There and back again - a traveller's tale!

Hola Amigos!!!

Well here we are, back in Canada and freezing!!!! Our Guatemala experience was truly awesome! I met so many wonderful people - I think my highlight was the relational aspect of the trip. Meeting the many warm, friendly Guatemalans and getting to know the staff at Fe Viva.

We arrived in Guatemala City during the beginning of Semana Santa (Holy Week) and the city was teeming with traffic and activity. Our flights went well although it was really long and I didn't sleep a wink - Sam got some sleep on the planes. When we got off the plane at Guatemala City, we were literally whisked out the doors by "attendants" who were very aggressive in their help and hoping for tips which we did end up giving - anyhow that was fine, just a little overwhelming as we came out with our loads of luggage and all the crowds were waiting inside and on the street for other people as well as the intense heat after the coolness of the airplane. It was a crazy but fun scene.
The scenery was really beautiful - it was lush and hilly with palm trees and fields of sugar cane. We met many big trucks loaded with sugar cane on our way to Fe Viva, and saw a lot of rancheros but they looked quite different than my Dad's! The cows are really bony and the corrals are even more slapped together than anything I've ever seen! We drove an hour to the Fe Viva compound which is situated forty minutes from the Pacific Ocean and between two towns, Guazacapan and Chiquimulilla. We had to adapt to the heat 35 Degrees plus and the high humidity but after a day or so I loved it!!!!

The first day we visited sponsor families that live right near the compound and Sam was able to give his school toys to the kids there. I had one of my first Spanish conversations with one lady at a little corner store and then when she understood I was a singer, her little daughter sang me a song in Spanish. The mom thought Sam was very handsome and tall!! The afternoons were spent working with the Casa kids preparing songs for a little concert we presented during their Saturday evening church service. We sang several Spanish worship songs with them and taught them a few English ones as well - they love the song, My God is So BIIIIGGGGG!!!














We found that plans change easily there so even though we were given a tentative schedule of events and projects etc we didn't really end up following it too closely. And that was okay - new needs came up or a vehicle wasn't running or some of the staff members were sick - and so we just went with the flow of things there and served as we were needed! We did several painting projects while we were there and then on the Friday, we headed out on a Safari day that was really enjoyable especially for the kids! That evening we went to Casa Refugio (in Chiqumulilla) a rehab home for men with addictions. A group from El Salvador joined us and we went to the bars and invited men to come back to the centre for food, shelter and an evening of music and sharing. The Canadians led the worship and we heard some amazing stories - it was quite the night! Later that evening we were able to stop by a Restaurante Internet to send some messages home and then have some delicious, flame-broiled ethnic food!














The staff at Fe Viva were very hospitable and opened their hearts to us. Sam and I stayed in a compound on one side of the alley with rows of guest houses, a kitchen and offices as well as a big open dining hall with a thatched roof (and also it is a basketball court when you move the chairs and tables). Sam used the basketball court a lot! The grounds were beautiful with palm trees, bougainvillea bushes, and mango trees, orange and lime trees and the shorter coconut trees. You have to eat the mangos fresh off the trees but every time I found one, the Casa Kids would ask me for it, so... Yes, I did get to eat mango but it was a bit later in the week!! The food was fabulous and we ate lots of local fruit such as fresh bananas, pineapple, watermelon, and mango as well and corn on the cob! Sam like the idea that we had a night guard patrolling the property - but there has been problems with vandalism in the past so it was a necessary precaution.

Sam and I had a great room - a suite actually that usually holds groups of women or men. As there weren't too many other visitors there during our stay, we shared a two-bedroom suite with kitchen and living room. The buildings have a definite Spanish influence with rounded doorways and windows and a lot of beautiful tile work that is done by locals. Often we heard loudspeakers at night and were told that vehicles with loudspeakers drive around announcing an event as most people don't own radios. The people were generally very poor and it was such a good eye-opener for Sam and I - a good reminder of how much we have in North America and how little we really need! I had to crush a few cockroaches and sadly squashed a little lizard before it made it to our bedroom... It was instinctive, the protective mother thing, I think....????!!! Anyhow, I felt very sorry for the lizard as they are very cute little things and I'm not normally so aggressive!!!














We spent a lot of time singing. We were able to share often in music, with the Casa Kids singing both in Spanish and English, with the men at Casa Refugio, and at two of the church services we attended. We also offered several evenings of casual sing-a-longs for the staff at Fe Viva and enjoyed a lot of great worship music together. I was also able to share several of my songs at the church services, accompanied by Chris Hiebert on the guitar that we were able to leave there for the musicians at Fe Viva.
















It was one fantastic trip and I want to thank everyone who supported this trip through donations and through items donated for the people in Guatemala. You are appreciated!!

Dios te Bendiga! Tracy and Sam

Home

As of 10:30am on Friday morning, we're home. We'll get blogging shortly.

Nope, not home yet . . .

Been up since 4:00am (longer if you count the restless sleep most of us had). I am sitting here at 11:30pm in the Marriot waiting for housekeeping to bring a crib for Lukas who had only one 45 minute nap today.

We were fried yesterday so I don't know what that makes us today. I think we are in good spirits. Moral could be higher but we are trying to make the best of it.

Basically, they canceled our flight due to a problem with an overhead compartment. That's the rumor that reached our ears, anyway. Could have done without putting carryon's in that one, if you ask me. But nobody asked me. Instead they offered us a hotel, some food vouchers and a flight back in the morning. 6:30am. We will be in Kelowna by 8:00am, Lord willing.

But yeah, don't cease praying. It has actually been a hard journey home for all of us. Brad is exhausted, Barb has caught a cold (can't talk and can barely hear), the boys are tired, Tracy & Sam just want to get home as do Angela and I.

Well, the playpen is here and I gotta try and get as much sleep in this four hour window as I can. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a happy memory: these are some of the inmates we spent time with at a high security prison. They are attending a Bible College in the prison. We went to encourage them but I think we were the ones encouraged . . .

Connected

This is the first time since we've left that I, Chris, have had access to the internet. It has been a glorious fast! I have really had no desire to connect and didn't really want to tonight but since I do have access, I thought I'd let you know what we have been up to.

Working back in time:

I am currently sitting at the table inside the hostel that we are staying at tonight. We are in Guatemala City. We need to be at the airport really early so rather than stay at Fe Viva and get up super early, well, you understand.

We spent the day and the conclusion of our time in Guatemala touring Antigua. A beautiful city! We'll get some photos posted when I manage to get them onto a computer. (It takes to long I am tired - don't ask).

I'm trying to thing of what we did yesterday. It's funny how fast we get our experiences mixed up. Really, the whole trip has been a pile of experiences mashed into one.

Yesterday morning I showed Mike, a guy from Peachland who came to spend time at Fe Viva after we left, how to install Windows XP (in Spanish) and Office onto a bunch of computers that were donated. This was a project I was working on all week at a leisurely pace. Initially, I was told that they had 6 computers they wanted up and running. No problem except that they were plagued with problems. I did get them running, sort of. But like I said, I worked at leisurly pace until they told me yesterday that they have 200 more! What? Yup, 200! There was a communication breakdown somewhere. Well, needless to say, I couldn't get them all up and running so I developed a assembly line system that they can pass onto people as they come and they may have most of them going in a couple of months.

While I did that, the rest of the crew were working on painting a new youth centre that Felix and his wife Teressa are starting. Felix and Teressa were our hosts and you will get to know them as we relive our journey.

In the evening, we said good-bye to the Casa kids. We sang songs with them one last time, Brad shared a devotional with them, and then they sang a special song for us. It was in Spanish so all we could make out was that it was about frogs. It was sad to say good-bye. You wouldn't understand the unique bond that is formed between these kids in such a short time but my heart was sad.

Self portrait - Elvis (the oldest of the Casa Kids) and I

My teammates will have to help me remember some of the kids' names

Once the Casa kids were in bed, we threw tennis balls with Maria's kids just inside the courtyard. You will get to know these kids. They are a family living in extreme poverty that we invested in as a team while in Guatemala. Some of the money gifts that SAC gave, we gave to Felix to help care for this family. Felix personally is making sure the kids are going to school and being cared for.

We finished the night with a coke, a chocolate bar, and a good visit. A new team had arrived from Saskatoon and it turned out Angela knew one of the girls from over 10 years ago. That's not the only "small world" connection that was made on the trip. Tracy could tell you about hers.

And that was yesterday. Hopefully we'll all find time to recap the other days for you.

Thanks for praying. I was thinking tonight that in a lot of ways, the trip was fairly easy but I caught myself because it was in the air of "we didn't really need to pray that hard after all." Not true at all. If indeed we can say that in a lot of ways, the trip went off without a hitch or that things turned out to not be as difficult that we thought they were - all glory goes to God. He answered our prayers!

Tomorrow will be a long day and we kinda hit the wall of exhaustion tonight. Please pray for good rest, strength, endurance, grace, patience, and a good sense of humor.

See you soon!

what we have been up to!

Since our last post, we have not had a chance to post but we have had many memorable experiences! Thank you for praying for us! I do not have as much time this time as last so I will not be able to recap the last few days but some of the things that we have been able to do or experience are the following:
-Visit House of Refuge - a rehibilitation center for men with addictions. Our team helped with bringing the men off the streets, and participated in the service and then helped serve the meal.
-Participate in the Casa Esperanza devotion time in the evening - singing songs with the kids and Chris gave the devotional message before their bedtime.
- Help clean up around the home of one of the sponsor families, Maria - a family from the area we have been able to spend time with - the extreme conditions of the home have reminded us again of how much we have - this widow has 6 children she supports.
- Chris, Sam, Brad, and Barb visited the prision in the area where FeViva has set up a bible school on the property. They were able to visit with inmates and hear their amazing life stories.}
- Tracy and Angela, Mackenzie, and Lukas were able to spend time with the younger kids at Casa Esperanza doing crafts and playing with them while the other team members visited the prision.
- We all attended the Saturday and Sunday evening services at Maranatha church. Saturday evening we brought part of the service with the CasaKids doing the music that we had taught them during the week as well as Barb brought the message that evening and Tracy and Chris provided a special song. Sunday, the team was asked "impromteu" to speak and share while the boys were with the kids in their SundaySchool. (the services were both over 3 hours long! very active and wonderful participation and music! it was such a blessing and a great reminder of heaven!)
- On our half day off, we as a team went with our hosts, to a Safari! It was a wonderful experience - we saw animals like lions, giraffes, hippos, and monkeys. After a good lunch and amazing icecream, we were able to go swimming.
- Sunday afternoon, we went swimming with the CasaKids. By now we know their names and we had great fun playing with them in the water. It was one of our first opportunities to see Steve and Patricia hanging out with their kids - and their love and passion for them was so amazing and beautiful to watch.

There have been more experiences but it is hard to try to remember everything with such a short time to write. We are being stretched in huge ways and feel so thankful to be able to spend time with these people and know more about another culture.

We only have one more full day here at FeViva before we will head to Antigua for our day of sight-seeing before heading home.

Please continue to pray for us.
-Different team members have been struggling with stomache issues as well as two members have back pain.
-Our hearts are doing well and we are not feeling so "useless" as the first days we were here as we began to settle in.
-We have also been able to get to know a few of the staff members in our short time here and please pray that we will be a blessing as we listen and hear their hearts. Ministry can be a lonely place at time, and we are seeing how they need encouragement to persevere and simply have people truly hear their hearts.
-For Mackenzie and Lukas and their health and safety and for Sam to enjoy this experience. It has been so good to see the boys relax and respond to the people we meet and be free to be themselves.
-For all of us to continue to have strength and energy for these last days.
-For safety in travel and all those details that need to be worked out as we head home.

Thank you for the comments you have left! We have needed your support in this journey and are thankful that we have not gone alone. We love you and continue to pray for you.

-Angela for the team

If we have another chance, we will post pictures next time...they tell a story that we would love to share.

we've arrived!

We arrived in Guatemala Monday with all our bags and feeling a little tired from lack of sleep during the flights! People have been so friendly and the change in culture was immediate! The country is celebrating "holy week" which is a week long celebration.

On arriving at the FeViva base, we met the children (who instantly embraced Mackenzie and Lukas, giving them lots of hugs!) of Casa Esperanza and the other staff members who live on the base. Our hosts, Felix and Teresa, spent some time with us orientating us to what would be happening in our time with them.

Tuesday we spent the morning meeting with sponsor families. Felix, who is Guatemalan, went with us and translated and shared the stories of the families we met. We delivered care-packages of some of the items that we brought with us, as well as the toys that Sam brought along from his classmates. We didn't know what questions to ask at first but slowly got used to asking the families questions through the translator and speaking our few words to communicate. All of the families welcomed us with open arms allowing us to see their homes and meet their children. Before we left, we were able to pray with the families through a translator. In the afternoon, we spent time with the older children of Casa Esperanza, teaching them music and singing with them. We weren't sure what our hosts were expecting of us and this has been a challenge but the children love music and have been quick to learn our English songs. Chris taught the kids "Jesus Loves Me" AWANA style with the clapping and they have enjoyed that one! We as a team have also been learning our worship songs such as "Blessed be your name"; "Awesome God"; and "Change my heart O God" among others in Spanish. This has been fun and the kids love singing these songs in their own language! This has been a huge learning curve and we are enjoying it too!

Today, Wednesday, most of us spent the morning sanding the metal doors of Casa Esperanza and then putting a coat of white paint on them to seal them from rusting. Sam has been a huge help in playing with Mackenzie and Lukas and the other kids while we work! Chris spent the morning putting some pieces of computer together from some donated computers to make some "working" computers, installing Windows XP, among other things. This afternoon, we spent our time doing music with the kids, similar to yesterday and after supper have been able to come into Chiquimulilla to check our email and see more of the area.

Some things we are grateful for: all of us travelled well! (including Mackenzie & Lukas); all of our suitcases cleared customs; the staff and workers at FeViva have been so welcoming - making transition into this new culture helpful; we have been connecting with the children of Casa Esperanza in spite of language barriers; we are very thankful that Brad has been feeling good physically; Mackenzie and Lukas have been sleeping well through the night(!).

Please pray for us
- Our hosts, Felix and Teresa (married couple from FeViva) have been sick since before our arrival. They have been very gracious and helpful but are really exhausted.
- We have already been struggling with not feeling "useful" - we know these thoughts and feelings are not truth, but they are real. Please pray that we know that God has us here for a reason - whatever that may be...even if we are not to know the details.
- For Sam, to connect more with the kids and be able to relax and be himself; and for all of the kids - Sam, Mackenzie, and Lukas to adjust more to the culture and their surroundings.
- Please pray for continue health and safety. Mackenzie and Lukas are playing everywhere, drinking off the floors (much to their mum's chagrin!). Please pray that we will continue to adjust to the food and water.

Thank you for praying for us and supporting us. We love you!
~Angela for all

We have had to go into town this evening for internet access as there is currently not any available to us on the base so we do not know if we will be able to post regularly.

Travel Schedule, again . . .

Wow, we are leaving in just over 24 hours! Thought I'd try posting the schedule again but since I don't know how to do custom formatting, I'll just post a picture of the schedule. Here it is: