A Guatemalan Christmas

Merry Christmas! 

This week has been hard as I thought about celebrating Christmas away from home and missing all of the usual events and traditions that my family has.  But I'm very blessed to have my Guatemalan family here to celebrate with and to experience something new.  It has certainly been interesting! 

Mary and Joseph probably didn't want to go back to Nazareth and chill in Bethlehem for a few years, let alone have a baby in a stable there.  But God was, of course, leading and guiding them the whole way, providing for them and giving them family with which to celebrate, like the shepherds and the wise men.  Now, I'm not trying to make myself like the "holy family," but my comparison is what it has been in practically every blog post, simply that God brings us through hard times, and I know that he is providing for me and leading me, like he did with Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the wise men. 

So, a Guatemalan Christmas is really interesting.  We went to church last night, which lasted about 2 hours, and then we ate dinner there, which we had prepared here at home during the day yesterday for everyone.  Traditional Christmas meal is tamales and "ponche" to drink, which is sort of like apple cider with cinnamon, but with less of an apple taste and more of a sugar taste, with lots of fruit in it, like pineapple, papaya, and coconut.   But since tamales are kind of expensive and time consuming to prepare, we had chicken sandwiches with ponche.  It was really good, and fun for everyone to spend time together.  The church service was good, though almost totally without Christmas carols, which was the most noticeably different thing about the service for me.  One very exciting thing for me was that the husband of one of the woman I've been meeting with came to church last night and gave his life to Christ!  The woman has become a dear friend and I'm working on a blog post totally about her because she has been helping me a ton with my quilt and she's a very precious young woman.  Her husband is abusive and controlling and typically does not come to church with her.  He punished her when she was baptized in October and gave her a very hard time when she defied him and got baptized when he told her not to.  It's very cool that he has surrendered his life and please pray that his life and his family will be transformed. 

So, after church we came home and watched a movie through the projector onto the wall in the Casa de Refugio, because it's really big and could hold a whole bunch of us watching in there.  Several of us family members, along with a few teenagers and a few men from the breakfast for alcoholics joined us for this.  Now, if you're calculating, all of this would bring us to close to midnight!  At midnight, we ran to the roof and watched tons of fireworks being shot off all over the city.  It was pretty incredible, and really, can you think of a better celebration of the birth of Christ than with fireworks??  :)  Normally I get kind of angry with all the people shooting off firecrackers around here because it's constant and very loud, but this time it was really cool.  After the fireworks and wishing everyone a Feliz Navidad, we finished watching the movie.  I finally went to bed at 2, though several others stayed up until 5, 6, or 7 this morning, and it is customary to stay up all night, play games, watch movies, and open presents if you have them. 

Today was a great day too.  We slept in, played Monopoly (I won!) and the family opened presents that they had been sent from a good friend in the US.  After that, we had a really good turkey dinner and ice cream sundaes!  Overall, a very Merry Christmas, and hope you all had a blessed Christmas as well! 

one thousand gifts

One of my dear friends Diane started doing this, after getting the idea from another blog, and I thought it was a great idea, and a great way to stay focused on thankfulness and daily grace and God sightings rather than on my tendency toward negativity and pessimism.  So I'm starting my list of a thousand gifts.

#1. An amazing, supportive, funny family at home that's always there for me
#2. Hair that can go a couple days without needing to be washed and still look halfway decent
#3. Skype
#4. Megapaca (Goodwill/TJ Maxx type of store), an entire day of shopping and awesome women to share it with
#5. A new pair of jeans that fit just right, found where I thought you could never find a decent pair of pants--a secondhand store.
#6. The community of believers, near and far, and lessons of giving and receiving and supporting each other. Yesterday I had the privilege of having a great conversation with one of my boys, who feels angry all the time because of the situation he's in, his abusive past, and feels ashamed because of the help he and his family receive from the church.  We talked about how as a community of believers we all need to join together and help one another, giving where we can, and receiving when we need it.
#7. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
#8. A plastic candy cane filled with M&M's like we used to get in our stockings that I found at the grocery store.  I got so excited when I saw it strung across the aisle, and then my eyes welled up with tears!  It will be worth every penny when I put it in a sock and open it up on Christmas morning!
#9. Pablito's prayer "gracias por la lavadora" (thank you for the washing machine) because he absolutely loves it!  It's hilarious, but it also reminded me to be grateful for the little things. Many people here don't have a washing machine, and have to wash their clothing by hand.  So, thank you God for the washing machine and how it makes life a bit easier! 

Pictures

they should have tried to fit a couple more people in there!

at Lake Atitlan!  Beautiful! (the lake, that is, not this picture of me!  :)  )

 Pablito, helping with the laundry.  He LOVES the lavadora (washing machine).  He likes to watch it make "vueltas y vueltas" (turns and turns)

some of my favorites...Bryan, Darvin, and Sandra--one of my roomies.

Three of the teens, helping make balloon animals for some of the kids at the church.  They were working very attentively.

vacation letdown

You know how when you go on vacation and then come home, it's good to be home for like a minute, but then there's a major letdown and you're like, what the heck am I doing here, can I just leave again because there's no point to all of this crap that I'm doing?  Yeah well, that was me at the beginning of this week, and it was totally unexpected because I didn't really think I went on vacation.  My parents visited, so they went on vacation, but I didn't think I was getting one because I had to stay here. However, I did technically get vacation because we hung out all week, I didn't have to work, and I had a "vacation" from my everyday environment.  So, after they left there was a major letdown.  My health has been better, which has been a huge blessing, but I was really struggling with feeling like maybe God made a mistake by calling me here....like, am I really making a difference?  Yeah, people like me, but is God really using me?  Was this really necessary, especially since I've been so sick?  What is the point of all this?  Maybe next time God you could pick someone who has a stronger stomach, and likes beans, and doesn't mind getting really dirty, and doesn't freak out over cockroaches and spiders? 

So, I started listening to one of Rob Bell's sermons from this past April that I had heard and loved, and knew I needed to hear it again.  It's called The Sacred Waste, and he talks about how all God asks us to do is make the sacrifice---use the gifts He has given us.  We don't get to control the outcome, all we need to do is use our gifts, sacrifice ourselves, and that is sacred.  As long as we are doing that, nothing is wasted.  It's easy to think that this time or that relationship was a waste because nothing seemed to come of it, but the sacrifice, the love poured into it, makes it sacred.  The people that I'm meeting with, talking to, hugging, smiling at, loving---it's not wasted. 

Now if only I could remember all this consistently!  Seems like I remember, then forget, then remember, forget, etc.  The vacation letdown week ended up turning out pretty well once I got myself put on the right track.  I know God brought me here for a reason, even if I can't seem to figure it out.  That's probably where trust comes in huh?  That's so stinkin hard for me. 

I know many of you have been praying, and I appreciate it so much!  My parents' visit didn't go quite like I hoped, since I ended up getting really sick on Saturday, and it hung on long enough that I got really dehydrated and ended up with a new adventure--a night in a Guatemalan hospital!  It was a nice hospital though, highly recommended, and I'm out today and feeling much better.  It drove mom crazy that she couldn't talk to the nurses and doctors and ask questions about what they were doing!  It was so great to have my parents here to help me through this though, and so good to know that so many people back home are praying.  So, I think I've had my fair share of sickness for awhile and I'm ready to be healthy for the next three months!  It was great to see how God provided this week in all different ways, from our hotel here in Antigua having just our room open on the night we needed to extend our stay, to lots of support from my friends here, and to having mom and dad here to help with it all.

Parent visit!!

My parents arrive today to visit me for a week!  I'm sooo excited to see them!  We plan to spend the week together seeing different parts of Guatemala and spend lots of time talking and catching up.  It might be hard for my dad though, because when the conversation turns to tears and feelings he won't be able to leave the room to "check the steaks" like he did when we talked on Skype!  :) 

I've been back to work in Villa Nueva this week at the Cerritos' house.  It has been great to see everyone again.  I missed my friends and family here, and they missed me too!  I've had really good conversations with some of my teenagers and women.  I had to miss sewing class again this week, which I was bummed about.  I heard that many of the women are finished with their quilts and presented them to the class this week.  I heard that they are amazing and I can't wait to see them.  I have quite a ways to go before I am able to present mine, so I bought a beautiful quilt at the market in Panajachel, near Lake Atitlan over Thanksgiving weekend when I was there so I can present that!  :) 

After much prayer I have decided to serve at a different ministry within the Strategy of Transformation network at the beginning of the new year.  This was the way my internship was originally designed in order to provide different experiences and learning opportunities.  I'm looking forward to what God has in store.  I don't know yet where I will be working, so we will see where God leads. 
Please pray for safety as my parents and I travel this week.  Also, one verse God has been showing me is, and I forget where it's found, but to "set my heart and mind on things above, not on earthly things." So please pray that I will be able to do this, and that I can trust in His unfailing love.  Thank you!!