Monday, October 15, 2012

Day Three

Monday, October 1, 2012

Each day here is better than the last. Today, we got up early as usual for quiet time, and I have to say it is so cool to be surrounded by a house full of people who all wake up early to spend time with God. At home, sometimes it's hard to drag myself out of bed by 7 when I don't have to be at work until 10, and Dustin and I are on very different schedules.

It's awesome to wander into the living room here in Chichi and see half a dozen others already quietly studying. We all know not to talk to each other much until closer to 7 a.m. At 7:30 we do a group devotion, and tomorrow is my day to lead. I can't remember the last time I led a Bible study. Maybe college? So...six or seven years ago. I'm sharing Pastor White's sermon on grace and truth, in my own words.

Mark did today's devotion and it was spot on. All about living in the moment, which is exactly what I decided to do on the mountainside yesterday.

We always eat breakfast at 8. Today we had banana pancakes and bacon. Yum. Then we piled into the back of two pickup trucks and headed out to build our first widow home.


First of all, a word about riding in these pickups. While some of the roads in downtown Chichi are paved and in decent shape, once you get outside that area, it's a bumpy ride. Many of the roads are dirt. Some are partially paved, and because of the mountainous terrain, they're all steep and winding with sharp curves that make it impossible to see who's coming toward you. So, we had the pleasure of riding the way the locals do--standing in the back of the truck, knees bent, hanging onto the side gate and top bar for dear life.

It was anxiety-inducing for those of us accustomed to four doors and a seat belt. The steep curves were dangerous. Bumping around against the sides left bruises on my hips.  I ate more than a few bugs.

I absolutely loved every minute of it.


All I can say is, standing up with the wind in my face, looking out over cliffs to gorgeous mountain views, I felt a freedom I hadn't experienced in a long time.  The kind of freedom that, as much as I love my car, is very difficult to achieve while buckled into a Honda Civic.

My mom would've had a heart attack had she known how we got around. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

After breakfast, we wound up a mountainside on a narrow dirt road, riding alongside cornfields until we saw a man waving his arms in the road up ahead. (There were no house numbers or addresses to speak of, so our driver just started tapping his horn as we approached the general vicinity, until the man popped out and started flagging us down.)


At first we didn't see too many children, but as we approached the build site, little heads started to appear, peeking out from behind adobe shacks and peering at us from between corn stalks. Children literally came out of the woodwork, looking at us shyly. There were six of us in the back of the truck, plus two ladders, a few tool boxes, a tank of gasoline and all of our personal belongings.

Our team that day was Johnnie, Lesley, Don, Dustin and me, plus Tammy went along with us. Tony drove and Fausto was there to help build. (Tammy is an American who's on the Pray America staff. Tony and Fausto are Guatemalans who are also employed by Pray America. They help us Gringos build the houses without messing them up too badly.)



We carried all of our supplies and gifts up a short but steep muddy hill to the build site where Pray America had already hired local workers to pour a concrete slab floor and erect wooden posts around the perimeter. The rest was our job.

We introduced ourselves to the family we were building for. We learned the widow who would be living in the house was gone for the morning. She rides the chicken bus each day to Guatemala City (three hours each way) to sell her wares--some kind of food wrapped in corn husk.

The man who flagged us down was her son-in-law, Juan. There were also a few women and several children hanging around who were sweet but understandably very shy. It was all a bit awkward at first, so I think we did the only thing we knew to do--we dove into our work.  My job was to measure along each post, making a pencil mark every 8 and 1/2 inches from bottom to top. That marked where the horizontal wooden boards would go. The men started getting the boards together and cutting them to the right size. For the first few minutes we worked in relative silence. Then we started chatting with Juan, Tony, and Fausto, and we began to feel a little more comfortable as we joked around about Tony's latest love interest.


Once it was time to nail the wooden siding in place, I started out as the "holder." I held the board in place while Dustin and Johnnie drilled the holes and hammered the nails on either end. Tammy encouraged me to jump in and try hammering and drilling, so Dustin and I switched spots after we did one side of the house. It was actually a lot of fun!




Once we helped get the sides of the house in place, Dustin and I put down our hammers and headed over to talk to the kids. There were two little girls--Claudia, who was six or seven and little Andrea who was about three or four. Ages can be deceiving here because just about everyone is malnourished. Many of the kids look younger than what they actually are because they're so small.


Claudia and Andrea stood very close together. Claudia wouldn't take her arms off her little sister for quite some time. She was obviously very protective of her. Lesley and I stooped down to talk to them, and they just stared at us. Then Lesley started making bead bracelets for both of them, spelling out their names. Their moms (or older sisters?) encouraged them to accept the necklaces. Then we tried to get them to play, which was more difficult than you might think.  I pulled out coloring books. I pulled out bubbles. I cracked open a jump rope and made a fool of myself using it. That at least got them to laugh, but they barely budged.

 

Eventually, with the encouragement of the older women in the family who were very receptive to us, the girls sat down and started coloring.

Then I found the beach ball I had bought at Wal-Mart weeks before. It was in the bottom of our goody bag. Let me tell you, blowing up a beach ball at 7,000 feet when you're not used to the elevation is not for the faint of heart. Dustin discovered the same thing up the hill a little farther, where four very young children were checking him out.

Dustin was just adorable playing with the kids on top of the hill. We think the two smallest ones were twins, and they were so incredibly cute. Dustin offered the boy his new water bottle, and the little guy happily took it and immediately shared it with his sister. They couldn't have been more than four years old. They sat side by side on the hill, taking sips of water and passing the bottle back and forth. Dustin and I tossed a beach ball around with them for awhile before heading back down the hill to Andrea and Claudia.

Spending time with them was the best part of my day. I didn't have any regular books I could read to them, so I started reading a coloring book. I tentatively motioned for little Andrea to sit in my lap, and she climbed right up. The shyness had clearly dissolved.


I read to the two of them for fifteen to twenty minutes. They were actually quite talkative once they felt comfortable with me. We talked back and forth in broken Spanish, and Andrea pointed out all the animals and fruits she saw in the book. She sat in my lap so long that both my feet fell asleep. (I was sitting cross-legged on a 2x4 that was on the ground.) Under normal circumstances I would have put her down and moved around a little, but I didn't want to. We read until it was time to dedicate the house.

I stood up, wobbling on my two numb feet and realized it was "go time." What do you say to a woman you've never met, who's about to receive the gift of a new home?

(to be continued)




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