Last night I dug Dustin's birthday card out of my travel bag and signed it. I'm glad I waited until we were in Guatemala to write in it. I told him I was more proud than ever to be his wife after seeing how he's handled this trip. He's adjusted to our new surroundings incredibly quickly. He's been ready for adventure and also ready to buckle down and work hard. Most of all, he's been wonderful with the children.
[Sidenote from author for family and friends: No, we are not having kids yet. Hold your horses. Sheesh.]
I led our morning devotion on grace and truth, taken from our pastor's recent sermon at Meck. It was about finding a balance of grace and truth in our lives as believers. If we have all truth and no grace, we become a bunch of Bible thumpers who beat people over the head with our ideas and their sins. But if we have all grace and no truth, we fail to share the awesome news that Jesus is alive and ready to love and forgive us. We end up condoning things we shouldn't. It's really hard to find that middle ground, but Jesus did it time and again. (Read the story of the adulteress in John 8:1-11 for what may be one of the best examples.) We can start by following His lead.
This morning the kitchen ladies--Juanita, Manuela, and Gloria--sang happy birthday to Dustin. They even sang in English!
When Dustin was distracted, Kevin and I conspired about getting him a cake and a pinata. More about the pinata later. For now, let's just say I am SO glad we had a video camera on hand, because it got ridiculous.
After breakfast, we left for our second day of building houses. Each experience is different, and you never know exactly what to expect.
This build took place way up in the mountains. It was about a 45 minute ride in the back of the pickup. This time we worked with Caroline, Johnny, and Rob. We had Tony and Fausto again for building as well as translating.
As soon as we pulled up to the build site, I could tell it was going to be an awesome day. The widow we were building for, Sevastiana, was one incredible lady. She looked like she was about 80 years old, but we're told she was actually younger than that. Looks are very deceiving down here. The women don't have moisturizers and sunscreen and botox to keep them looking young, and they live very tiring, difficult lives.
Sevastiana started giving out hugs to all of us as soon as we stepped onto the site. She exuded joy and thankfulness and something else I still can't quite put into words. The best way to say it is that she had a gleam in her eye, and she struck me as being a bit unpredictable.
In many ways, she was a Guatemalan version of my Mom-Mom. She was clearly the one who ruled the roost around there, and her feisty attitude still makes me chuckle when I think about her. Dustin snapped a few photos of her that really capture her personality. Her face is so beautiful and expressive.
In addition to being a real live-wire, Sevastiana was intensely curious and also a bit possessive. Maybe it's because she owns so few possessions. I snapped a photo of where she was living before she received her new house. It was essentially a tent with a dirt floor. Four wooden posts covered with a black tarp. It shocked me to see it.
After seeing the poverty Sevastiana was accustomed to, I couldn't help but grin when she turned into, well...a bit of a clepto. It started with a beach ball. Dustin pulled one out of our goody bag and started to blow it up for some children to play with. Sevastiana was watching him closely. He was only about halfway through blowing it up when she tried to take it from him.
"Es mia!" she said. (It's mine!)
Dustin tried to explain to her that it would be even better in a few minutes when it wasn't all lumpy and half-filled with air. At first, she just wasn't having it, but she eventually backed off and let him finish. As soon as he sealed it, she grabbed it! It was so funny!
"Es mia!" She grinned and wandered off with her new beach ball. A few minutes later, I had to work very hard to convince her to let me borrow it for a few minutes to play with some of the kids. She was just so funny, and it got better from there. She would wander around the build site, snatch up anything we weren't using, and put it down her blouse. Crayons, keys, nails...those are just a few things we saw go down there. At one point, she took the whole box of roofing nails and started to wander off. Given that we needed those nails to finish her house, the guys made sure to stop her and gently take them back out of her hands.
When we weren't keeping an eye on our favorite unpredictable widow, we spent time with three little girls who also lived on the property. We colored and played with the beach ball (when we could pry it out of Sevastiana's hands) and Caroline led some arts & crafts projects.
Sevastiana and her friends loved her new house. In fact, we had a hard time keeping them out of it while the guys were still finishing up construction. They were eagerly sweeping the cement floor and making preparations for move-in.
Soon, it was time to dedicate the home. Caroline was in charge of communicating with Sevastiana. She did a wonderful job, and it was especially touching because Caroline is a widow herself. She told us this trip was part of her healing process. She told Sevastiana the house was a free gift from Jesus Christ and shared the story of His life, in a nutshell. Sevastiana's friends, along with the town elders, had decorated her new house with grass and beautiful flowers. It was clear they appreciated the home and wanted to make its dedication a special event.
Normally, at the end of the dedication, we would present the widow with the lock and key to the house, but that wasn't necessary this time given that Sevastiana had spotted the key earlier and promptly dropped it down her blouse.
One of her friends (I believe a local leader or elder) said a beautiful prayer in a combination of Spanish and Quiche. It was clear she was already a follower of Jesus and wanted to share her passion for God. Johnnie also had a chance to pray for the house before we started to gather up our things and head back to downtown Chichi.
We left some very joyful people behind to enjoy their new home. I know I'll never forget them, especially Sevastiana.
We were at the house less than five minutes when it was time to pile back into the truck and head for another feeding center. We could see that rain was on the way, and it didn't take long before it started to fall. There's nothing quite like cruising the mountains of Chichicastenango in the back of a pickup truck during a rainstorm. My rain jacket kept me pretty dry from the waist up, but my jeans were soaked after about ten minutes of driving. I think we all chalked it up as part of the experience. We were each in the process of learning to be less pampered and more appreciative of our many blessings, so there wasn't a lot of complaining going on.
When we arrived at the feeding center, the kids were CRAZY. We all turned into jungle gyms. At one point, I think Don had at least four boys hanging from different parts of his body. There was one little boy in a yellow shirt who stole my heart. He was an adorable little terrorist. It didn't matter how many times we picked him up and tossed him around. He wouldn't quit until we did it just one more time. He was absolutely starved for attention, and Dustin and I were happy to love on him during the short time we were there.
Just like they did at the first feeding center we visited yesterday, the kids sang and worshiped for an hour before coming to get their meals--rice with red sauce, a hard boiled egg, beans and a few small tortillas. I mentioned yesterday that not all the food was being eaten on site. Today, I paid more attention, and what I saw was heartbreaking.
Almost all of the kids brought plastic grocery bags with them. They ate a few bites of food, and then 80 percent of them stopped eating and started scraping the rest of the food into the bags. The Pray America leaders told us they were taking it home to feed the rest of their families.
I've never seen children--all the way from the older kids down to the toddlers--exercise so much discipline. The meal was meager enough to begin with, and we know they were all hungry, but they forced themselves to stop eating in order to support their families. That was something I just wasn't prepared to see.
After we helped serve and clear the plates, we took our cold, damp selves back to the house in Chichi. We got there at 6:00, which is normally when we eat dinner each night, but Kevin stopped us at the door and directed us out to the courtyard. The smirk on his face told me he had bought the pinata we talked about that morning.
What a creepy looking pinata! I think it was a bear. Or a dog. I don't really know. I just know it was big and creepy.
And here's the other thing: the pinata didn't just hang there on a string. Oh, no. They have a special way of doing things at the Pray America house. The pinata was actually on a zip line. Kevin and Tony both controlled one end of the line, so they could make that big, ugly thing zip back and forth at rapid speeds.
Dustin and I both got a shot at beating the candy out of it, and we made absolute fools of ourselves trying to bat it out of the air. The zip line element was pretty incredible. Not only were you blindfolded and swiping at the air; you had to listen for the sound of this thing whipping by in order to know when to take a swing. Dustin went first, of course. I was next. We have both attempts on camera, which we'll have to share later. Darren was the final participant, and he struck the death blow that unleashed all the candy.
After our pinata fun, we headed inside to eat dinner together. Then, with the help of my favorite kitchen ladies, we all grabbed birthday hats and noisemakers and gathered in the kitchen to surprise Dustin with one last thing. Gloria, Manuela, and Juanita had made him a beautiful chocolate cake with vanilla icing and kiwi garnish. We sang to him and gave him the full birthday treatment.
So, it's safe to say Dustin rang in 29 years with a bang, Guatemalan style.
No comments:
Post a Comment