I can´t believe it- my last week! I am not feeling sad yet, just blessed and happy.  I`m determined to enjoy this last week and not wish myself home too soon.  What a blessing that I was able to stay here for 5 months!  I am grateful for the sacrifice the Ruanos have made to have me in their home this year.  Especially Rossanita, sharing her bedroom and all.

I feel a little overwhelmed, having to blog about the whole dental trip last week, and since my time on the computor has to be flexible, I will try to blog one day at a time, and eventually get the whole week covered.

Sunday night  we had a Chochy concert in El Jicaro- it was super humid, so we were really sweaty, but I had a good time  You can`t see it in this photo, but there were a lot of families that came to watch us, it was a good turn out. We were in this little park in the middle of the town, so it was a good spot for people to come. Yes, I am the one in the heart costume.  Cute.

One of the girls that I got to hang out with from El Jicaro

Monday we had a clinic right outside of town, in a school.  Still really humid and the bugs were biting, so it was hard working conditions.  The day before, Sunday, I assisted Dr. Chorchy but Monday Dennis J. assited him so I didn`t really have an official job.  I helped a little with cleaning the instruments, then I did general jobs, carrying dirty trays back, getting snacks for the dentists.  When they were finishing up in the afternoon I didn`t have much to do so I went   outside with Travis, a kid from the team,to play with the kids in the school yard.  It was really fun, at first I was intimidated, I always am, because I didn`t know how well I`d be able to talk to the kids, but it turned out really well.  The kids understood me, and I understood them for the most part.  I met several little girls, talked to them about everything, from their families, to how the weather is in the city vs. El Jicaro.  It is moments like that that are so rewarding to me, being able to connect with kids who speak another language.  I am so excited because I hope to keep learning Spanish so that I can eventually witness to them using the 10 commandments like I learned in The Way of the Master course by Ray Comfort.

Prayer for this week

Here is the prayer list that Pastor Andy sent out for the Barcroft Bible team coming today:

Saturday November 3rd
Travel from the
USA to Guatemala City, then by van to El Jicaro, 3 hours NE... pray for traveling mercies.

Sunday-Monday

Clinics in El Jicaro, Los Bordos and a Chochy kids concert in the nearby town of Ojo de Agua.

Tuesday 
Travel day to Los Cerritos, moving through the capital city, stopping for resupply, and then on out to the camps!



Wednesday-Thursday
More evangelism and dental work; much more rustic surroundings, need for prayer and strength for Team Members


Friday
Team debrief in the morning, then participate in a city-wide prayer and evangelism outreach with Dennis’ band, Propheta


Saturday
Return to the
USA, safety and
customs.

I´m sorry I couldn´t be more specific in this post- but I am in a hurry, we are leaving in a few minutes here to meet the team at the airport- then we hit the road for Jicaro right away.  I am going to be in the Chochy concert Sunday, so that will be fun. I would specifically ask you guys to pray for everyone involved with the trip this week- that we would all have good attitudes no matter what and that we can encourage each other.  Pray that we will be used by God this week and that we won´t rely on our own strength.

16 more days till I come home!!!!  :D :D

Do you have an eternal perspective?

As I look forward to going home (25 more days!), I am reminded at how we should be looking forward to our heavenly home.  This earthly life is just but a glimpse of eternity- those who have believed can have hope in what is to come.  See this passage from Colossians 1:3-5:

 ^´´We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel...´´ (italics added)

  Yet we get so caught up in this life, its trials and worries.  Isn´t it such a relief to remember this isn´t all there is?  I know us Christians talk of heaven, but do we ever truly put on an eternal perspective?  What does a life with an eternal perspective really look like?

Satan wants to bog us down with everyday life- he wants us to forget that there is a bigger picture because when we do that, we are not as effective.  We are caught up in the little trials and annoyances of everyday life, and it is easy to become grumpy and irritated.  When you are confronted with pesky annoyances, ask yourself, ´´How does this matter eternally?´´ If you have an eternal perspective, it dramatically changes your attitude and the way that you react to everyday life; soon you will start to notice what a big deal us humans make out of trivial things.

 All this goes to say, while I am looking forward to being home, to having back all the people and things that I have missed these past few months, I am reminded of the truth in these lyrics:

 ´´This world is not my home I'm just a-passin' through

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue

The angels beckon me from heaven's open door

And I can't feel at home in this world anymore´´

Well, I know one of many good things about being home is that I won`t have to blog anymore....haha that sounded ungrateful.  No, I am very grateful for you guys, my blog readers.  After all, I am doing this for you.  I wouldn`t be writing for no reason at all, now would I?

I am super excited because Chochy told me that I will be able to be in TWO more Chochy concerts!  Yay!  Last night we had practice...it was the first one in like a month and we only got through a few songs.  The scary thing is...the concert is in a week!  That means we only have one more Tuesday night to practice.  I really hope that we can somehow squeeze in a practice this weekend.

Meanwhile, I am just starting to realize how little time I really have here.  I keep having dreams that have to go home earlier than I thought and that I didn`t get to pack up all my things or say good-bye.  This week and next week are really all I have left here in Guatemala City and my friends from the church...a team from Barcroft Bible Church in VA comes next weekend, and I will be with them for a week.  Barcroft is the church that I went with last year to Guatemala for my first mission trip.  It is a dental team and I am looking forward to be working with them again!

 I`ve been enjoying my last days here in Guatemala.  Eating guavas, making baked plantains, enjoying the mild weather.  I wonder if I will be in shock when I get home and it is cold. I think the weather here is throwing me off because it is hard for me to believe that it is almost November.  Though I have been seeing quite a lot of Christmas stuff.  Last night when Rossanita was at soccer practice, I went with Chochy in this store that reminded me of Bed Bath and Beyond.  It had a huge Christmas display with ornaments and trees, lights.  It was great!

I`m having one of those ``I don`t know how to speak Spanish`` days.  Some days are really great, some days are not.  Not really sure what makes the difference.  But I know that I can`t give up, I need to be strong and keep learning because soon I won`t have the opportunity to speak Spanish with native speakers everyday.  I`m going to miss that when I get home!

Please pray that I will keep walking in God`s will and that I will be growing everyday- spiritually and also language-wise.  I am so thankful for the support of my family and friends that I have had these months that I have been here! God has taught me so much and I am very thankful for the work He has done in me.





 

Wow, so here we are, more than a week after camp and I haven´t blogged about it!  I guess late is better than never...so here it goes.
 The camp was really fun!  It went better than I was expecting, which was nice, I guess when you have low expectations everything seems better.  Not that I had low expectations...I think I was just nervous because I had no idea what to expect.  It felt a loooot longer than just a weekend.  The whole camp was jammed pack with activity. The bus ride was crazy but it wasn`t too long, only an hour. The bus was packed and some people had to stand up- I sat in my friend Suellen`s lap for a while, but than I stood up because I was sore from sitting haha.  I think she was relieved when I stood up, even though when I had asked her before if she was ok she said she was.  They sang a bunch of songs that were like games- one of them went like this- they would pick someone (Let´s say, Kevin) and sing to him:
 ``Kevin robo pan en la casa de San Juan`` (Kevin stole bread in San Jaun`s house) Kevin would then reply- ``Quien, yo?`` (Who, me?) 
``Si, tu!`` (Yes you!)
``Yo no fui!`` (It wasn`t me)
 ``Entonces, quien?`` (Who, then?) and then Kevin would answer
 ``Fue....Rossanita!`` (It was....Rossanita!) and then it would start over with Rossanita. 
 They really like games and songs like that.  It was entertaining, to say the least.
Monica and I were in charge of a cabin of girls- we had an age range of 3 to 16.  Yeah, it was pretty crazy. I felt like part of the time I was babysitting.  The youngest, Marjorie, was 3, and she didn`t want to do anything.  Poor girl, it was her first camp and she was just exhausted. Saturday she fell asleep like two times, once during singing time and once at dinner.  I ended up carrying her most of the time between activities, because we had to run from one place to another.  The whole weekend each team was trying to earn points, and if your team was first to an activity, you earned some.  Saturday we were late to most of the games, because in order to change into bathing suits or into clothes and shoes that could get dirty for the games, we had to run all the way down the hill to the cabins, change ourselves, help change the little girls and then head back up the hill, usually carrying the three and five year olds because they didn´t like running. Monica was a really hard worker and good co-leader, she was amazing.  She never showed frustration or impatience with the little girls, one of which was her cousin.  I was kind of in awe of her- we were in charge of 7 girls.  Jose and Luis, the other two leaders of our team, only had 4 boys.  
  I liked the singing time the most because we all danced to the songs and got the kids into it-most of the kids.  I know I was all into it.    
The dramas went well- I was actually nervous before my drama- I didn´t even have much to do in it, but I was nervous anyway.  Our drama included a song about Daniel in the Lion´s Den that we acted out.  I was a lion.  Yeah.  Haha.  And then I had a line in the drama where someone stole my wallet in the market place and I had to shout out that I had been robbed.  The drama was about a boy named Aladin who was a robber in the market who gets caught one day.  But then he finds God when an angel visits him in jail and reads him the Bible.  In the end he stops stealing and is a ´´Mas Que Vencedor´´- ´´More than a conqueror´´ which was the theme of the camp, taken from Romans 8:37.  The kids really paid attention and I could tell they enjoyed it, which was awesome.  
Sunday was the ´´Rallye´´ which was a sort of obstacle course that they warned us ahead of time to wear clothes that could get dirty.  And boy were they right about getting dirty!  We had to crawl through mud, climb monkey bars while water and flour was thrown at us, run up a soapy tarp and, at the end, paint our faces and smear hair gel all in our hair before we posed as a human pyramid for a photo.  I still haven´t seen that photo.  Not sure if I want to.  
So now that camp is over, things have been pretty chill.  I was a little sad the Monday after camp, because I realized I wouldn´t be seeing my friends as often during the week, to practice our dramas or put together things for our teams.  
The chores at the Ruano house have upped since the kids are done with school.  They got out a job chart and assigned daily chores to everyone- we clean every room, everyday! So that takes up most of my morning.  Then in the afternoon, it just depends.  Sometimes we have guests, other times I´m doing my Spanish classes on the computer or emailing people back home.  What is really cool about doing my Spanish classes on the computer here is that when I learn something, I put it in to practice right away. 

Blog-worthy?

Ok, so I´ll try to update you on all that I´ve been up to this past week!  I always have a lot to say, so little time to say it...I already emailed my family a lot that´s been going on, so I will try to take what I already wrote and ´´blog-worthy´´ it.  In other words, make it interesting to read.  Not that it wasn´t already...oh what am I trying to say?

As I publish this, I realize that it is a really long post, so if you actually make it through to the bottom  you must be a true friend.  Or just really bored.  Either one.  ;)

In the near recent- if that is even grammatically correct- I have been having some stomach issues since Monday. I have no idea what I ate- not that it even matters this late in the game.  The bad thing is that yesterday I ate pretty much every kind of food when I should have been more careful, if I wanted to get better faster.  So today, my diet has solely consisted of bananas, water and Powerade.  Feeling better now! Not up to eating food yet...they ate tacos for lunch which I was really bummed to find out because I love tacos!  Oh well, there will be other days.  

Talking about other days, my days left in Guatemala are dwindling!  I can´t believe that it´s October already!  It seems just like yesterday that it was August and I was wishing that I could go home and November felt like a lifetime away.  God has really blessed me here.  I am glad I stayed.  Though, now that I stayed more time, it´s going to be even harder to leave all of the friends that I have made.  But I will try not to borrow tomorrows sorrows...

Spanish progress

Last Friday a family that used to go to the Ruano´s church came to eat lunch with us.  It was funny, I was soooo nervous because I had to sit down at the adult table (the kids already took up the other table) and I my hand was shaking as I set down my plate of food and I was thinking things like ´´What if they (the guests) try to talk to me?  What if I have to speak in Spanish to them?  They will find out how little I know!  Oh, no, don´t look at them!  Eyes down eyes down...´´  haha I´m so ridiculous.  It turned out fine, I got used to them and they were nice.  The father was actually from the States and was part Cherokee or something so he didn´t look gringo.  Anyway, I don´t know why my self-confidence is so low still with speaking Spanish.  I will be talking easily with Monica or my friends from the church, and an adult like Celeste´s mom or the Ruano´s grandfather will hear me and be like ´´Hey! You do speak Spanish and understand it!´´  And then I´m like ´´Shoot, they know!  I hope they don´t try speaking to me!´´  It´s really because I feel more comfortable messing up in front of my friends, people I really am used to being around.  Adults still scare me.  Oh, and kids I don´t know as well.  I guess basically anyone that I´m not used to yet.  haha.  But Sunday it was so cool, because there I was, sitting in the living room, having complete conversations in Spanish.  I was like ´´Wow!  I can´t believe this is for real!´´  Still don´t understand everything, of course, and some days I feel like I don´t know anything, but it´s encouraging moments like that when I realize how far I´ve come.  

Preparing for camp 

We have been busy this week preparing for the church´s kids camp this weekend.  I guess I didn´t really explain what the camp was very well before, because my family was asking me what it was about, so I will try to explain again.  It´s basically just a kids camp they put together for all of the kids that go to the church, since now it is their summer and school is finishing up this week and next week.   It´s just a one-nighter, but they put a lot of work into it!  You´d think it was a week long camp!  There are four teams of kids who compete with each other, it´s pretty intense.  Each team has four leaders, two boys and two girls.  I am one of the leaders for a team.  The theme for the camp is ´´Mas Que Vencedores´´ taken from Romans 8:37  ^´´But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.´´

Last Saturday I was at the church allll day because my group had to make the flag and other little things for our team.  Somehow we are going to attach these little foam people (that we all cut out by hand) and a foam Bible to the flag...I really don´t know who´s brilliant idea it was to involve so much foam in our project.  Wasn´t mine!  Anyhow, we had to buy some more foam Saturday morning, so Jose, Monica and I were walking around to different little stores, seeing what they had and we also bought some more sparkles and glue. That took a while, and then we returned to our little room with out windows to cut more!!  We were in the nursery in the church, it is tiny and isn´t ever used I don´t think.  But it´s sad because there aren´t any windows... my mom was thrilled to find out that we were using rubber cement for hours with only the door as ventilation...let´s pray that I am not completely brain dead.  But now, if I am, you all will know why.

When we returned to the church, after eating lunch at McDonalds, it was time for youth group.  That lasted from abut 3:30 to 5...then we had a group meeting for the camp.  Chochy reprimanded some people for not showing up for practice for their groups, and then the group that is going to lead the singing part at camp presented their songs and had us learn the dances to them, so that we can help the kids at camp.  That was really fun but was quite a work-out!  Everyone was super sweaty from dancing!  Some of the steps are taken from Chochy concerts, so I knew it already.  I really enjoyed it, I think the kids will like it too.  

Camp this weekend!

We have to be at the church at 7 on Saturday, then we leave with all of the kids at 8 and the car ride is about an hour, so they say.  I can´t remember the schedule exactly, but I know that we will be competing in games throughout the day Saturday, and my drama team presents our skit at 2 in the afternoon.  At 6:30 is a ´´Cena de gala´´ which is a ´´fancy´´ dinner that everyone has a date...unusual for me, but I guess it´s a normal thing for them, they have these camps and dinners every year.  After the dinner there is a bonfire, and then everyone goes to bed.  Monica and I will be in charge of the girls in our group, we will have our own cabin.  I was told that there will be about 6 boys and 6 girls on each team.  The ages range from 2 to 11, so I hope that we can handle it alright.  I´m sure it will be interesting.  Sunday we have to wake up at 6 and we have devotions early, maybe at 6:30.  Then it´s another busy day of games and dramas, skits and puppets.  When we get back to the church in the late afternoon, we do team presentations and then they announce the winning team in front of the parents.  It will be a late night Sunday, they say sometimes they don´t get home until midnight, I guess with all the clean-up and wrapping up of the weekend.  

I am excited to see what happens and how everything goes, after all the time invested in this up-coming weekend!  

VISA, Campamento

The water this past week was limited- the city was working on the pipes or something so all we had was our own water supply that we have in a tank in the back- we had to be careful with our water use and take quick showers.  Thankfully, we never ran out of water, and now it's back to normal.  Meanwhile, I learned to take faster showers! 

I went to get my 90-day VISA renewed last week.  Mr. Ruano took me on Monday to get it renewed, but when we pulled into the parking lot, the attendant informed us that the building was closed for the day, so we had to wait until Wednesday.  It was sort of complicated to get it renewed- I sure was glad I didn't have to do it by myself.  First, we went to the main floor, got a ticket number and a form to fill out.  Once out number was called, we went up to the window and showed them my form but were told that we needed to turn in a recent photo of myself, in addition to a copy of my passport.  So we had to go out of the building, down the street a little, into this little office where they took my photo with a digital camera and printed out 4 copies right there.  (So now I have three little passport sized photos of myself that I don't know what to do with...it turned out better than my actual passport photos.  Always when it doesn' t matter...sigh.)  Anyway, we went back into the Immigration building, turned in my photo and forms, and then were informed that I was in the country illegally by one day.  So that meant I had to pay a fine...a grand total of 10 quetzales!  About a buck and a half.  But it was more than just paying money.  We had to walk up two flights, turn in my license, get a receipt, go allll the way downstairs to the first floor, where the bank was, pay my fine and the fee for my VISA, get another copy done of my passport, go back upstairs and get my license back, go back downstairs where we first started, turn in everything, including my passport which they have to keep for 8 business day!  Whew!  And you thought that the DMV was bad....at least that doesn't involve going up and down stairs!  Oh well, I need the exercise haha. 

The days are counting down for the Campamento...I am in two groups.  One group is for a drama (there are 4 dramas) and the other is a team of kids (there are 4 teams).  I am on a team with Monica, Jose and Louis.  I'm excited, Saturday we went shopping to buy fabric to make our flag.  Since Monica's and my favorite color is green, of course our team color is green :)  We only have two more meetings until the camp and we still have to make our flag, make a uniform with a cape for one of the kids (I guess kinda like a team mascot) and finish up making our theme song.  We are meeting this Tuesday night to practice our dramas and make our flags.  I hope it goes well and that we get a lot done!