Saturday, October 20, 2012

Day Five (continued)



We had just finished building the fourth stove of the day out of five. We asked the woman we built it for if she had any prayer requests. We had asked the same question at each house, and I think for the most part, nothing had surprised us or really grabbed our attention. This time it was different.

She went through some of the basics. Then she told us her husband drank too much and abused her. She wanted us to pray for him.

I'm really glad I wasn't the one leading the prayer that time, because I wouldn't have known what to say. Mark prayed out loud for her while Dustin and I put a hand on each of her shoulders and quietly prayed too. She was middle-aged and under five feet tall, which is typical around here. She had been nothing but kind and sweet and hospitable. The thought of someone repeatedly abusing her, to the point where she felt it important to ask a group of total strangers to pray about it, broke my heart. Tears were rolling down my cheeks, and I know I wasn't the only one who was upset.

Then I got angry. For the first time since we arrived in Guatemala, I was furious. Many members of our group have cried on this trip over the poverty they've seen. I had shed some tears of my own, but I had mostly kept my emotions in check, until that moment.  We've known that abuse is rampant in Chichicastenango. We've been told at least three out of four men here have an alcohol problem. The chances of a girl being abused before she even hits puberty are very high.  But, like most statistics, the numbers didn't hit home until I put a face on the abuse.

As we finished praying and left her with her new stove, it seemed so inadequate. The image of an abusive husband filled my mind and I felt rage bubbling up inside me. Your husband is supposed to be your protector, not a man who beats the snot out of you. I wanted to find that sorry excuse for a man and give him a taste of his own medicine. I am not a violent person, but in that moment I assessed our little group: four strong men who each towered over any of the local guys we'd met, and two young women who could hold their own. Couldn't we find this husband, take him out in the cornfield and teach him a lesson?

My thoughts got worse from there. I actually prayed that if she didn't love him, that he just wouldn't come home that night. Or ever again. I stopped short of praying for him to die, but the thought crossed my mind. I think that shows the darkness in my own heart--that I don't trust God to ultimately take care of everything. To take care of that sweet woman.

Now I'm calmer and I'm thinking about the unfortunate fact that we can't fix everything. We can build a widow a house. We can assemble a bunch of stoves. We can pray that the ministry we're part of this week continues to grow and multiply as it has done over the last couple of decades. What we can't do is take every man who abuses his wife into a cornfield and beat the pulp out of him. Aside from the obvious problem of answering violence with  more violence, this issue is too big for us to hunt down individual men. There needs to be a culture change. The amazing, God-fearing people who run Pray America/Manos de Jesus have been here long enough to start to see some positive changes in the people here. Even some of our group members from Wilmington who have been on this trip multiple times say they can see the change happening year by year. But the problems won't disappear overnight.

I can't sweep that woman out of her abusive home, but I can keep contributing to the efforts of Pray America once I'm back in the U.S., and I can keep praying for that family long after we leave this place.

Once we left our fourth stove build, we scooped up our supplies and started a long walk to the fifth and final site. My guess is that we only walked about a half a mile, but the steep terrain made it pretty tiring. I had yet to take the lead on one of the stove projects, so it was my turn to step up. It really wasn't difficult. I just followed the directions of the local guys and tried not to get in their way too much.

Since I was busy with the stove, I didn't spend too much time with the family. I just know the lady of the house was pretty old and very hard of hearing. Once the stove was finished, Darren started to pray for the family. Every time he paused to allow the translation to happen, the woman would strain to hear everything and loudly say, "HUH??" every couple of minutes. It doesn't matter what language you speak; some expressions are universal.

Darren prayed for the home, the stove, and the family, including the woman's hearing. He also said something at the end that stayed with me. He said, "I hope we will all meet again in heaven one day."

We've met so many memorable people here, and it's been tough to leave them after only a few hours or even just a few minutes together. I've been saddened to think that I'll never see any of them again. What Darren said really stuck with me. He was thinking beyond the present, beyond this world. He knew that these seemingly short-lived relationships had a chance of being renewed when our time on Earth is over. That thought makes me really happy.

Once we parted ways with the family, we had a long uphill climb back to the truck. We stopped to eat our bagged lunches along the side of the road before heading back to Chichi. We only had about a minute at the house before it was time to head to Pray America's third and final feeding center. Our stove builds had taken all day, so the other half of our team was already there waiting.

The truck ride was more harrowing than usual because it had rained recently and we needed to go up the longest, steepest mountain yet. There were a few moments when I was holding my breath, because the truck started to slide backwards down the muddy hill. Going off the hill meant going over a cliff. I could see the smallest trace of  panic in the eyes of a couple of my teammates as we exchanged glances in the back of the truck, but I think we had all grown used to the wild ride.

We eventually made it up the hill, thanks to determination on the part of our 22-year-old driver and four wheel drive. There was a beautiful sight waiting for us at the top of the mountain. Some kind of meeting was taking place, and a large group of women was gathered together. It was such a colorful scene, because all of the women wear bright, traditional dresses. There were also a few kids hanging out nearby. Dustin got some gorgeous shots of one little boy who liked the camera.


We walked over to the feeding center where about 200 children were already in the middle of their worship program. Once again, I saw smiles and enthusiasm like I've rarely seen elsewhere.

We helped serve the meals after their class. The vast majority of children ate only part of their meals before scraping the rest of the contents into plastic bags to take home to their families. We saw the same thing yesterday. It doesn't get any easier to watch.

One little boy who looked like he was about six or seven years old carefully helped his two little sisters scrape their food into one bag, along with his meal. It would likely feed the whole family for the next few days. Suddenly a stray dog came along and snatched the bag right out of his hand. The dog took off before anyone could do anything.  The little boy looked horrified. He burst into tears. I think all of the adults who saw what happened went into panic mode for a minute. We weren't sure if there was any food left in the kitchen, because every last grain of rice gets distributed each day.

Fortunately, there were a couple of plates left, and the local leaders at the center helped him and his sisters put it into a new bag to take home. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

After supper, the children dispersed quickly and scattered all over the mountainside, walking down dirt paths, through cornfields and woods to get back home. Older siblings looked out for their younger brothers and sisters, holding their hands or even carrying them on their backs.


Dustin found some not-so-camera-shy little boys. They wanted to have their picture taken but wouldn't smile at first. Even at a young age, they're all so serious sometimes. I started making faces behind Dustin, and they made some funny faces back.


I've mentioned before that I've seen a lot of our team members cry at different points throughout this trip. Sometimes you just can't help it. Tonight it was Dustin's turn. At the end of the day, we had a minute to ourselves back at the house. We were standing in our room and he just lost it. He couldn't get out too many words except for, "Those kids..."

I knew what he meant. There are just so many of them, and they're all so incredibly poor. We want to take them all home, but we can't. All we can do is help feed them a meal or two and shower them with the attention they seem so desperate for. That will have to do for now.




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