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.