Turning our hearts toward home - with mixed feelings!

Well, one last posting from me (Mr. B) as the students are probably busy right now getting their last one-on-one's in before taking the long trip back to Guatemala City tomorrow afternoon. Our last day in Chichi was another amazing demonstration of the Gospel unfolding before our eyes and hearts. Katy Peterson says that she ends each day with the feeling that nothing could top that day's experience. . . and then the next day is even more powerful in impact. Today was that way - again - as we finished some projects and then did our shopping in the bustling markets of Chichi (open on Sunday's and Thursday's only - with thousands of people crowding the town to buy blankets, fruits, vegetables, chickens - anything and everything). I was with the team of students that finished some repair on a dwelling deep in the mountains that was heavily damaged by a hurricane back in 2010 (or 2008 not really sure). The team started the work the day before carrying boards and posts about  I am guessing a half a mile almost straight down a mountain side, on paths slippery with mud and sometimes only wide enough for a single foot in front of the other. All of us slipped many times today as we moved through the deserted mountainside until we climbed for a bit and suddenly found the adobe dwelling in front of us. There were actually two homes there, side by side but none others we could see - just small corn fields and apple trees. We climbed to the house where the woman who owned it was waiting. Miguel, the K'iche guide and ASELSI "community" pastor, warned us not to step across an invisible property line with the second house, nor were we to talk or even look at the woman there or her small children. Recently, her husband had murdered the son of the woman (a widow) of the home we were rebuilding - a dispute about land apparently. This is a very harsh and sometimes dangerous country when it comes to Mayan laws and disputes. We cleared away her ramshackle chicken coop, dug and leveled the mud, and began to construct a new room that will become here cocina (kitchen). It was hard work and exhausting, but the dark skies did not unleashed the torrential rains we had seen often and we were able to get much of the work done by the time we had to leave (another team from the states will finish the work and put a tin roof on next week). As we worked, we saw the widow and her small children through the vines and branches working with a machete cutting wood for a new chicken coop. She never stopped working all the time we were there, except to occasionally suckle her youngest, holding him with one hand while she continued chopping with the other. She did not speak to us and the small children just stared at us from a distance - never smiling but watching us in the same manner you might expect from children from a lost tribe in the Amazon would do with strangers with different colored skin and dress. After several hours of digging, sawing, and nailing we had to return the van waiting on the main road up the mountain side. Miguel told then woman in K'iche that another team would finish next week and that we were from a church from North America (usually how we are introduced - Virginia is not concept easily grasped for these people). We stooped under a plastic roof in the midst of her destroyed house - a few adobe walls with no furniture really. She thanked us in her language and said she could not pay us for our labor as she had no money.  She said she knew that the lumber and materials were expensive. No one had probably ever helped her from the outside world before so I am guessing she did not really understand we were there to help and serve. We told her why were there, and that God had provided the resources. We asked if we could pray for her and her children, and Katy Peterson lead the time of prayer. We finished, rose from our knees and she thanked us again and then just stood with her quiet children in front of her (all of them small and barely clothed, dirty but beautiful in their expressive innocence). I had asked Miguel if we could give some money to buy food and he said yes - but no more than 400 Q's (about $30). She gratefully took the money, mumbled a thank you in her tongue, and silently waited for us to leave. We began to walk off bidding her and the children adios- and saw the tears began to fall from her eyes. I believe she was just overwhelmed and had no way to express the magnitude of the "miracle" God had provided for her. Just another day where we left humbled and in awe of how God works when we put our faith and backs into His service.
We climbed the now uphill trails and I realized that I am much too old to do this anymore! Jaime Guitz would second that thought as it was a heart pounding journey in this high altitude and even hard on the students. But we got back to ASELSI 30 minutes later, cleaned up, and started the transition to ending our week there. Five team members had stayed behind to offer a VBS type of program to the children of the women who came to ASELSI on "general clinic" day. We joined them and then rode off eventually in "tuc-tuc's" - small three wheeler's to the city market to shop (and to visit the church of Santo Tomas - built on the sight of a major Mayan religious temple - destroyed by the Spanish in the 1600's and replaced by this ancient Catholic church.  How strange to see incense being burned on the steps of the church, offered to Mayan deities, and then to see inside century old statues of saints and the Holy Family with depictions of Mayan gods). The market was not too crowded by the time we got there and you all have gifts coming from various market stalls - and the students by the way loved the concept of being able to bargain the sellers down on price (which they did well!).
We ended the day after dinner by having a wonderfully impactful debriefing with John and Sharon Harvey, founders of ASELSI and missionaries to Guatemala now for 13 years. We drive to Lake Atilan tomorrow, do some zip lining through the clouds, and then to our final location for the night (SETECA - a seminary in Guatemala City affiliated with Dallas and Denver Theological Seminary's). Hopefully we can get one more blog in about our final team meeting tomorrow night - please be praying for that as it is the most powerful and life changing part of the trip if all goes according to plan!
See you soon - your students are tired but I can tell you from their comments - and faces - that their hearts have been broken and yet thrilled by what they have seen here this week - and that is a good thing. I would also tell you that most of them if not all of them have just discovered or had affirmed their true giftings this week - and most have also discovered that prayer is real and it works - and that God is much bigger, wiser,  and more loving than they ever realized before. Be expecting some changed hearts.