We're Back

It’s now November 19th. We arrived again in Guatemala on the 29th of October and although the airport seemed modern with the new construction the service was still of the third world mentality. Over two hours had passed and a dozen families from Spirit flight 143 stared in blank confusion at the luggage conveyer, myself and my three kids were among them. Everyone may have retrieved a part of their belongings but the remainder was somewhere in the abyss. The Moro family was missing two boxes which contained the drum set we were bringing to the church in Pinalito. When reps finally showed up, two hours later, the news was the same for all-------When a flight is fully booked sometimes there is not enough room for the luggage so it is sent on a later flight. Spirit’s standard policy was a news shock to me. I had never heard of such a routine matter of fact practice. We of course would be expected to come and pick up the luggage when it arrived. All I could think was ‘Welcome to Guatemala’. Rocky and Michael were waiting for us in Zacapa. After spending the night there they would escort us up the backside of the mountain. The usual route had been destroyed with the summer rains and was impassible. Two days would pass before the luggage was able to be picked up. Adjust, readjust, and readjust again was standard practice in this area of the world.

I had made a serious error when loading up our belongings and ourselves in the two taxis. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind until the taxi I had put Dylan and Cassidy in was out of sight and our surroundings seemed unfamiliar. There was a tinge of nauseousnous in the pit of my stomach. The story of Jesus being left behind in Jerusalem by his parents entered my mind. Why hadn’t I put the luggage in one taxi and kept the kids with me? The ten minutes which seemed like an eternity passed before we pulled up behind Dylan’s taxi in front of the apartment. A quick prayer of gratitude and a self inflicted kick in my butt were in order.

As fortune would have it we found fellow missionary Jaime Ortiz and his son Jamison stranded in Guatemala City. Their truck was at a repair shop and probably wouldn’t be ready until the following week. It was a blessing to have Jaime not only guides us through the maize of getting out of the city but also the back way up the mountain in the darkness of night especially when that route includes several hundred yards of using a flowing river bed as a road.

The first order of business here in the mountains is ensuring the water is flowing unhindered in the mountain apartment. This requires taking apart all the faucets, toilet intake assemblies, and a propane hot water heater. We then flush water through them and remove sticks, rocks, sand, and other sentiment that has made it’s way into the water line. The mission had run out of Teflon tape a necessity when working on the propane water heater----so the water heater could not be used. I was the only one that took a shower that night. I had never got a brain freeze from taking a shower before. This was a first.

It is morning and there is a quick exchange of greetings with a team from Kentucky that has spent time working on the internet, the church tile job, evangelizing, and visiting villagers.

Several days later we are now settled in. There is a string of kids sitting on our bunk beds listening to Dylan play the drums, each waiting to take their turn. Cassidy is outside with my laptop with kids huddled around her as she shows them pictures of themselves and her own summer activities back home. Michael, Rocky, and their kids are in Zacapa with a team from Pennsylvania working on the dormitory. I’ve dropped Austin off at the dormitory job site in Zacapa. He was running through ½ mile of ditches freshly put in for the sewer lines with his cousin Travis as I head back up the mountain with a team of 7 volunteers from Brevard, N.C. and my two nieces, Tiffany and Chelsea. The truck is packed to the gills with cement, luggage, and missionaries. We’ve bottomed out a half dozen times with the load but we are here. In the morning one group will head to the church with me to finish the tile job, another will start making cabinets for apartment 4, and the two visiting P.A’s will work organizing the clinic and seeing villagers.

It is Saturday, Sarah and Melanie have done an outstanding job preparing to put on a carnival for the kids. There are close to 70 kids attending plus the parents and teenagers.
There is face painting, fishing for prizes, basketball toss, a play, chocolate covered frozen bananas and more. It will be the dark before everyone goes home.

The next days will include our work coupled with long hard walks to remote adobe huts visiting families evangelizing and handing out clothes and stuffed animals. We had our fill of tortillas as each family we visited prepared them fresh.

A week has passed and it is now time to take our new friends from Brevard, North Carolina down the mountain. It is not too late as they still have one more adventure while departing Pinalito. The majority of the team will take a 4 hour walk down one side of the mountain. (Sorry just had a water line break that was flooding the school that needed fixing-----my typing may get a little sloppy here with the glue on my fingers) They will be entertained by Dylan riding a cow and also come to the rescue of Austin who did not wear socks. He now has blisters on his feet and will be carried down by Gordon, Koss, and Dylan. The rest of the crew will be riding with both Sarah and me. We’ll bring the luggage down with our trucks. The problem will be the light constant rain that we’ve had for the last 4 hours It wouldn’t be long before we were sliding in the mud dodging fallen trees and rocks. Cassidy and Chelsea are clinging to the tailgate of my truck screaming with each slide. The mud chains would have to be installed. Bart, Allen, and I would wrestle with installing the chains on both trucks. Sarah’s chain will break after hitting the first rock but she manages to control the slides and continues to drive it down like a pro. We’ve made it to the bottom of the mountain and it is time to retrieve the rest to the group from the other side before heading to Antigua for a couple of days of r&r.