Walls on classroom building

We're excited to finally be putting on the outer walls of our buildings!  The first layer is chicken wire, then asphalt paper, then styrofoam insulation, then more asphalt paper.  The final layer will be steel roofing panels (see next blog entry).

Chicken wire

View from inside, which will have sheet rock

Asphalt paper

3 centimeters of styrofoam insulation

Adding more concrete between buildings

Helping lead worship

Heather/Erica got her guitar out again!  She was blessed to be able to assist her friend, Lesvi, in leading worship at our church.

Friends

One of Heather/Erica's friends from church is a Sunday School teacher named Lesvi.  (You may remember her from a previous post about her husband's funeral.)  Veronica's favorite friends are Lesvi's daughters, Zury and Andrea.   Recently we were invited to Andrea's 6th birthday party.

Games with a clown.

Time to break the piñata!

The girls and Lesvi came over to eat lunch with us one day and visit awhile.

Zury is 9 years old, and
Andrea and Veronica are both 6.
Such sweet friends!

Roof on ministry building

We now have a roof on our ministry building!

The steel roofing is called "termo-acústica."
It is covered top and bottom with a thin
layer of asphalt, then aluminum foil, then paint.
It greatly reduces the sound of rain
and keeps the building cool in the hot sun.

They installed frosted polycarbonate skylight panels
to let in light.

From this angle, the
classroom is on the right, the outhouse
is on the left, and past it is the ministry
building.  Straight ahead is the main entrance.

Here we are at the top of the property, looking
down at the classroom on the left and the
ministry building in the middle (behind a
small construction shed), and the main entrance
right behind Veronica's head.  The rock piles
are on the house site.  They will be used to
build a retaining wall in the 5-foot drop-off
which is a few feet behind Veronica.

Prayer meeting

We hosted a prayer/worship meeting in our home with people from our church.  It was well attended, with 21 adults and 10 children who filled up our house!

Before the meeting, I realized that here in Chichicastenango if you have a group over to your house you are supposed to feed them a meal-type snack.  So I made 30 ham-and-cheese sandwiches on dinner rolls, thinking it would be way too many, and it came out just right (because one person didn't want one).  Praise the Lord!

Dance practices

Dance practices have started up again!  We started practicing a few weeks ago for the Fiesta Navideña (ASELSI's Christmas party).  This will be Heather's sixth year participating, and this time with a group of only girls.  How sweet!  We are also beginning to learn a couple of other dances to present in church.

Edge of ravine

Across the street from our house, there is a small sliver of land, about 20 feet wide, then a steep drop-off into a ravine.

A family is leveling the land to build on it!  We found out they were in debt to the bank, which took the house they had in another community.  They bought this piece of land at a low price with money the wife got from her husband who is living in the United States.  We're curious how they are going to build on this long, narrow strip; and we're praying for no landslides!

Another road closed!

In the neighborhood where we are currently renting, they just finished installing paving stones on the road past our house. 

Blocking off the road to ASELSI (to the left in the photo, just past the blockade of barbed wire and sand bags) caused all of ASELSI's traffic to park on the road right outside our house (which is to the right in the photo), often blocking us either in or out of our gate.  In fact, all of the neighbors with cars on our street had trouble coming and going, so the community leaders decided to close off our entire street with a chain and padlocks. 

Yes, padlocks plural!  Certain neighbors were given a key to either one OR the other of the padlocks.  Hmmm...  I actually argued with one neighbor that we should get rid of one of padlocks and only use one.  He responded with the community-life answer that is prevalent here:  "They gave me this key and you that key, so we have to use them.  We'll just lock both padlocks together so either key will open the chain."  My American brain couldn't accept that, so I borrowed BOTH keys and made copies for myself, just in case someone didn't lock them together correctly.

The money for the project came from the municipal government, but there wasn't enough for the whole section of road, so they left just a little bit!

Road closed!

Our community decided to pave a steep part of the road to our land with concrete.  Good idea!  But they closed off the entire road; so for more than a month, no vehicles can come or go.  Bummer!

So we suspended construction until the road is opened again.  We wondered why they didn't do half the road at a time!?!

Busy summer

When you only travel to the United States every three years, there are a lot of things to do!

It amazed us how many things we accomplished in three months:  visiting 11 different churches on Sundays, getting new passports, requesting police records for applying for residency in Guatemala, attending a nephew's wedding,  swimming at the pool, having coffee with friends, ordering clothes and books and car supplies on the Internet, going to dental cleanings and getting cavities filled, having physical checkups and eye exams, filling new glasses prescriptions, visiting friends, attending a free outdoor movie night at a church, watching fireworks in Oak Ridge, giving several presentations about our ministry to churches and individuals, watching TV in English, visiting aunts and uncles, visiting friends in Austin, Texas, visiting colleges, taking the SAT exam, reading books from the library, playing at parks, doing biology dissection experiments, printing new prayer cards, making a photo memory book of Chichicastenango for Carolyn, and decorating Carolyn's new room at her grandparents' house...

Our parents treated us to riding trail horses in the Smoky Mountains, visiting the Knoxville zoo, playing marble and card games, having a picnic, watching a meteor shower at midnight, roller skating, working puzzles, going to Grandpa's land, eating at restaurants, taking family photos, camping at a Tennessee state park, watching a play in a theater, and watching videos from Netflix...

And Michael's brother treated us to soaking in his hot tub, going to a movie theater, swimming in a pool with water slides, ordering pizza, enjoying delicious smoothies, and sightseeing in Washington D.C.

We're really thankful to our friends and loved ones for making our trip so special!

Presentations

While we were in the United States, Michael and I gave a presentation of our work in Chichicastenango to pastors, individuals, small gatherings, and churches.

Although asking for more funding isn't our favorite task, sharing about what we have been able to do is a blessing to us because it reminds us of God's provision and faithfulness.

College visits

We are missing our oldest daughter, Carolyn, who stayed in the United States with her grandparents (Heather's parents).  She will be homeschooling with her grandma for her senior year of high school this year.

During our time in the U.S., we went with Carolyn to visit four different universities.  They are all small, Christian schools that are not too far away from either set of grandparents.

Carolyn at Lee University in Tennessee.

Carolyn is growing and maturing into a beautiful woman of God.  We are so proud of her!

Prayer cards

We just returned to Guatemala after a three-month visit to the United States.  We hadn't been back for three years, and it was wonderful to visit with family and friends.  We were able to meet with many of our supporters, and we hopefully gained some new partners!

During our visit, our niece, Adrian Etheridge (adrianetheridgephotography.com), took some family photos, and we updated our prayer cards.

We want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to come to one of our presentations or otherwise get together with us.  We love and appreciate you!

Community soccer game

In our local community, many soccer games are played on the community soccer field.  Sometimes the players are school kids, sometimes adults, sometimes in regular clothes, sometimes in uniforms.  This game was in progress one day when we went out to our land.

Swing set

During the building process, so that Veronica has something to do while Michael and I are reviewing the construction, we had our builder construct a swing set for her.

Wheee!

Sidewalks

The ministry building has sidewalks going around it.

Behind me, Yano is pouring the first section
of the sidewalk.

Yano really "gets into" his work.

The finished sidewalk is well done.

Ministry building

The ministry building has a foundation, a (partial) frame, and a floor!

Pouring the concrete columns in the
foundation to hold the posts.

Smoothing the final coat on the floor.

Painting the welds so they won't rust. 
The floor was covered in water for
a week to help it cure without
cracking in the hot sun.

Classroom / storage area

Hurray!  The first building, which will be two-thirds classroom and one-third storage area, has a floor and a roof with gutters!  The walls are coming later, after more horizontal supports are installed.  Also, the pile of dirt in the background will be removed next week.

Funeral

In this post, I (Heather / Erica) want to share an emotion I experienced recently which surprised me, having to do with tourists here in Chichi.  It was at a funeral for a man in our church, Alejandro, who died unexpectedly this week in a car accident.  His wife is my friend Lesvi, one of the Sunday School teachers at our church, and his young daughters are friends with Veronica.  My daughters and I went to a memorial service for him on Thursday at his parents' house, and I cried with his wife and other family members.  Then on Friday, we went to a burial service which started at his house in town.  After a short sermon by our pastor, six big men carried the casket on their shoulders on the main road through town to the cemetery, followed by a hundred local people and my daughters and I who were walking down the main road, kind of like a parade through town for a couple of miles.

The casket is up ahead,
in the middle of the street.

Entering the cemetery.

We walked up into the back part
of the cemetery, where they buried
Alejandro inside one of the brightly
painted buildings.

On the way through the cemetery, we
walked by some people practicing the Mayan
traditional religion who were burning incense
to their ancestors, or to scare the evil spirits
away from their ancestors.  Tending incense fires
is a common sight here.

The funeral took place on market day so there were several tourists in town, mostly from the United States and Europe.  The emotion that surprised me came as we were walking through town, when I saw the tourists interestedly watching the funeral procession.  I started crying when I saw them, upset by their unattached interest in a Mayan funeral proceeding.   I admit that I have also watched many funeral processions here myself, similiarly interested because it is an unusual sight to see.  But this time the man in the casket was my friend, and the family walking beside and behind the casket were my church members and friends!

Certainly the tourists were not at fault in any way.  I even admit that my daughters and I looked out of place ourselves as we walked with the local people, but they accept us being here and have made us feel welcome.  Over the five years we have lived here, even though the culture is very different than ours in many ways, I have learned that the people are really just like us underneath the different customs, thought processes, and education levels.  I love them!

Adobe church downtown

They took the plaster off a 100-year-old church in downtown Chichicastenango, and it was a bit unnerving to see the really tall, really old mud brick wall.

After re-applying fresh plaster and paint, the church looks nice again, but it reminds us of the fragility of the buildings here.  Even the block buildings are not usually built very well, leaving us praying for no earthquakes!

Funny note:  We have to be careful when we walk down the sidewalk by this church because the concrete windowsills stick out several inches right at head-height.  My daughters asked me, "Why would they put such dangerous windowsills at this height?"  The Mayan people are so short that they walk underneath them!

Two quinceañeras (15th birthday parties)

Here in Guatemala, celebrating a girl's 15th birthday is a big deal.  The parents  host a party called a "quinceañera" and invite a lot of people.  This past year we attended two such parties, both of which took place at our church.  For the first party, Elena and I (Heather / Erica) went the afternoon before and helped blow up hundreds of balloons.

For the second party, the mom asked me to teach two dances to the children and youth that would be participating.  So I choreographed two dances to Christian songs and practiced them with the kids for several weeks ahead of time.  There were 14 children and 4 youth boys.  A local seamstress sewed the girls dresses. 

The girl in the blue dress is the
birthday girl, named Sucely.

The children opened the event with their dance.

Then, unexpectedly, I was in charge of keeping
all those precious, wiggly, giggly kids quiet
(or mostly so) for over an hour!

During the course of the evening, the children
took turns taking objects to Sucely that
represented stages in her life.  For example,
Veronica took her a Barbie doll that symbolized her
childhood; then another girl came and received it from
her, symbolizing that Sucely is moving into womanhood
and will be giving up her childhood toys.

The boys did a good job with their hip-hop dance.