This has really been a struggle. Everyone wants to know what we
will be doing in Guatemala and I always felt behind in letting them
know. Welcome to communicating with a third world country. We are way
ahead in planning.
We actually had a wonderful meeting with
Salome Lucas and David Clipson, a native and missionary respectively
who work with an organization called Nueva Diaconia. Well, the real
name is... Trasnformadores En Mision Nueva
Diaconia Iglesia Evangelica Nacional Presbiteriana de Guatemala...
pretty easy to memorize :) The leaders of this organization who
visited us have a wonderful vision to enable the Guatemalan people to
organize their 'agricultural / economic' efforts to better use the land
and create a more secure means of income.
As a part of this vision, we will be one of the first groups to
realize a project in enabling the Guatemalan people through Nueva
Diaconia. We will be building chicken coups for three plus weeks. The
Guatemalan families are expected to put in sweat equity and pay some
for the cost of building and buying chickens. It seems to work very
similar to Habitat for Humanity for those who are familiar. Thus we
will be working right along side our Guatemalan brothers and sisters
who are going to benefit from our labors.
We will also have many other possible opportunities. Possibly
we will go out in twos to stay in Guatemalan Mam (indigenous) families'
homes for a night. We will also work at the school where I worked for
a couple of afternoons. We will have a trip to the coast to possibly
visit an island off the coast. We will build chicken coups in both the
mountains and along the coast. Two very different climates and people
groups.
This is going to be such an incredible experience.
Thank you for your prayers for our meeting last Monday, as you can see
God blessed the meeting and gave us a good understanding of each
other's organizations. Please start praying for the relationships that
we will build during this time. The possibility of bringing two
Guatemalan young adults back to NWMC and the US. And please start
praying for our health while we are in Guatemala.
Make sure to stop by and read while SS is in Guatemala. We will work on regularly posting to the blog (...when we are in the cities with internet, in the villages it will be impossible).