Quinceñera

Finally a post from Dave!!!  Today's post will be about the quinceñera.

What is a quinceñera?  It is the birthday celebration for many girls that have a Latin American background.  It is to celebrate their fifteenth (quince) birthday, as the U.S. has their “sweet sixteen” birthdays.  Here in Guatemala it may look a bit different as we have crossed paths with many different fifteen year girls; they have been on a variety of life paths by the time we’ve met them.  There are some that have already experienced child prostitution; some are already a mom; some have made the choice of marriage; some are seeking fervently after the Lord; some have either only the mom or only the dad; some are orphaned; some are working; some are washing clothes, cleaning houses, making tortillas, or working in the fields for some extra money; some are in school; some are playing in the streets.  Wherever life has taken them, their fifteenth birthday comes around and culture tells them that it is time to celebrate the girl becoming a woman.

Here in Guatemala, people give any reason to celebrate, the quinceñera not weighing in cheaply.  I’ve seen pictures of some quinceñeras where it looks fancier than a wedding.  And living here at Lake Atitlán, some people have money, some don’t.  In turn, this celebration can cause people to take out loans, which they pay back slowly with an outrageous interest rate.  It is a day that girls dream about and talk about growing up, with their friends.  They may forget the rest of their birthday celebrations, if they’ve even had any, but they’ll remember their quinceñera.  They have now become grown-up.

Why all this quinceñera talk?  We partook in learning more than ever about the quinceñera these days.  There is a girl, from Puerta Abajo (Chimaltenango), who we have known for almost two years now, who turned fifteen.  Her dad left when she was an infant; her mom got together with another man, whom she is currently with, and has had three more children.  The dad always seems to be working; in fact we’ve never actually met him, until the day of the quinceñera.  Yet the money never seems to make it home; it is little what he earns and he ends up spending it in different manners.  This fifteen year old wasn’t able to attend school in 2014 because she had to help her mom around the house and because the dad didn’t think too highly

of her education.  Thankfully, as we could convince them that education was a good idea and they didn’t have to be the ones paying for it, this past school-year January-October she was able to go; she came out as one of the top students in her class, with the majority of her grades falling between 90%-100%.  We pray that she’ll be allowed to continue pursuing a better life.  As she is not this man’s biological daughter, he doesn’t always treat her kindly and it has a negative effect on family life.  Every time we visit Puerta Abajo, we go with a Guatemalan missionary couple from the capital, and we find that there is always need with this family; the struggle with the dad/husband, finances, and food.

Right, her quinceñera.  I had the privilege of taking her out of the village and go shopping.  When dreaming of the quinceñera, the girls dream about their dress.  This girl, being of a poor family, she chose a simpler dress that she could use again, though it was still very elegant.  Next I got some of the necessities for a quinceñera: heeled-shoes to show that she is now a woman; a tiara to show that she is the Lord’s adopted princess and daughter; a ring to show that she is set apart for God and marriage; and makeup and hair products for the big day.  As we put on this special day with help from this missionary couple from Guatemala

City, they did a lot of the other logistics.  Of course, being a chef, I took care of the main dish: pepian.  I prepared, for fifty people, this Guatemalan dish which consists of a roasted tomato based sauce (that has pumpkin seeds, which gives it is name), and a meat (for the occasion and the sake of cost, I did chicken).  When the day came, word spread, and over a hundred people came; thankfully the Lord multiplied and everybody was able to eat.  There was rice, pepian, tortillas, cake, and a drink.  There was eating, fellowship, tears, laughter, and even singing of “happy birthday” in English.

During the special day she was filled with emotion and excitement.  We were able to tell that she was deeply touched and appreciated all that was done for her.  We were able to share some passages from the Bible and a word about identity and how God sees her.  Following that we were each able to pray for her life and future.  We hope that by showing her God’s love on her special day; that her life will be impacted and restored; may God move in a supernatural way on her behalf.

For the Joy of It

The knock came at the door around 5:30pm.  It had been a long day, and I was feeling worn out and discouraged about trying to adjust to life in our new town.    I was in the middle of making dinner, but I hurried to see who had come to visit us.  It was a new friend of mine, a lady who lives only a few blocks away. 

I invited her in, noticing that she had brought her little daughter with her.  She was very direct and said that she’d come to see how much I would charge her to give English classes to her daughter, Patty.  I said that I didn’t offer classes, nor was I looking for money, but that if she just wanted to bring Patty over to play a couple mornings a week that she would probably pick it up naturally.  My friend thought that sounded great.

Patty came to play the next morning, and it was instantly obvious that she was a bright and funny little girl, and that she would have no trouble at all picking up English.  She and Z spent the first morning colouring, and playing with toys, and painting pictures.

 It was truly wonderful. 

As you all know I have been praying for a sibling for Z.  There have been many days when I felt angry with God for not providing a real friend for my child, someone who he could spend a lot of his time with, not just see once in a while.  So many of the kids here treat him differently because of his skin color, and I wanted to find him a friend who would treat him like a peer, not a pet. 

So God sent Patty.

I don’t know what happened really, but God has used that little girl to show me how to find joy in my life again.  How to be a happy mom again.  Z had been so lonely, and now he is content becuase he knows that every morning his buddy is coming over.  I can enjoy him as my only son without feeling guilty and sad that he doesn’t have siblings. 

Before, I kept thinking that God expected me to start up some kind of huge “ministry”, and to spend my time visiting hospitals and preaching in the streets or something.  There is value in all those kinds of work, but for me I had become burdened with “missionary guilt”, thinking that I needed to be busy all the time.  I felt guilty when I enjoyed a quiet day at home with Z… but God has used a three year old to remind me that being a mom is my most important work.

These days, my mornings are full of playdough-shaping, finger-painting, mud-cake-making, and story-reading… and the walls echo with the giggles of to little kids that I adore.  I make them snacks and tie their shoes, and watch them run outside... 

just for the joy of it.    

  

Friendship

What is friendship?  Is it merely time spent with someone else, or is it more?  Is it conversations deepened past the state of the weather and familiarity with another person’s history, or is there a greater purpose for friendship?  In the past six weeks I have learned a lot about what it is to be a friend, and not just friendly. 

Our friend Juan helped us move.  He rode along in the truck with our boxes and beds, and helped unload everything when we arrived.  Then he went home to Antigua. 

And suddenly we were alone. 

We knew that moving to a new town, without a team or pre-existing ministry, would be challenging.  We expected to feel lonely at times.  For a couple days it was pretty isolated, but three days after moving we invited Chris over for dinner.  She was a friend-of-a-friend, and even though we didn’t know her, she was more than happy to come over and enjoy a meal with us.  We connected instantly.  Her sarcastic humor kept us laughing, and her compassionate heart comforted me as we sipped tea and chatted in the living room.  She even took the time to sit with Z and do a puzzle.  

The next day, Chris brought over a big bag of spinach for smoothies, since I had mentioned that was something I liked to make. 

During this time, our neighbors, Maria and her son Kevin, were over almost every day, helping us figure out the logistics of life in a very different setting than what we were used to.  They invited us to church, and to parades, and we shared time around the table over multiple meals and pots of tea. She was ill for a couple days, so we brought dinners and prayed with her.   

Our only contacts in our town prior to moving, Pastor Antonio and his wife Kata, also extended friendship to us in the form of spending one morning a week teaching Kata to cook North American style food at their house and then sharing lunch together.  It has become a weekly tradition that everyone looks forward to, although Z’s favorite part is getting to watch Dora the Explorer on their cable TV. 

Over the first three weeks we discovered the other three white missionaries that are working in different towns around the lake.  Each one of them had been feeling isolated from any form of Christian fellowship in English, and so the Saturday night potluck was born.  If you know me, you know who’s idea that was! 

Yesterday night we had dinner with Kevin and his mother.  It was a time of laughter and good conversation, ending with a pot of popcorn and a 500-piece puzzle after Z had gone to sleep.  We introduced Kevin to the melodious sounds of Taylor Swift, and talked about his dreams to be a television anchorman. 

It got me thinking though, what is friendship and why is it so important?  I’m not a philosopher, so maybe my answer isn’t very profound, but to me, friendship is filling the gap.  I showed up in a new town six weeks ago without a single person I would have called a true friend.  I was feeling a little scared and very much alone in the world… and then people stepped up to fill the gap.

Living at the lake still feels foreign to me, but I can feel my heart beginning to take root.  Instead of loneliness and displacement, I have a network of friendships to depend on.  I want to be part of their lives, and they want to be part of mine. 

A cup of tea.  A loaf of bread.  A puzzle.  A smile.  A healing embrace.  A shared prayer. 

Friendship isn’t complex.  Find a gap.  Fill it.   

Learning To Be Kind

I want to appear capable and good-natured at all times.  I want to be compassionate and be “the helper” for everyone, instead of “the one in need of help”.  I want to be perceived as intelligent, and to be treated with respect.  I get upset if I feel that I am failing at communicating well with others and or that I am being laughed at.  Perhaps that is common to everyone. 

      Missions is difficult because one can no longer feel capable all the time.  There are systems and ways of doing things that have to be learned.  It’s kind of like being a toddler, except not as cute.  There is always more to learn about the language, and for us now we are living in an area where the majority of people’s mother tongue is a Mayan dialect called Tzutujil.  Many do speak Spanish, and we are able to get by, but it is common to go shopping or for a walk, and see that people are talking about us.  It is an unsettling feeling, and it can feel like everyone is ganging up on us and that “nobody likes us”. 

      Living in our house has also been an exercise in learning to be humble.  Almost everything has had to be re-learned.  How to wash the dishes.  How to deal with the garbage pick-up.  How to avoid spider/mosquito/scorpion/ant bites and keep the house clear of pests.  How to handle the water system, where we have city water three times a week, and have to be home to fill up the pila and water reservoir on those days.  And then of course there is the normal aspects of moving to a new town like finding our way around and finding stores that carry the things we want (no grocery stores here).  During the past two weeks we have had to rely on the kindness of our neighbors, new friends, and even strangers to help us figure out the system.  It can be painfully humbling.    

       I am learning what it means to be kind to myself.  I can’t always get through the whole day with a positive attitude.  Sometimes the way the women in the market look at me and try to rip me off gets the better of me and I come home feeling like I’ll never be accepted.  Sometimes I feel like my extended family is just too far away, and I wish I could jump on a plane and be reunited with them… maybe even go to Starbucks and forget this whole crazy idea to move to the Lake.  But when those moments strike and I feel like I might not even make it through that day- I am learning to be kind to myself. 

       I can’t speed up the process of adapting to a new place, nor can I force people to extend kindness to me, but I can choose not to give up.  I make a cup of tea and read my Bible, or put up the hammock and enjoy a cuddle with Z in the backyard, or I watch a movie, write a letter, or do a puzzle for a couple hours.  This is only the first few days of our life and work here, and if I am patient with myself it will turn into years.  God is not discouraged by my need to take a couple deep breaths, He is with me in those times, whispering confidence back into my heart. 

       God has been faithful to me, even in my weakness.  He has already helped me get connected with two amazing missionary ladies who I have already come to call my friends.  Our neighbors, a recently-widowed Christian woman and her two teenage sons have also treated us very kindly, and we have enjoyed spending time with them as well.  One of the boys is learning English and has taken a real shine to Z.  The two of them are adorable as speak spanglish together.  Our kitchen has been filled with laughter and conversation (in both English and Spanish!), and in those moments I am so thankful to God for bringing us new friendships to fill our life with joy.  

       God has shown me that we are not alone.  We have so far to go in adjusting, deciding on what ministries to be involved in, or pioneer, and continuing to work towards the ultimate goal of adopting children… but God is not afraid of time the way we humans are.  He has a plan for our life and in everything He is kind to us. 

      So if you are in a time in our life when you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed, remember to be kind to yourself and take your strength from quiet time spent with God.  Maybe He’s even been waiting for you to tire out so you’d actually sit down and listen to Him.  And hey, why not invite that immigrant neighbor from down the street over for tea… chances are, they would appreciate some kindness too.  

Z working on a puzzle in our improved kitchen

Some freshly hand washed laundry 

Z in his newly organized room

The living room is really coming together too! 

Rough Waters

   Tuesday at noon we loaded the moving truck and Jeep, then set out for Lake Atitlan .  We were about halfway there when it started to rain so heavily we had to pull over and wait because we couldn’t see anything through the windshield.  We sat at the side of the road and thought about all our stuff in the truck.  We knew that although the driver had covered most of the boxes with a tarp, the mattresses were unprotected.  In my head, I started making a plan for how we could sleep that night without our beds.  The rain let up enough to keep driving, so onward we went. 

    Less than an hour after the blinding rain we were stopped by a police checkpoint.  They looked over our paperwork, found a flaw with our documentation, and charged us with a fine.  The officer was polite enough about it, but I was shaken the rest of the way to the lake.  I was upset that not a single person in  any of the offices where we transferred the car papers only a week before had told us about the missing paperwork!  I am a law-abiding citizen, and I felt frustrated that not only were we now knowingly driving without correct documentation, we didn’t have a way to solve the problem either, since the papers could only be obtained in the City (about a three hour drive in the opposite direction from where we were stopped by the cops).

      Regardless of the shenanigans on the road to the lake, we arrived in good time and unloaded the truck with the help of our friend Juan, who’d come in the truck, and our new neighbor, a woman named Maria.  We shared a quick snack once everything was in the house, and then the guys took off towards home to try to beat the descending darkness.  Everything was damp.  The beds were soaked at one end, so we propped them up to start drying while we attempted to unpack the kitchen enough so we could eat dinner.  That proved to be about a two hour job, including dealing with a flooding toilet, a pila* without water, and a little boy who wanted nothing more than to find every piece of his train set. 

       After dinner we layered the drier side of Z’s mattress with towels and secured them with a fitted sheet.  He went to sleep in less than three minutes.  I had been feeling scared in the house  the entire evening, and even though I’d been praying, the sense of unease hadn’t gone away.  Dave and I walked through the house, into each room and touching all the walls, and we prayed the Lord’s covering over our home.  We could sense peace settling into the rooms as we went, gaining momentum and even filling the areas we hadn’t prayed over yet.  By the time we circled back into the kitchen I felt calm.  We found some more towels to cover the wet part of our bed, and we slept right through the night. 

      The first morning in the house Z woke us up early, as usual, and we got started trying to unpack everything.  We’ve gathered up quite a lot of stuff in the past year and a half, but unfortunately not enough furniture to truly furnish the house or even find a place to put everything.  We have a lot of books and kids ministry materials that I had been boxing up slowly during our time at the base, so I hadn’t realized how many we truly had.  Apparently the lack of libraries in Guatemala has turned us into book hoarders?! 

      We walked to the market the first afternoon, which ended up being fairly unproductive because of rude teenage boys who thought we didn’t understand Spanish, and also due to a lack of vendors in the market at that late hour.  We bought enough to get through the night and called it a day.  I made crepes with pumpkin sauce for dinner and we watched a movie.  Thankfully there had been enough sun to dry our mattresses on the roof and everyone had a clean bed to sleep in. 

       Day two dawned gray and overcast.  Of course this was also the day I was going to do laundry.  I was feeling out of sorts, and struggling to make the kitchen work for me as I got breakfast ready, but I dumped the laundry into a big bucket and filled it up with water.  The toilet was clogged, so I went to deal with that and when I came back I saw a scorpion on top of the clothes in the laundry pail!  I ran and grabbed a pair of tongs and a bowl, and I snatched the insect (are they even insects? they look more like tiny dragons!) and drowned it in some water.  I was so angry.  Here I was, just trying to take care of my family, and what do I find?  Poisonous bugs waiting to ambush me! 

        I could feel the spiritual attack in that moment.  I don’t know if the scorpion was sent to scare me, or if it was just an innocent little guy who thought our clothes looked like a cozy cave.  It didn’t matter.  I felt discouraged and completely alone.  I prayed as I washed the clothes asking God for help, and for the courage to keep going.  A line from Z’s favorite movie crossed my mind. 

       “You came here to be a firefighter.  If you leave today, think of all the lives you won’t save tomorrow.” 

              - Blade Ranger, Planes 2

        Granted, I didn’t come to the lake to be a firefighter, but the quote strengthened me anyway.  I came here to bring glory to God, and if I gave up, I would never have the chance to see how He might be able to use me here.  I didn’t decide to move here on a whim, or even necessarily with very much eagerness, but I have peace because know it was what God wants for my life.  God has a plan for our family, and this is an opportunity for growth in my relationship with Jesus, if I choose to be brave and not give away to fear of the unknown.  It doesn’t need to be easy; I just need to cling tighter to the One who will never abandon me. 

       As you can probably tell, this move has been challenging for me.  I miss my friends at the base, the familiarity of daily life in Antigua, and being able to contact my families whenever I want through the magic of email and FaceTime.  I’m starting completely from scratch in making new friends and figuring out the way life works here. I feel lonely and disoriented.  But I know it will not always be this way.

Packing the truck at the base

Kitchen 

Sala 

our bedroom

Front patio area

Front yard

double bathroom... fancy.... sort of 

The path towards the main road.  no one lives in the white house

Z´s room  

     God will help us to forge a new path… after all, this was His idea in the first place. 

 “I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up… then you will know that I am the Lord; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.” 

       -Isaiah 49:11 and 23

 (This chapter of the Bible has been my life’s chapter for about two years now.)          

*A pila is a cement sink with a water reservoir underneath.  Water is then removed by scooping it out with a plastic bowl.  The pila is used for everything, including washing clothes, dishes, and in some homes, for bathing as well.  Our new house has a shower, but the pila is the only sink.  We have a water filter in the kitchen for drinking, but everything else has to be taken outside and washed or a bucket of water has to be brought inside.  So far this has been a bit tedious, but it’s the way almost everyone lives here, so we are trying to work out systems to make it easier.  It will become normal eventually.  

House Hunters International

There is a show that Dave and I like to watch on YouTube, called House Hunters International.  It's a reality show where a person or couple moves somewhere outside of the States and the cameras follow them on their quest.  They always look at three houses, throw around some clever banter about the pros and cons of each, pick one, and then there are some quick shots of the chosen house three months after they move in, and usually the people do a voice-over about how subliminally happy they are with their choice.  The show is 25minutes long.  

This past week we did our own version, but the difference was that we were not aided by a local real estate agent, nor were we followed around by a camera team.  On Wednesday we drove our trusty new Jeep, Matilda the Tank, and arrived at the lake in time to look at three houses before dinner time.  One had previously been used as a yoga studio, and the walls of the other two were covered with art of Buddah and other stuff. All three houses had a dark presence over them, the second house so thick with demons I could hardly breath inside.  We knew we'd have to keep looking. We prayed together as a family, slept at a friend's house, and started fresh the next day.  

Day two we looked into 15 houses.  Every one has some sort of inexcusable flaw.  Either they were too expensive, too small, moldy, no yard, no windows, full of demons, too expensive, no parking, had a weird layout with the bedroom separate from the rest of the house, or had obvious dangers like rickety stairs or no railing on the porch.  Most houses had a combination of a few, or all of the above.  

It was incredibly frustrating, but we stuck with it all day, driving from town to town, calling every number we found of anyone with a rental property.  By the time we returned to our friends' house for dinner I was ready to pack up the truck and leave forever.  I told Dave I thought maybe God was closing the door for us to live at the lake.  My ever-steady husband said, "I think we just have to hang on.  God isn't done yet."  I reluctantly agreed with him, but I felt very discouraged.  At that point, including the houses we looked at during the DTS Outreach, we had seen 23 properties.

The next morning we decided to relax, that we needed a break from the stress of house hunting, so we took a boat across the lake to a village to take part in an organic farm tour happening that morning.  We hiked up the mountain to the farm and enjoyed learning about permaculture, and petting the goats and dogs. We had lunch out and then went back to our friends' house early to rest.  

As soon as we got there, our friends told us they had a house for us to see.  We drove over before dinner and found THE house!  With a big yard, four bedrooms, no mold, and surrounded by peaceful trees and coffee farms, we agreed to live there on the spot!  The house is owned by our friend's uncle, and he offered us a really low price because we are missionaries and he wanted to rent it to people who would use it for God's glory!  We are even allowed to have chickens if we want!  

We are now at the base, getting the last of our stuff ready to go.  We prayed for so long that God would give us a nice place to call home; and now He has!  Unlike a TV show, it took 23 houses instead of 3... But God never forgot about us, and was leading our family to a place we can really make our own.  

Number 24 the win!  We move in two days!  

  Dave and Z eating dinner at our friend's house after a long day driving around.  

On The Road Again

For six months we lived in the green house with a garage at our disposal.  The only time a car was ever parked there was one time when a leader from another YWAM base came to visit.and needed a place to put her truck for a night.  Other than that, the garage was used as a place to hang a hammock where it wouldn't get wet in the rain. 

Almost every evening Dave took Zane in the garage and they would pray for God to give us a vehicle to fill the garage.  We had felt prompted by the Lord to give away our old car before coming to Guatemala, and although it was inconvenient to have to rely on public transit we never felt right about looking for a car to buy.  Chicken busses are an adventure, but fairly reliable and cheap to travel on, so it usually wasn't a huge deal to live car-free.

I only started to wonder what we were going to do if we didn't get a vehicle once we decided to move to the lake.  Because we will still be part of our YWAM base and will be going back and forth from the lake every 6-8 weeks, it was ominous to imagine the four-five hour trek by bus every time we needed to come to the base.  We continued to pray for a vehicle and held to the belief God would replace the car we gave to Him in California.    

About three months ago some of our coworkers announced that they felt called to go to Japan, and began the difficult process of uprooting their family who has lived in Guatemala for almost ten years so that they could follow God to the other side of the world.  They had two SUVs, so eventually we sent them an email asking for how much they'd be selling them.  They sent back, "we've prayed about it, and we've decided we would like to give you one of them."  

As soon as I had read the message, I burst into tears (as I do when anything really wonderful happens) and ran to tell David the exciting news.  God had found us a new vehicle!  

Fast forward to today: we went and met with a lawyer to transfer the papers into our name.  Tomorrow we are heading up to Lake Atitlán to continue the search for our new home.  God figured the timing of getting our new truck down to the last- and perfect- minute.  Impeccable.  

To be honest, I had almost given up that God was going to answer that prayer, and had almost decided that maybe he would just provide money to buy a car instead of giving us one for free... But He had a surprise waiting just around the corner.

Isn't He amazing?!