Litter

Michael cleans around our driveway entrance once a week, and he always collects junk food wrappers from chips, cookies, and candy.

Littering here is a common practice.  Only in the past 10 years or so has junk food really become popular, so the amount of baggies, plastic bottles, and other wrappers is a new occurrence.  There are guys hired in town that sweep the road edges with brooms, collecting all the litter, but out in the communities there is no clean-up service.  We are shocked to see people drop trash as they are walking down the road, because of our "anti-litter" American culture!

Every so often someone breaks a glass bottle on the road and we go sweep it up!  Passers-by look at us funny, so I explain that the glass could cause flat tires.  Then they have an "ohhhh, you're right, I never thought about that" moment!

Roller skating

Veronica has invited friends from her dance team over to play, and their favorite activity so far has been roller skating!  We have three pairs of roller skates that we have brought back from visits to the United States.

Veronica, Andrea, and Zury

Izel, Veronica, and Abi

Any, Veronica, and Dasha

Each pair of girls are sisters, and all are very sweet!

A walk through the community

One sunny day last week, Veronica and I (Heather) went for a walk through our community.  The scenery was beautiful!  We only encountered one dog that attacked us, but thanks to my spray bottle of water that I always carry, I squirted him to keep him at bay while we ran out of his territory.  Usually we don't go walking like this, due to drunk men that are in the community, but in this case we wanted to see where this road led because we hadn't been on it before.

This is one of only two roads through the
community.  Most people don't have road access
to their homes, so they have to walk down paths
leading from these roads.

They have been working to concrete parts
of this road using small amounts of money
they receive from the government each year.

There were beautiful views along the way.

This is the door in the wall around the community
center building, where Michael attends a
community meeting once a month.

This is a look inside the wall at the
community building.

It was a hot day, but we enjoyed our walk!

Closed road

Our community closed the road that leads into our "neighborhood"!  There is a hill that is partially concreted, but the remaining dirt part gets very rutted in rainy season.  Every year the county government gives each community a small amount of money to make improvements, and this year our community, Chulumal II, decided to add another section of concrete to our hill. 

This is the view looking down the hill, showing
part of the hill that is already concreted and
where they have started working.
It doesn't show well in the photo, but the hill
is pretty steep.

They take turns choosing men to work from
a list of members of our community.  When it is
Michael's turn, due to his back pain, he hires
someone for about $13 to work in his place
for the day.

So for about two months, our road is closed and our car is trapped!  That means Veronica and I (Heather) have to walk about half a mile to where a tuk-tuk can pick us up to take us into town for shopping.  Then another tuk-tuk drops us off again, and we walk back carrying heavy groceries in bags on our shoulders and in backpacks.  We go shopping two days a week, one day just for fresh fruits and vegetables, which alone are very heavy and which we eat a lot of, and another day for other types of groceries.

This is the tuk-tuk I usually call to take me into
town.  The driver's name is Pascual and he lives
in our community.  (You may notice the
American flag he has in his tuk-tuk, which
isn't actually a common sight.)

Here we are in the tuk-tuk with a couple of
friends from our dance team,  Abi and Izel!

Also, we have decided that I shouldn't stay out after dark, because we have several drunk men that walk down our street and we don't want to encounter them in the dark.  That means I haven't been able to attend church while the road is closed, because the service ends about 7:30 p.m., which is after dark.

Hopefully they will open the road sometime in December after the concrete cures.  But there still remains more dirt road that they didn't have enough money to concrete this year, so we will have to live through yet another road closing another year!

Drum dance

Our dance team, Arise!, presented a couple of dances during our church's celebration of "Children's Day."  The dance in the photos below was a lot of fun, and the top photo is encouraging to me because it shows how much they improved at keeping the same rhythm!  Hahaha.  The dance intermixed a rhythm on the drums with other hip-hop dancing, and the song ("Hay Libertad") was about the freedom we have in God's house.

Bus driver protest

The roads here in Guatemala aren't very well cared for, and this week the bus drivers decided to protest by stopping traffic all over Guatemala on the main highways.  They do this sort of protest often, but this time it was followed by an interesting "caravan" of micro-buses headed towards Guatemala City.

On the day of the "caravan," Veronica and I (Heather) were invited to play Scrabble in town with a lady from church, a friend of mine named Adriana, whose daughter is on my dance team.  She had bought the game in English and didn't understand the instructions! 

Here is a picture of Adriana in her store
(earlier, with Elena).

As we were playing Scrabble at a table in Adriana's clothing store, a police car slowly made its way up the main street past us, followed by a large group of men, one of whom was speaking into a microphone, declaring in various ways how unhappy the drivers were with the way the government was ignoring the bad condition of the roads.

The front of the group with men on foot
and a truck with loudspeakers.

The caravan of micro-buses headed
into town was very long.

We were told there were 200 buses
in the caravan.

When we were finished with our Scrabble game, I planned to go into town to do my weekly grocery shopping, but the caravan was still slowly passing by.  Here in Guatemala, I always take time to judge a situation to decide if we are safe to be there or if we should leave.  In this case, it was a peaceful procession at that point, and there seemed to be other "normal" cars mixed in, so I got in my car and joined the parade!  It took a long time to make it up to the grocery store, but we finally did!

Construction

Here are some photos to catch you up on the construction we have been doing!

In the ministry building, we installed
a temporary interior wall to separate
Michael's office from the other bedrooms
and living room area.  The other rooms are
divided by fabric hanging down as curtains.

The buried barrels to the left are mini-settling tanks for
the shower water and kitchen sink water.  The water is
then filtered by passing through sand in these concrete bins
(not shown) before entering a deep hole in the ground.

These guys are pouring a thin sidewalk for us
to go between buildings without getting muddy.

This is the 290-gal. water tank we used while
our cistern was being cleaned and refinished.
The water runs into this tank from the community;
then our water pump takes the water to our
wash house.

Our washing machine puts out water too fast
to dump directly onto our driveway, so first the
water drains into this trash barrel, then exits
by gravity out the small tube at the bottom,
and then flows down a ditch to the driveway.

We installed this little roof over the walkway
between the wash house and the kitchen.
It keeps us pretty dry unless the wind is
blowing... then we run!

Inside the wash house:  our kitchen sink,
washer and dryer, bathroom (behind Elena),
and shower (end of hallway).

Children's Day

On days like "Secretary's Day" or "Grandparents' Day" or "Mother's Day," I always used to ask when was "Kids' Day"?  And my parents only laughed.

Well, here in Guatemala, they actually do have a "Kids' Day," and it is celebrated in grand style!  Our church had a special service complete with clowns, piñatas, and games.

Worship time

Piñata

An evangelistic drama and dance

A happy dance

And clowns (the girl clown is Dasha,
one of my dancers).

Sweet lady in town

This sweet little grandma, named Anastasia, sits in her wheelchair in town most days, watching people walk by.  Some people give her food and some give her small coins.  I have made a habit of stopping by to give her a quetzal (equal to about $0.13) and talk to her a bit in K'iche'.  People stop and gawk as I have my conversation with her in K'iche', but what they don't know is that I always say the same thing every time:

"¿Xeq'ij, la otz awäch?  Ën otz, maltyox.  Jwert q'ij chanim.  Dios katutewchij.  ¡Ena!  ¡Cha'ana kwenta!"  which means,
"Good afternoon, how are you?  I'm fine, thank you.  The sun is hot today.  God bless you.  Good-bye!  Take care!"

Veronica and Anastasia

She especially loves Veronica, who always gives her a hug!  Some day soon hopefully my K'iche' will improve to actually be able to carry on a conversation, but this lady's smile is great big, even at our small interaction!

Funny signs

We have some funny signs in town... no wonder people passing through town sometimes get lost!

This sign instructs you to turn right to go the next town, but the other sign says the road is one-way to the left!  Actually it means from this intersection to the left, it is one-way, but you can turn right.  Usually drivers don't pay attention to signs anyway.  Hahaha!

Let's dance

Through the last year my dance team, ¡Levántate! (which means Arise!) has presented several dances...

"Shout to the Lord" in church.

"Your Love Has No End" to celebrate
new classrooms at church.

Prayer for the team by the church.

On Father's Day we invited the dads to
join the children for a dance to
"You Make Me Move."

"Lord, You Are Good,"

"Your Love Has No End,"

and "No Higher Place" in a service in
our new ministry building.

"Joshua 1:9" at a special church service
to thank God for his blessings.

"No Higher Place" in church.

First church service

Before we moved to our land, we invited our church for a special service in our future ministry buildings.

Michael taught about Biblical healing
in the future ministry building,

and the children had their own class in
the future classroom.

We've moved!

We were finally close enough to being able to move to our land that I decided I would like to move before Christmas!  So we made a list of the necessary things that had to be done by the construction workers before we could move (like drainage issues and room dividers), and an even longer list of things we could finish soon after moving in (like pathways and laundry lines).  The men got to work on the details and I (Heather/Erica) got to work packing.

And four days before Christmas, we moved!  Praise the Lord!

Celebrating Christmas in our new building.
We missed Carolyn being with us!

Now we have new sights and sounds and neighbors and community members to learn to adjust to.  For example, we discovered that the day begins here by 6:30 a.m. with random neighbors and nearby churches playing music at high volume, local corn mills grinding on and off (which sounds like a jackhammer), our puppy crying to get up and join the fun, and occasionally a grackle (a big, black bird) cawing right outside our window!

We want to say thank you to our friends and supporters who have helped us reach this milestone.  We appreciate your support and many prayers on our behalf, since we feel God's blessing on this project.  We know that He will help us through all the difficulties we face as we put our trust in Him.