work gets done in the U.S. but in Guatemala it is an incredible process. The project looked less like men working and more like a highly organized ant colony, everyone working quickly and with great precision. There were men mixing the concrete (one of the concrete mixers our church had purchased for them), men shoveling the concrete that had been poured onto the ground into buckets, men lifting the buckets filled with concrete up to the third floor, men pouring the concrete onto the floor, and men smoothing the concrete. I was fascinated and so proud of our men and the men of the church who were so willing to forgo a morning of working for pay to volunteer.

My first glimpse of the men working.

Seeing what a huge project this is!

Children's Ministry

The youth team women joined the children’s team to facilitate services at more daughter churches. They sang and danced, Ms Joanne gave a message while Chrissy translated, and the children did some great crafts, including making crowns to remind them that they are children of the great King! The end of each service always concluded with soccer balls being given to an outstanding child from each age group and everyone got bouncy balls, candy and balloons in the shapes of swords and hearts.

One-on-One with Wayne

I had a very unique task for the day, however, and instead of working with the men or helping with the children I got to assist Wayne with organizing every picture on his laptop. He had seen the picture album from the Guatemala trip last year that I had put online and he wanted me to help him make sense of the pictures on his computer so he could put his pictures online too. We went through every single picture and made new folders and sub-folders and sub-sub-folders. It was fun to get to spend some one-on-one time with such an incredible man.

Wayne Huff, Missionary Extraordinaire

Wayne was an employee of Wycliffe Bible Translators for over 40 years and spent a great deal of time in a rural community where he and his wife worked on the translation of the Bible into the language of the Uspanteco people. When they had to return to the U.S. for family reason, he continued to bring groups to Guatemala on mission trip and has been bringing groups ever since. Wayne is 71 years old and in better shape than most of our team members! There is so much love and compassion and wisdom in this man and he lights up in Guatemala in a way that he doesn’t anywhere else. He told us on the trip last year that we were going to Guatemala, and Jesus lives in Guatemala, and we get to meet Him there! His love for Jesus and his love for Guatemala combine to make an incredible heart. Getting to spend time with him looking through his pictures and hearing more stories behind the pictures was a treasure.

Jesus Loves the Little Children

After breaking for lunch and another brief session with Wayne on how to upload his pictures to the internet, I was able to rejoin the youth and children’s teams. The last children’s service was at Iglesia de Dios and there were so many kids running around! Since it was the only children’s service I got to attend this year, I enjoyed every moment! The children are beautiful; their mothers are so helpful and loving! It was wonderful to get to see everyone on our team interacting with the children and loving them.

Passing out balloons, or "globos," after the childrens' service

Group picture with children at Iglesia de Dios

Home Groups

We ate a quick and delicious dinner, said goodbye to our sweet sisters who cooked for us and served us over the past few days, and made our way for our last adventure in Técpan: home groups! Libby, Phoenix, Whitney, Kandace, Lisa and I were in one group and Haybi and Benjamin came with us. We met in the home of one of the families in the church and we prayed, sang some songs (in Spanish, of course!), and Haybi gave a message. Again, I was so sad that my communication was so limited. I had a good idea of what she was saying because of the Bible verses she spoke from and because of her great expressiveness, but I couldn’t follow everything and would have loved to really understand everything she said. After the service the family had prepared food for us… they tried to give us a great American treat of hotdogs, but had piled on so many onions, ketchup and mayonnaise that it was hard for most of us to eat it. However, the tea and sweet bread they also gave us was so good!

American feast following home group

Goodbyes

Afterwards Haybi and Benjamin came back to the hotel with us again and we were able to say our goodbyes. Lidia and her husband came to say goodbye, as well as Abraham and Emy and their children. It was so hard to say goodbye because I feel so connected with their family. I am more determined than ever to learn better Spanish before next year! Haybi gave me such a sweet gift before she left. She gave me a small ducking figurine that she told me was very special to her and had great significance. I had to email her to find out what the significance was – she told me that when she got it her dad told her that the duckling is always looking up at the skies and that when she feels sad or incapable she should look at the duckling and remember that God is always close and will always give us what we need to do what He’s called us to do. I felt so honored that she gave such a sentimental gift to me! The goodbyes were hard and I was very close to tears. I finally made it to bed so I could get a few hours of sleep.

Anika and I with Haybi