Wednesday, Jan 21 – Completing what was unfinished

7:43 pm

After waking up twelve hours ago, sleeping in for Guatemalan standards, to what I thought was an earthquake (Bennett was actually shaking the bed to wake me up since I had headphones in), I rushed a shower and headed to the woodshop.  We all put the final coat on 24 benches in about an hour or two and enjoyed the rest of the day off.  The benches look great and we took a group shot with them for the Casa website (casaontherock.com).  We told Jack Ciak that we were done and instead of giving us more to do he just said, "Enjoy the kids."  So we did.  We all played pretty hard and got worn out.  A couple of us started to read some of the books we needed to have read before we get back from interim.  I was able to start and finish a great book, Testimony: Death of a Guatemalan Village, within five hours including a lunch break.  It was good to have that weight lifted off of me as well.  There is one little boy here, Yogi, who can't be more than four or five and he is always full of smiles.  Since he can't speak any English and you could say the same thing about my Spanish we just talk with arm motions and smiles.  I love still being able to communicate with the children even though I'm not nearly as proficient in their language as the other six here with me.  

Tuesday, Jan 20 – A new school year...a new president

7:12 pm

So we are very close to finishing the benches.  All of them have a first coat of oil paint, so tomorrow we should finish them with their second coat tomorrow.  It'll be really neat to get closure on that project so we can move to newer, greater things.  This morning the Casa kids started school.  They've been out since October for what is their "summer break" so it was great to see the kids dressed up in their uniforms and looking forward to a new start.  It's crazy because most of the children and teenagers are pretty far behind in school.  I know a 20 year-old, for example, who's starting fourth grade.  If all goes well he'll be able to finish the year in seventh.  Today while we were painting outside near the woodshop, I pulled up Obama's inauguration on CNN.com.  We listened while he spoke and it was really cool to be witnessing a special part of history while painting benches right at the top of Central America.  I woke up this morning thinking that everyone else was already up.  I had listened to two songs that I like just to get the day started alright, so I was feeling great.  I got up talking to myself in a funny voice saying things like "Woohoo, what a great day this will be," and so on.  Philip, who turned out to still be in bed turned over and gave me a weird look, so I felt pretty stupid.  It was really funny to me though, since Philip already makes fun of me sometimes for talking to myself.  Anyway, today was  a great day all in all.  At one point I held Elias, a nine or ten year old boy, like a baby and he didn't want to be put down.  I thought to myself, "I wonder if he's ever been held like this before," since most of the children here have had a really rough life until the point they arrived, and he's been here for at least half of his life.  So there's a pretty good chance he hasn't been held like that.  That was probably the most memorable part of my day.

Monday, Jan 19 – Oww!

9:15 pm

We put the black coat of paint on the bottoms of all the benches so they're all pretty much halfway there.  It's encouraging to see that the end is near and we won't leave a job unfinished.  At lunch, though, I started feeling pretty bad.  My stomach took revenge on me for the stress from yesterday and the day before so I was quick to take my Zantac and get to bed to nap for an hour or so.  I felt a lot better once I woke up, but still hurt some.  I think by tomorrow I should be on top of the whole thing and back to my non-hurting self.  The ladies here are really nice though, always asking me if I'm feeling alright.  It's encouraging!

Sunday, Jan 18 – A Day of Rest

Sunday, Jan 18 – A Day of Rest 

4:45 pm

Today has been a great day. After church and worship, the rest of the day was fairly uneventful.  I continued working on the video that I'm trying to make for Casa, and I tried to read some of my books for class, but that just didn't quite work out.  For some reason I've been a little stressed here lately...don't really know why, I've just not felt quite right.  I escaped the noise of the kids and the "old smelly people" as I call them and went the the woodshop just to get away from everything.  I spent the afternoon there and it was just what the doctor ordered!  I came back feeling more relaxed and on top of my game.  Just in time too!  I'm looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow to finish those benches!

Saturday, Jan 17 – Block party take dos

7:09 pm

So I just came back from a great block party in Magdalena--the one we prayed over on Thursday.  It was soo great.  A ton of people came to Christ and even more just had a blast and a great memory for their childhood.  Mike Parker mentioned that most kids out here have to grow up way too quickly so it was great to provide something pleasant that they can remember.  This morning we helped Adam's brother, Jeremiah, hang some ceiling tiles because, of course, Adam was out for the count.  Eventually seven people in a little room was just a little too much so some of us headed out and started to paint some benches...what we live for around here :)  It was good though, because most of the benches have a second coat of primer so we can get started with the actual paint.  After we got back from the block party there were about 500,000 new old people here (okay, they're not old per say, but some of them are definitely old enough to be my grandparents.  We essentially got kicked out of the dining room because their group was so big so we ate outside in the cold.  No, I'm not bitter...  actually I'm not--they had a heck of a travel day so I can definitely empathize with them.  They're here to build a new water tower on the other side of the property where the boys live.  I'm sure Casa is really excited to be getting this addition.  It'll be neat to see it go up over the next few days.

Friday, Jan 16 – Al Volcan

9:20 pm

So much has happened today.  I don't even know where to start!  I guess the beginning will work.  At around 8:45 this morning we arrived in Antigua because the Spanish class takers needed to go into the city to pay for their lessons for the week.  I just walked around the place for the three hours and it was great.  I love going to supermarkets in new cultures.  They really show what the people use on a day to day basis and you can get a good idea of what life is like.  I then went to the market and just lost myself there.  Most of the market is just for tourists: bracelets, bags, and other souvenirs.  But at the back, there is a completely different world filled with fresh fruit and vegetables, shoes, clothes, and real, homemade goods.  I bought a pair of shoes which sounds weird but they're cool dress shoes that I can wear and be reminded of this trip every time, plus I talked the guy down to 200 Q which is about $25.  Not too bad if I do say so myself.  We all met up at McDonalds, probably one of the nicest McDonalds I've ever seen.  I got a Big Mac and fries and felt very much at home...even though I think the last time I ate at McDonalds I was in Paris.  I waited for the group there for about 15 minutes and met a 6 year old little boy while I was waiting.  I don't know what he was doing there, but we played games on the iPod Touch that I won from Wofford Study Abroad.  We left McDonalds and went to Ruta Maya travel agency to arrange a trip to Pacaya a few hours later.  There were going to be 13 of us going, so we had to pay an extra $2 (so $15 total) to take a private van.  It was really fun on the way down there because we had some absolutely outstanding views.  At one point I just thought to myself, "And He made that in seven days? Wow."  So we arrive at the Volcano around 3:30 or 4:00 to do a sunset night tour.  This volcano is active and spews lava all the time so we were supposed to be able to get right up beside it.  I bought marshmallows back in Antigua to say I ate a marshmallow roasted by lava.  I said supposed to for a reason, though.  Although it was very cold and SUPER windy, the weather didn't keep us from marching on.  We got to a part of the volcano that was almost straight down and covered with tiny rocks, the texture of sand, and about a foot deep.  It was a ton of fun because we just sprinted down the whole thing and stopped by the bottom.  Well, most of us stopped at the bottom.  Adam, a 25 year old Gringo employee of Casa who came with us kept going just a little too far until he fell and split his head open on a huge volcanic rock.  It was pretty scary at the time because the blood came rushing down his face onto his blue jeans.  Our Guatemalan tour guide, though, immediately took his shirt off and started wrapping his head before he lost too much blood.  Needless to say we didn't go any farther.  Before Adam hurt himself we took some pictures of the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen.  We headed straight back, taking shortcuts over private property, and moving hastily.  They don't exactly have Regional One (Spartanburg Regional's Helicopter) down here.  Adam could walk, though, and he remembers everything.  He should be okay, which is a big relief.  So instead of roasting marshmallows we got to essentially run back to the base and rush to the hospital.  We had fun no matter what, though!  So it's been a pretty long day and I'm definitely ready for a good night's sleep!

Thursday, Jan 15 – Reaching out

8:43 pm

Today was markedly different from the others.  First of all, the cheerleaders left this morning at 5:00 am.  Now, we all liked them a lot, but it got old having a continuously dirty living and eating space because of eight girls who could not and would not clean up after themselves.  I cleaned the place like crazy today and it finally looks healthy inside!  In the afternoon, we had a pleasant change from daily bench-making and instead went to the city, Magdalena, where we'll be having a block party, this time complete with snow cones!, on Saturday.  We walked around the square inviting people to come, witnessing to some, and praying over the various aspects of what the block party entails.  It was fan-tast-ic.  We spent about two hours out there and I got to know some of the older kids here at Casa since we broke off into smaller groups of three or four.  One Gringo per group.  (Gringo, by the way, is a norteamericano or someone from the US).  I was with Erick1 (that's how they differentiate between different kids here with the same name) and his girlfriend.  Oh, and everyone here has a girlfriend.  I guess there's nothing else to do all day!  I cooked both lunch and dinner.  Reheated taco soup for lunch (but I did have to cook the rice--not instant) and Rotel Chicken for dinner.  Both were Mrs. Shain's recipes and both were great!  I'm so excited about the days to come, but you'll just have to wait to hear about them until they happen!

11:50 pm

So we just had the most intense and confusing and amazing and horrible discussion on John 15:1-8 evuh.  Wow coming to realize to a new degree just how much I cannot understand all that is God.  He is soooo much bigger than me and everyone else in our group and the world.  How dare I even try to put limits and barriers on Him!  My God is the God of Abraham, Jacob, and Paul.  He created the universe from galaxies in their complexity to a grain of sand on a beach in Greece to the point of a dangly watermelon hanging  on a tree just to prove Himself in it all.  My God loves me?  Yes, my God loves me! YES, GOD!!!  PRAISE YOUR BEAUTIFUL NAME!!!!