Last weekend I went to Panajachel, a tourist town that is on Lake Atitlan, one of the most beautiful lakes in the entire world. It was a lot of fun. I went with a friend who works for Young Life here in Guatemala City, and she visited with a friend there who wants to start the Young Life program in Panajachel. Pana is an interesting town because it is very hippie-ish, with lots of drugs and people who just hang out, and have interesting ideas and viewpoints. The friend we visited is not one of those people though, and she introduced us to her friends, which was cool. We took a boat across the lake and I thought maybe we would all die! Life jackets are not an important boater safety tool here, nor are weight limits or people limits on these boats. I think on the way back from the party across the lake we took an entire village of indigenous folks with us, none of whom spoke Spanish or had showered in many weeks. The best part of the weekend was meeting people. I think that's the best part of my time in Guatemala. That and the scenery. It's an excessively beautiful country. But Saturday night we met this beautiful couple who shared with us their story. The girl is an American, the guy from Nicaragua, and they met in Costa Rica. She saw him at a bus stop and gave him her number. (Mom, I would never do that, stop panicking). They couldn't talk to each other though because she didn't speak Spanish and he didn't speak English! They spoke through friends until he taught her Spanish, and they fell in love, blah blah blah....she has been doing various volunteer and humanitarian things in different countries, he has been in different countries working. They are now engaged, and trying to get him a visa so they can move to the US and so he can meet her family, but it's super hard. They were really cute, really genuine people who were genuinely interested in getting to know people. We also went to church in a coffee shop in Pana, which was interesting. It truly embodied the sentiment that wherever a few are gathered God is there, and that all are welcome in the kingdom of Christ, because there were some definite characters there. It was fun to worship in a different setting.
Yesterday I drove in Guatemala! The director of the shelter needed a ride to Villa Nueva, where I used to live, because she had to speak at a church there, and asked if I would drive her! I used the car of another staff person at the shelter, and we were off! It went really well, but I was so nervous. And so was Pamela, the director. It was funny to watch her drive in the passenger seat, with her foot "pressing the brake" when she thought I should be stopping. She said her foot hurt when we got home! :) While we were there I got to go visit my friends while she spoke at the church, since we were so close by.
Visiting my friends and my kids and everyone yesterday was really hard for me and I'm feeling really sad about it today. My boys that I taught there said they miss me sooo much and they don't have anyone to talk to, no one to teach them and fill in the gaps even though they are attending school now. They have had so much loss in their life, it breaks my heart that they continue to lose people close to them, people they trust, that I may have contributed to hurting them because I helped open them up, helped them trust, then left and gave them loss and hurt all over again. I also saw Frank, who I had been good friends with and he had been a good support for me when I first got there. Through the past few months he has been making poor decisions, slowly self destructing. Finally, Pastor Jorge and the other leadership had to ask him to move out of where he had been living, since the building was owned by the church. He had been living with Wan, the Korean American missionary who also worked in the community. I saw Frank yesterday, selling eggs by the bus stop. I also saw the outside of his new house, made of that aluminum stuff, looking about to fall apart. It breaks my heart to think about it. I know in my head that he makes his own decisions, and he has to face the consequences of those decisions, but to see him there selling eggs at the bus stop, knowing his struggle, and the struggle he will have to support himself and live by himself made me start sobbing during Spanish class today while trying to explain it to my teacher. How do we find God in this? In the poverty, the violence, the mess we make? Is it in the praising and thanking God that I've been talking about? Probably, but I'm not there today. Where is the hope? I think that's the missing link. We need hope. I need to know that these people have hope, and yesterday and today I've felt kind of hopeless, that these people that I love will be stuck in these situations forever.
But what I do have today is prayer. Please pray for Frank, Federico, Marvin, Byron, Sandra, and Darvin. And keep me in your prayers too! I come back to the states on March 16 and I'm praying a lot about what God wants me to do, whether it's in Michigan, Guatemala, another country, another state, wherever it may be, or whatever I may do. I need it to be clear because uncertainty is really hard.
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