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.

Temporary building

We will be living in the lower part of our property for a few years while they build our house on the upper part, but we have no sewage connections in our community.  We needed to build a "temporary water building" up the hill from the ministry building and classroom so that our gray water can drain into the seepage pit we dug at the lower corner of the property.  The gray water from our "temporary kitchen sink" and our "temporary shower" will pass through a sand filter (see future post), then into the pit.  The water from our washing machine will run over to and down our driveway.  Our toilet is actually a dry toilet (see future post), so it uses no water.

The "temporary building" is just uphill from
the classroom, our temporary kitchen.

There are 4 terraces: the lowest for our
washing machine, then the kitchen sink,
then the bathroom, then the shower.

First the walls and ceiling were covered
by styrofoam.  This is the upper level, the
shower.  Yes, the doors are purple!

The siding and roof are made of steel
roofing pieces.

Water problems

Everywhere we turn we seem to have problems caused by water, non-absorbent ground, and a high water table.

This is our "dry" septic well, where we intended to dump our gray water.  It turns out the water table is very high, causing the bottom of the pit to collapse and fill with water.  As a result, we will have to filter our gray water before dumping it here.  All our neighbors, however, just dump their gray and black water right into the water table in the holes they have dug.

Water was pooling behind our retaining
wall, so they installed a gutter on the edge
of the shed roof.  That helped, but water
still runs down from higher up the hill.

Water runoff was causing the dirt wall behind
our house site, where we will one day install
a retaining wall, to begin collapsing.  Our
workers piled large rocks along the wall
to stop the damage.

Water from heavy rains is pooling
along the classroom building again,
working its way behind the mud barrier
they installed previously.

Water also runs down our driveway, pooling
into mud at the bottom.  Here, they have
re-covered the right half with gravel,
but you can see the left is still muddy,
awaiting its coat of gravel.