These months have been marked for me by a deep gratitude, just to be here. I've never been this close to so much pain, joy and struggle before. I´m living in town that was greatly affected by the more than 30 year long civil war ening in 1996, and then suffered a huge mudslide in 2005 from Hurricane Stan which killed hundreds and of people and destroyed a section of the community, including the only and newly completed hosipital. There are still over 200 families living in temporary housing which are 1 or 2 room structures with a roof, plastic sheets draped down as walls, and dirt floors. In the time I've been here, 2 special needs children who recieved services from the organization I work for, ADISA, have died. One of them died in the hospital from malnutrition 5 minutes after I was sent to check on her. Alcoholism and domestic violence are all too common. All that I've read in statistics about education, health, poverty is now the woman at the store in front of my house, my coworkers father, my neighbor, my friend... And people, unlike statistics aren't static. They are working, playing, making jokes, worrying, praying, going to church, cooking, washing clothes, sweating, sleeping, feeling cold, getting soaked in the rain, hoping. All of this has been a daily challenge of what does it look like to be a part of their lives, to see how God speaks to those most in need.

Here are a few pictures, a little bit of what I've been up to the last few months:

ADISA youth and young adults were invited to the Palacio Nacional (something like the Guatemalan White House) for the iniatiion of a new governmental job training program for youth with limited opportunities. It was exciting for everyone to take a field trip, see the president up close, and most of all to eat Pollo Campero or Guatemalan KFC afterwards.

Some of you know I tutored a Guatemalan family living in Oakland, CA in English for a year. Only half the family lives in California and the other half still lives in Guatemala. And I was recently able to visit them for a couple days. Above are the parents, their three youngest children and 2 grandchildren. The boys (along with about 5 other neighbor kids) spent the whole night asking me how to say things in English. The most repeated phrase was "Come on, hit me!" which I suppose is important if you're a ten year old.

Painting a local building to look like the indigenous woman's blouse, the guipil with a group of friends who organize community projects.

Learning to weave on a backstrap loom with my teacher Maria. Almost all the women here still wear all hand woven clothing.

Eating elotes with Hanna and Jane, fellow Young Adult Volunteers. I have to say most the street food is deeelicious.

My first time dressed in the indigenous clothing of my town, with two of my host siblings. My host sister doesn't like to wear the skirt called a corte because its uncomfortable. After trying it myself I understood why, but it is certainly beautiful.

Helping make one of the street carpets from died saw dust during Holy Week in front of the Catholic church. There were carpets on about 8 blocks total to be admired for a few hours only before an all night street procession passes through.

Making chuchitos, literally translating "little dogs" with my friend and her mom for her dad's birthday. They're similar to a tamale and delicious.

Living in a Mystery

ADISA (the Association for Parents and Friends of Persons with Disabilities), has been a great organization to work with and I’m learning a lot from my co-workers and the participants. I’ve been helping primarily in their vocational program for youth and young adults, and their educational integration program for children.

We just finished up a month of ¨vacation school¨ with students with various learning delays and disabilities, helping them prepare for the next school year in January. I was impressed with their daily eagerness to come to school, and most left asking for more homework. Many of them will be going to a new school that ADISA is opening in January.

The kids with their certificates on the last day of school.

The youth and young adults in the vocational program have been working hard to prepare products to sell in the community and abroad. Many of them hardly ever left their houses before coming to ADISA. Working in ADISA they gain a new independence, friendships, learn new skills, and earn a little bit of money for their families.

One of ADISA´s products, ornaments made from old newspaper.

I’ve been really grateful for the ways in which my host family has included me in their lives. My oldest host sibling recently graduated from college out of town so the family rented a big van and piled in aunts, uncles, and grandparents to drive to the graduation, and they invited me with them. We visited a mall before the ceremony, and neither the kids or my host grandparents had ever been to one. The kids were wide-eyed looking at everything, and my host grandmother was terrified to go up the escalator. It was quite the adventure. A couple weeks later our house was filled about 40 or 50 people, for a celebration dinner. My host uncle who´s a pastor, and a few church leaders led a time of worship and thanksgiving, and then we ate churrasco (BBQ-ed meat), fresh guacamole, beans, and lots of tortillas.

We celebrated Thanksgiving a little late here at ADISA. It was a bit of an adventure tracking down things like cranberry sauce, and transporting a 20 pound turkey across the lake in my backpack. A couple co-workers helped me navigate the market to find ingredients for sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, and stuffing. And our baker, Mirna helped bake everything. Then I got to watch everyone try new foods, eating everything with tortillas of course. And we had a local favorite, banana pie for dessert.

Thanksgiving at ADISA

Reflection Time

Perhaps the biggest challenge so far has been with language. Everyone here speaks a Mayan language called Tz'utujil (if it looks hard to pronounce, its because it is), which absolutely no relation to Spanish. Most people of my generation and younger, and men, are fairly fluent in Spanish as well, but Tz'utujil is the language of choice. Although it can feel like not knowing Tz'utujil is a barrier to getting to know people, it has also been a good ice breaker, and provided for some good laughs as I ask people to help me learn. (IE when I tried to say "mouse" ch'uey but pronounced chuey which means diarrhea). In turn I've been teaching some English and we hope to start regular classes in January.

I've been blown away by the generousity and sense of community that it is the way of life here. I sometimes get lonely and frustrated with being far from familiarity and people who know me well. And yet its from that place that I can really appreciate my host mom asking what I've heard from home, or a hug from one of the kids at school, or my host dad fixing up my room with an extra shelf for my books, or a new friend inviting me to her house, or my co-worker making me a list of words in Spanish and Tz'utujil, or my 7 year old host brother praying for me at dinner...God has been encouraging me through these unexpected daily blessings, through your emails and g-chats, worship songs at church, and scripture. There's a lot about being here I don't understand (most of it, hehe) but I know God is present so I seek patience in the mystery of it all.

Soaked!

Warning: this blog may ramble like a river and flow like a rain storm (meaning this may be a long introduction)

I just hung my clothes up to dry because it was nice and sunny only to hop on the bus and have the rain start pouring down. But I should know better by now :). The past month there's been no escaping the rain. It visits for at least a few hours every day. When it really starts pouring the streets clear out, and little (or not so little) rivers start pouring down the dirt and cobblestone streets. Everything cloth tends to smell slightly of mildew. One Sunday we sat through a 2 hour church service unable to hear anything more than the rain slapping against the corrugated metal roofing. But the flip side is everything is green green green. In the highlands, where I´ve been living and traveling the past few weeks, cities and towns sit in valleys and at the base of hills and volcanoes, which rise up into the clouds as great green giants. Its impressive.

I´ve been living along with the five other volunteers in a small town called San Juan del Obispo just outside of very touristy Antigua, Guatemala. Antigua was the capitol of Guatemala prior to its current one, and is now the home of many expatriots, mostly from Europe and the US, and lots of Spanish schools. Living just a 15 minute bus ride up the hill, our group of six are the only foreigners in town. As I walk along the dirt road to school each day everyone greets each other with Buenos Dias. Chickens and dogs scurry out of the way when a car or motorcylce zooms by. Women pass with plastic tubs on their heads full of corn kernels to take to the molino, or corn grinder.

4-5 hours of one on one Spanish school each day has been great for getting to know Guatemalan vocabulary, which has a lot of hard to remember Mayan words, cultural norms, and history. And my teacher has been studying Mayan culture within Guatemala at a university so I´ve been able to pick her brain a little.

I've been living with an average sized Guatemalan family, which is supersized to compared to mine. All in one house we have: Eduarda (mom), Hector (dad), Maria (grandma 1), Mariana (grandma 2), and the 5 kids, Josue, Ana, Osmundo, Lourdes, and Dulce. They take super good care of me. Highlights have been Eduarda's cooking (could have its own blog entry), helping the kids with their English homework (and them calling each other animal names in English), hanging out with Mariana and talking about her life (even if I only understand half of what she says). And I almost forgot the animals! They have about a dozen rabbits, half a dozen chickens, 2 tucans, a squirrel, 4 green parrots, 2 baby turkeys (growing up for Christmas), 1 blackbird, and a partridge in a pear tree (well not really).

Reflection Time
There's been so many new things and people all around that its been hard to process through all of it. And these first months I might just write a lot about new "stuff" without knowing what to do with it. Talking with the other volunteers we find so much of our conversations revolving around food, laundry, transportation, health, weather... things that I never thought much about before but now suddenly determine so much about what I'll be able to to each day. For me its been a little hard to have over a month of "prep" time and not feeling sure of if I'm really preparing well or what purpose God has for me in this time. I've also missed all of you a lot, and wondered quite a few times why I left :). What I have noticed is that in this month my heart has grown more grateful to be here. As I'm about to head to my permanent host site, I'm excited to get to know people, and with a renewed hope in the Spirit as my guide and God's love for me and those I meet.

And just for fun...
Things I hope to blog about:
- riding the "chicken" buses (think Disneyland Indiana Jones ride)
- 101 uses of corn (#1 homemade tortillas mmm!)
- handwashing and sundrying clothes
- top 10 most delicious Guatemalan foods

and so...

After 19 hours in the airport/on the plane I made it to Louisville, KY Tuesday night for orientation (the air traffic control system crashed)



The past couple weeks were a wonderful mess of 2 good friends getting married (you know who you are and I still can't believe it!), packing, entertaining our dog Flan (she's a deliquent who likes long walks, short car rides and running away), seeing family and friends, packing...



I leave this coming Tuesday for Guatemala and am eager to get there! I'll be in the city of Antigua for 5 weeks with my teammates for training, and we'll get to visit each of our sites together.

Here goes!

First Steps: my support letter

I remember sitting in church in high school listening to a missionary from Papa New Guinea, and hoping, hoping, hoping God never wanted me to do anything remotely like that.

And now here I am writing you a letter to say come the end of August, I’m planning to go to Guatemala for a year with the Young Adult Volunteer program of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

So why the change of heart? Granted, this is far from becoming a full-time missionary, but it’s still way beyond what I ever would have imagined myself doing. But the ways in which God has been growing and challenging me the past few years have led me down a path I never could have chosen myself. He has asked me: How will you trust and obey me in situations where you are uncomfortable and feel out of place? How will you trust me for your future plans and dreams? How will you love me, and love your neighbor?

Why go to Guatemala? Call it interest, passion, calling, compassion? I can’t boil it down to a word, but I’m drawn there. In studies and travels I find myself returning to our neighbor to the south, Latin America. Since last May I’ve been working with the Latino immigrant community in East Oakland in both my job and volunteer work. My favorite part has been volunteer-tutoring a family from Guatemala. Almost every week I go to their house and trade them a bit of English teaching for an incredible chance to enter into their lives, learn a bit about their native language and culture Mayan K’iche’, and eat homemade tortillas.

So what is the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program? This year the YAV program will place volunteers in five international sites and ten sites domestically. I, along with five other volunteers will be placed in different communities throughout Guatemala, to live with a family and serve in a local church and community. My placement will be finalized in the coming weeks, though my work is likely to be continuously reshaped as I get to know the community better. Past volunteers have taught in local schools, worked with a non-profit that supports sexually abused children, worked at the Christian ecumenical organization CEDEPCA, led Bible studies, taught English…and the list goes on. Ultimately it’s about people. The work serves as a door to building relationships, to become more than an outsider looking in.

I know your time and resources are requested for many things. I want to ask if this is something you’d like to be a part of and support. Here are some ways you can think/pray about getting involved. (Feel free to ask me questions for more information about the program, my financial needs, or anything else!)

· Read the monthly newsletter I’ll be writing (link TBA). Pray.

· Donate a one-time or monthly gift. I am raising half my funding. I have $2500 to raise by July 15, and $10,000 total by time the program ends August 2009. Any amount is valuable and appreciated. If you’d like more information about the budget, why I’m raising funds, etc., just ask! Give a gift Online

· Keep in touch…easier said than done but I’d love to hear from you.