feliz 2009!

praise God for a wonderful christmas! first we had a nice, relaxing and tropical retreat with the other girls and marcia (our super excellent coordinator and friend) in panajachel, on the beautiful lake atitlan. okay, i have a confession. it wasn´t all that nice. there was a lice scare (with one of us actually having lice, sorry friend) one of us had parasites, another was in fear of returning worms (yes, returning) and the majority of us slowing being wasted away by some type of bug bite. fleas bites (cough) for example, they´re awful here and spread like fire. oh and are impossible to get rid of (at least for those with foreign blood). but it was nice to be together, do advent devotionals and sing christmas hymns. since being in guatemala, hymns have become such an important source of comfort and unity. i all of a sudden appreciate and understand the purpose of hymns... :)

christmas eve i spent with my family going to the grandparents´ house and being welcomed and included in the family. mimi´s father made a speech presenting me to the family and even surprised me with a gift. this was SUCH a blessing to feel so part of the family, being away from home and sometimes you know, feeling like the foreigner that i am. we ate tamales, the traditional meal at christmas time, made of corn flour with a piece of meat in the center, and sometimes a little treat like olives or a prune i had found in mine :) with just my family, marlon mimi and alejandro, we stayed up until midnight to see the fireworks go off from every house in xela (or so it seemed) and sang christmas hymns. afterwards (and yes by this time it was late, 1am-ish) we sat and really prayed together. prayed for each family member, prayed for the future plans the Lord had for us, and prayed for God´s purpose to be revealed and lived out by each of us in faith in the upcoming new year. it was beautiful and i felt so touched. for one, i can´t think of anything more beautiful than to be united in prayer. to be bowed down, in humility calling out to God, knowing we are the same God´s children and that we are nothing without Him. and two, i was so blessed to be here and sharing in faith. i say sharing because by God´s grace i´ve been able to share parts of my life and testimony (with my limited spanish vocabulary, and them helping me haha) and they´ve really opened up and shared about their brokenness and difficult struggles their family has gone through, and is continuing to go through now.



apart from my awesome family however, i´ve been having a difficult time understanding some of my surroundings. for one, i´ve been introduced to having servants. not in my family, but in my extended family that we visit often. they are two girls, about 16 and 18 who have lived and worked in the house for almost 5 years. they´re from another city, about 2 hours away in a more rural part of the country. they cook, clean, wash, prepare everything, everyday. they barely have any time off and can only visit their families about once a month. they are both mayan and speak k'iche' (one of the 21+ mayan languages) and had to learn spanish as they got older. at first i was really uncomfortable being served and them always being in the kitchen and not having much communication with the family. but seeing them so often i couldn´t ignore their presence or my curiosity of wanting to get to know them. after getting over my discomfort with the situation and my shyness, i learned the things i wrote above and really grew to care for them and want to know more of. here´s the problem, i didn´t realize i had crossed a cultural, social class.. line. apparently they are hired to work in a highly pressured environment, where things have to be done in order, which includes non-communication with guests (or maybe anyone in the family for that matter). this is my current struggle that i don´t really understand, nor agree with, nor support. i asked about a hundred questions to my family, which they answered some in truth and with great sorrow, and others answered along the lines of acceptance of how things were for the life of campesinos, peasants. that very word even bothers me! but that´s the word to describe anyone living in an agricultural (does that make sense to describe?) or rural area. what bothers me is that this is the best option for these girls. they can´t find work where they´re from, and they can´t find other work that would be enough to provide income for themselves and their families back home. what else bothers me is that i can´t just be angry with the owners of the pressure and power they place over them (though i am.. sometimes) because i also know that they don´t have much privilege and have been deeply oppressed in their lives. oppressed by power struggles and difficult situations within their family, oppressed by society and economic status (i believe they would be considered lower middle class here, but the equivalent to that in the u.s. would be living below the poverty line). how do people know how to treat people with love and respect if they´ve only been exposed to an oppressive society and culture. and also, these are bold confessing christians, roman catholic to be more specific. actually about half of the population in guatemala is roman catholic, and then another 30-40% protestant, so it makes me wonder how much is a cultural influence (or dominance) than is a professing, lived-out biblical faith. (i realize this sounds a little similar to a country we know...)


i also think maybe i´m reading too much (well okay, let´s be honest it takes me about an hour to read 10 pages). but, i´ve started rich christians in an age of hunger, by ronald sider and that´s also messing some things up (i mean like, my thoughts). there´s one statistic that states about 200 million u.s. citizens consume enough food to feed more than 1 billion people!!!!!! that is the most ridiculous thing i´ve ever heard. actually this whole book is full of outrageous, disgusting content of overconsumption, increasing wealth and materialism. while there are populations in developing (struggling) countries, the number in billions in fact, who are starving and trapped in poverty. the thing about reading this book in guatemala is that it´s an unavoidable reality. i see it when i pass the kids on the street selling cotton candy for 1 quetzal, the equivalent of maybe 13 cents? or young, young children putting on shows dressed up as clowns while traffic has slowed, for a quetzal or two from watchers. or mothers nursing their infants on the street with one arm around the child and the other outstretched with a donation bowl in hand. this is what i see almost on a daily basis. how can one family have heaping piles of garbage each week of wasted leftovers or used material goods they´ve replaced with newer items, while another family with a mother and child live on the street begging for just a scrap of leftovers or lost change. i feel angry, sad, frustrated, guilty, confused and mostly helpless as i walk or drive by. if i´m walking my conscience is stirred and i´m faced with a decision to give whatever i can in the little time and space, as it is very busy and populated at times. if i´m in the car i try not to look away but remember. but i don´t know their name, story or family making it easy to forget.


sometimes i really love being here and there is a lot of joy and kindness among people, my family for example who have extended that so generously to me. and there are beautiful traditions and culture that are unique to this people and country. but there are other times when it´s hard and tiring to be here. tiring being a foreigner and not even just the language part (which i make a point to bring up every time i blog, because i´m really serious, it´s hard) but even the whole cultural, social, religious or (¨christian¨) part. and hard because of things i see or hear that are injust, evil, unbearable, but all very, very part of real life. but these are the times i know i need to be here for a year and not for a week (though i do still support short-term mission trips, which i´ll talk about another time). because how am i really supposed to understand what life really is for the majority of the world (and other places far worse than what i know here). or not even fully understand but gain some sense of human empathy for my neighbor in guatemala, central and latin america. this does make me pray more. pray for the things i see, don´t understand, are angry about, people, comfort, courage... i pray because sometimes that´s all i can do, at least for now. and i pray because i believe God is still God, though there are times i lack seeing that great love for the world. and because i do believe in a Savior and why we are in such desperate need of a Savior, and with more reasons than i knew before.