Four Churches in Four Days

Living Word Community Church of York Pennsylvania is an amazing little church with a big agenda. For years this church of only about 2,000 members sets aside 30% of its annual budget to support missions. On this particular trip my family would be lending a hand in planting 4 new churches in the Nebaj region under the leadership of longtime missionary Mike McCoomb. Mike heads up, ASELSI (The Equipping the Saints Association), a bible institute where he trains pastors. He has been in this area of Guatemala for over 20 years. In fact his wife, Terri is about to have a book published which tells about the horrors experienced in that area during the guerilla uprising in the 80’s. Now the graduates of ASELSI are getting a hand in building churches for their congregation. Every morning our group of nearly 20 would meet for breakfast and reflection before loading on a bus to our destination. The villages would include Chajul, Chiul, Salquil Grande, and VijolomII. The Mayan dialect of Ixil is spoke in these villages. Ixil is only one of the 21 dialects of the Mayans. The most widely spoken in Guatemala is Quichean. More people speak Quichean than even Spanish in the Guatemala region. The goal of the Pennsylvania team was to get these churches started and out of the ground. This would entail work we are very familiar with------digging footers through rock and clay, tying and setting steel, and the mixing, hauling and pouring of cement. At each new location we worked alongside the pastor and church members

When driving to the village of VijolomII we stopped at a church that overlooked a valley and another mountain. It was here in the mid-80s that God had protected over 270 church members that were fleeing the communist rebels. This was one of the bloodiest regions during the conflict. The communist had been slaughtering villages, especially targeting the Christians and those refusing to fight for their cause. It was in the darkness of night when the Pastor lead his parishioners down one side of the mountain and was heading up the other mountain range with the guerillas hot in pursuit. Dawn was breaking and the rebels were closing in for the kill. It just so happened that the Guatemalan army had just received 2 howitzer cannons and wanted to test fire them. They randomly aimed them across the mountain range and landed two mortar shells between the advancing rebels and the parishioners thus sending the rebels fleeing and thereby abandoning their pursuit.

Some villages suffered worse than others. In the village of Chiul the church members were all women. They had all lost their husbands. At this location a church was built but the floor was clay. When we arrived the women were inside the church using picks and mallets to break up the hard clay and compact it. They would spend hours hauling water on their heads to be added to the concrete mix.

With our four days up, it was time to say goodbye to our gracious host the McCoombs and the guys from Living Word Community Church. I had made the choice the night before that we would gamble on an 8 hour car ride through a mountainous region of Guatemala that suffers from mudslides versus the sure bet of a 14 hour ride bringing us through Guatemala City. We were up for a 7am farewell breakfast with the group and then off for an 8 hour car ride across some of the most beautiful real estate in the world. Nothing but lush mountains everywhere you looked and the Mayan people dressed in their bright colored native garb.

The return trip was not without its memories. On three occasions we were stopped or diverted around festivities by the Mayans showing the Spaniards conquest of them by the Conquistadors. We also suffered a delay from a flat tire being punctured by a razor sharp rock on a mountainous road. The last but not the least memorable part of the return trip was the viewing of the aftermath of a massive mudslide. A whole mountain face almost half a mile in width and a mile downward was gone. The road that was once there was still buried under a mudslide that took the lives of at least 37 people in January of this year. No one really knows how many may be buried in the mud. It was a sad feeling looking over the devastation but comforting knowing that our God is in control.

Back Breaking Work!

Back Breaking Work

The construction of the mission house on the Rio Dulce River is taking shape. From mid-March thru the latter part of April four teams have been helping with the project, each team spending anywhere from one to two weeks. Three teams were Canadian and one was from New York. By the time we had gotten on the job the support post had already been set. What a feat it was with out the use of modern equipment. A platform was constructed on top of the post and 120 sandbags weighing 100 lbs each were loaded on the platform. The workers would then also get up on the platform and start jumping until the post would settle. The sandbags would then be unloaded, a new column formed and poured, and a few days later the sandbags and laborers would be loaded on the platform and a new post would go down. With the four teams we have completely poured the first floor consisting of 5000 square feet. We sifted the sand and wheel barrowed it with rock and cement mix into the building. After running the electrical and plumbing we became manual cement mixers. The walls are now about head high. The teams have all been incredible and unique. Many suffered from heat exhaustion and diarrhea during the stay but all bounced back to finish what they had started. The New York team consisted mainly of young women and was surprisingly impressive. They faced large spiders and roaches, coral snakes, and a pesky frog that was so large you could only pick it up with two hands, which one of the girls did and pretended to kiss it to bring forth a prince. They worked through the heat alongside the men with smiles on their faces all day.

Each team would also make a three to four hour boat trip to visit one or two villages on the river. They carried badly needed school supplies and according to the reception by the kids also badly needed candy. We worked on the corn grinder, put a new handle on the well, and discussed the upcoming project of expanding the school. On the most recent trip, our long time doctor friend, Dr. Gene, and his wife Arlene, would host a medical clinic for both villages before heading with me and the kids to tend to the sick in the mountains. Gene and Arlene are truly amazing individuals. For the past 11 years they have been with us helping the sick. At age 75 with most of his colleagues on the golf course he has found a better use of his time helping the sick in third world countries.

We have been here six weeks now running back and forth from the river to the mountains. Every trip up the mountain my truck is loaded with needed concrete, nails, food, medicine, and other assorted needed items. David and Alfredo, the caretakers of the mission, have done an exceptional job in our absence. They have bagged thousands of new coffee plants, continued work on a house for Alfredo and his family, prepared and planted numerous plots around the mission with a variety of experimental vegetables, repaired the green house, just to mention a few of the projects.

Pastor Manalo always has a great message and the church attendance has been good. It is a shame he will be leaving us in June. There is a two fold problem, his family does not want to be this isolated and his wife is a large woman and could not walk in this terrain. Please say a few prayers that God provides a good replacement.

Mixed in with the work, fellowship, worship and praise, we’ve jumped off water falls, swam through under water rock formations, caught a couple coral snakes, even ate one of them, surfed a few days in Salvador, and had a couple visits from Zacapa’s death squad. The death squad is Zacapa’s method of ridding itself of individuals that live in areas that are isolated and where there is no law present. It is an efficient way of purging the undesirables. The number and severity of complaints dictates how often the squad is dispatched. Nino and his sons were surely on that list. They are the very worst of the thieves and have stolen many times from the mission. The six assassins had taken a position above the house at night and fired nearly 500 shots through the aluminum roofing. They also dropped a grenade into the house but in their excitement hadn’t fully pulled the pin. Nino’s fifteen year old son took a bullet in the stomach. He was sporting a very nasty crooked scar where the doctors in Zacapa had experimented with opening him up. It was two weeks later when he was up in the mountain having Dr. Gene look at the wound.

The kids and I will be escorting Chelsea and Travis, my sister Rocky’s kids, up to Nebaj next week. We will be helping start 4 churches in 4 days. The elevation at the villages will range between 8,000 and 10,000 ft. This high altitude area of Guatemala is absolutely beautiful. I was there a year earlier with a few farmers from Pinalito getting lessons on growing ponytail palms from a missionary buddy of mine and one of his pastors. I can’t wait to share this part of Guatemala with my kids.