More Guatemala

Thursday, October 7, 2010 - Written about Full Day 1 (Wednesday)

Yesterday I was finally able to get myself under control. Aaron encouraged me to stay positive. We had breakfast after that and I had to go outside with everybody so that kind of put me back on track a little. We had eggs, toast, and fruit for breakfast. We had chicken soft tacos the night before. Last night we ate steak with tortillas, rice, black beans and fried potatoes. The steak had some kind of red sauce on it. It was not my favorite.

We went to Pacux yesterday, which is only about a 5 minute ride from where we are now in Rabinal. Aaron and I walked around the village with Richard, Corey and Edwin while the women did devotions and crafts with the women in the village. I honestly knew immediately that Pacux is not a place that we could live. If God sends us there, we will go; however, it does not seem like a good place for us to relocate our family. It is a very poor village, but the people seem happy. They had smiles on their faces when they saw the bus pulling up. Kids at the school wanted their “photo” taken over and over – mainly, I think, so they could see themselves in the window. Most of the kids found someone to hang onto and hugged closely to that person for as much of the day as he/she could. Later we walked around the village in groups and prayed for the women that we found at home. Three different groups prayed for Gabriel and his family. Two shared the gospel with him. He was shot a month ago and is very anger and wants revenge. That afternoon, Richard & Corey were supposed to meet government officials to talk with them about the school here in Pacux, but they were not available. They wound up finding another Baptist church having a women’s only service at 4:00. We went there and a few of the ladies spoke and Corey spoke. It was interesting because the church was led by a couple from Mexico who felt led to come to Guatemala to start a church. Aaron and I chuckled to ourselves because we would have never thought missionaries from Mexico would come to Guatemala as missionaries! After that we came back to Rabinal to the hotel to eat. We finally got to talk with Briggs over Skype. It was great to see his face and hear his voice! We are going to try again tonight. We went back to Pacux after that to their Wednesday church service. It was different than the other service we went to. It seemed a little more upbeat. The other church played traditional hymns, but the people there seemed a little more involved in the service. We passed out juice and cookies to all who came to the church and then went back to the hotel for the night.