Day 3: ComUnion

Day 3 was spent largely inside the hotel, which is a bit of a shame when in a country as beautiful as Guatemala. However, it was a day where the presentations were exclusively in Spanish. If you know me you know that means I understood about every fifty words. Fortunately, we were given headsets to listen to translations of the speakers. It was like being at the UN.

Though we were inside most of the day, I did get to go for a run in the afternoon. I was able to avoid the rush hour cars enough to realize running at 5000 feet is hell lungs.

In the evening we shared communion and then blessed all of our brothers and sisters who live, serve and celebrate good news in the hard places of Guatemala. I wish I had recorded the group singing Amazing Grace in Spanish and English. It was muy bonita.

Day 2: Ciudad Cayala

After Ciudad Esperanza, we went to Ciudad Cayala, an oasis of a different sort. I leaned what cultural whiplash felt like as we went from one to the other.

Day 2: Ciudad de Esperanza

Some time around 2012 Jose was invited to a meeting with several pastors. The gathering was at the former hacienda of a wealthy family who left the country after their daughter was kidnapped in 1996.  Their house and the surrounding 52 acres lay fallow. To make a long story short, 6 months later Jose began renting the house and four acres. They embarked upon a journey of creating an oasis in the middle of Zone 18.

Since that time they have accomplished an unbelievable number of things. They continue to feed 250 children while also teaching them to bake, cook, sew, work computers, raise animals and farm the land which is growing corn, beans, oranges, coffee and even tilapia. I even got to see an avacados tree for the first time. The work they are doing really is hard to fathom.

Day 2: Esperanza de Guatemala

Joel Armas grew up in Zone 18. He was one of the few who "escaped". Yet after several years in business in 2006 he decided to return. The place he returned to is known as la jungla (the jungle). It is a place full of people, full of life, full of children, while also full of gangs, violence and hunger. Three gates lead into this neighborhood. I thought they were built by the neighbors to keep the gangs out, only to discover they were built by the gangs to keep other gangs and sometimes the police out. It gives a whole new meaning to" gates communities". 
There at the center of this neighborhood, Joel began to feed children and established Esperanza para Guatemala (Hope for Guatemala). The ministry grew to the point that six years later God provided something even bigger.

(Next up Ciudad de Esperanza)

Day 2: Ingadi Ministries

On Wednesday we all headed out on various fields trips. My group focused on monasteries to at risk youth.
In the morning we visited Ingadi Ministries which is run by Nathan Hardeman. As if the case with all of these posts, there is more to tell than time. Pictured below are images of PS 422 where they do most of their work. The other picture may look like a dirt field, but it is the big soccer field where hundreds of children play every week in the community of Paradisio.

Day 1: Cardboard boxes

In 1996 Guatemala signed a peace accord that ended a 36 year war between government forces and militias. Over that time some 250,000 people "disappeared". Few of those people were located until the Forensic Anthropological Foundation began their work.

After performing a moment of blessing, we entered the building. I assumed the boxes in the hallway were filled with the records of the disappeared. This was enough to give me a chill. Only later did I learn that they were filled with the remains of some 4000 people who have been found but not re connected with relatives.  I still struggle to reconcile the juxtaposition of such a common container holding such a sacred content.

Day 1: The National Cemetery

After lunch we loaded on buses to engage in some "city mapping". The CMT (centro missio transformacion) believe that loving a city must involve knowing it's wounds. So, we traveled to the national cemetery. 

Or host, Joel Agular, lead us around the cemetery telling stories tired to greaves and monuments that revealed the wounds of economic disparity, racial prejudice, war, and religion. I learned later that one stop in the middle was not planned.
There was a smell waiting through the air that i dismissed as just the smell of the city. I also noticed a multitude of buzzards in the sky.  We stopped at a spot along the wall and Vito Sandoval, (blue shirt) began to tell a story that would explain the smell.  For the last 38 years, Vito has been working with youth who live in the slums near the city dump. That dump is in a ravine. That ravine is right next to the cemetery. Rudy was one of those youth. He collected garbage next to the bulldozers that pushed it over the edge. One day the ground have way and took Rudy with it. He was found for days later. He left behind a girlfriend, a one year old son and many hopes. His grave is pictured below.

Hospitality as mission

Yes, I'm in beautiful Guatemala yet sitting in a hotel conference room.  But this gathering was worth it as it was entitled "Hospitality as mission".
Sitting at the other end of the circle are four missionaries with the Christian reformed Church who serve in Romania, Bangladesh, Cairo, and Houston. Their approach to ministry is all about the table; setting the table, serving at the table, and sitting at tables.  It's a metaphor and practice worth thinking about.

Gooooodmorning Guaatemala

I arrived last night around 11:00 and then woke up to the view in the picture below.  Friends in Tacoma, you'll be happy to see that there are clouds here too (apparently we're almost in them, which makes sense as we are at 5,000 feet.). Of course the temp is a pleasant 60 or so at this point in the morning. Well, of to desayuno.

The longest journey begins with a single bus ride

I scrounged exact change for the bus ride to sea tac after raiding the family coin jar. Big thanks to Kodi for the ride to the Tacoma dome station.

Speaking of money, anyone know what the name of the Guatemalan currency is?