Coming home

Well, we’ve had a great few final days! We spent Sunday and Monday morning reflecting and sharing at a beautiful coffee farm in El Salvador, then spent yesterday in the awesome town of Antigua, where we spent the day wandering and buying last minute gifts. I don’t have time to detail our time in El Salvador, so you’ll have to wait to hear about that when we get back tonight. Please be praying for smooth travel! Our flight is scheduled to arrive at 11:40 pm at Pearson, from Miami (flight number AA 1612), but check to make sure we aren’t delayed.
See you soon!

Going to El Salvador

Hey everyone,
Just a quick note to let you know we are leaving for El Salvador this morn, and that we may not have access to the internet for a few days (until Fri or Sat), so please don´t worry if you dont hear from us for a few days!

Adventure Continued…

Hello to our families and friends back home!

I hope everyone is doing well and want you all to know that we are doing fantastic here in Guatemala. We are all learning so much and experiencing new and challenging things. At this moment we are all back at CASAS for a day to rest in between La Vaga and El Salvador. The past two weeks we have been traveling from Guatemala City to Santiago to San Marcos to La Vega and now onto to El Salvador tomorrow.  We have seen some difficult things including the Mine, Goldcorp that has devastated the community around it both socially and environmentally.  We have also seen hope.  Hope in the form of a blossoming trout and tourism business in La Vaga that MCC has encouraged and aided.  We built bridges with the local men and ate absolutely delicious trout for lunch one day.  At night with our host families many of us experienced a traditional Mayan bath which consisted of crawling into a little mud and stone hut that was warmed by hot coals and rocks and bathing ourselves out of buckets of warm and hot water.  It was the best Sauna and bath that I have ever experienced!We are all trying to soak up the culture as best we can but it must be admitted that we frequent the Guatemalan alternative of dairy queen, Sarita, as much as we possibly can. And we may have eaten at McDonalds once…but overall we are all enjoying the new flavours and traditions that the Guatemalan culture is putting forth.  Our questions are multiplying here and emotions are starting to flow.  There is injustice and suffering, there are problems we all desperately want to fix but right now we are working together to sort through our feelings, to help eachother out, and to brainstorms ways we can help, even if it feels like that is impossible.  Debrief is good for us all and it brings our thoughts and our focus back to God which is critical while we are here.  We are looking for God and I am happy to say that I can see God here in the form of hope and the happiness of the people.  I think we are all holding onto that.

This group is great by the way and the leaders awesome.  You all should be proud of your sons and daughters or friends here because everyone of them brings something unique and special to the atmosphere that we have been creating together, an atmosphere of friendship.

We miss and love you and please pray for us as we enter this last week in El Savador!

Adios!

Quick update

Hey everyone,
Just a quick note to let you all know that we´ve had a great time here in Guat City (as the previous posts have described), and that we are leaving to go to Santiago Atitlan tomorrow morning. This also means that we will probably not have access to the internet, and so will not be able to post (or answer) emails. So don´t worry if you don´t hear from us for a little while, and we will be sure to update you once we have again have internet access.

Guatablog

Hey everyone! We are back at CASAS and able to use the internet to contact you. We spent the weekend in Chichicastenango visting some Mayan ruins and a co-op for widows in a small town. The ladies make handmade goods such as bags, traditional mayan clothing, textiles, etc…
We spent Saturday night at a housing project in the city and learned all about their initiative in helping the sons of the widows get an education and profession. Sunday morning we all went to mass at a Catholic Mayan church in the heart of Chichicastenango´s market. Later we visited the market and enjoyed the traditional wears and flavours. We then had a long and bumpy drive back to CASAS.
Monday started off with four of Spanish classes … possibly including a few rounds of dutch blitz… and then we had a tour of Guatemala’s national cemetery where we learned about the issues created by past international influence. Afterward, we came to Guatemala City´s dump where we observed a sight we will never forget. The thousands of people who make a living scavenging for things to sell, for food for their families and for materials to support their daily lifestyles is simply indescribable.
We miss you dearly, love you all, and can´t wait to share our pictures! ¡Hasta luego!

Day Three in Gmala!

Q: What do you call a bear with no teeth?
A: A gummy bear!

Well, we are coming to the end of day three, and so far the past few days have been very eventful! Day 1 was spent travelling, and arriving in Gmala; Day 2 was spent mostly here at the Semilla. In the morning of Day 2 we had spanish lessons, and that was quite an experience! Basically, they split us up into 4 groups, and put us in a room with the teacher who only speaks spanish, which was quite a challenge, but eventually we figured out a few words to get us by. Then during the afternoon we all travelled in a van to the MCC offices, where we met with some local youth and a group that was also staying at the Semilla who were from Pennsylvania. While we were there we ate lunch, and just got to visit for a while. After that there were a few speakers who came and talked to us, some pf the topics being the African Palm Tree, the History of Gmala, and we did a little devotional all together as well. It was a great way to spend our first day in Gmala.

Day 3 was an especially exciting day! We woke up, had breakfast, and then morning devotionals. After that came spanish lessons, and then off to lunch at the MCC offices. From there we went to a village that was just outside of Gmala City. It was one of the poorer districts, and we all got to see first hand some of the poverty that is here. But even though it was one of the poorer communities, there was so much happiness, and the children loved us! We were openly stared at as we walked through, and many of the people were very shy and reserved at first, but soon enough they got talking (even though most of us couldn¨t understand them). Some of the group played an intense game of soccer with the older children, and the rest of us played circle games with the younger girls. We got to go and tour through some of the homes, and see what life would be like. It was an experience that we will all remember!

Well, now we are all watching an educational video about the history of Gmala, and after that its bedtime!

Goodnight to you all

Love, Megan and the rest of the group!

We have arrived!

Hey everyone!

Just a quick note to let you all know we have arrived safe and sound! The flights were smooth, Miami was hot (for the hour we were there), and Guatemala is 20 degrees, kind of rainy, and very green and beautiful. We will be attending a youth forum tomorrow, and visiting various communities over the weekend. Please keep us in our prayers, and keep posted for more updates!

Matt