Sights & Sounds

Neal, they've found him.  Squatch lives
about 46,814 miles from Panajachel. 

Last Saturday, a few of us Kids Alive folks went with a team from New Hope, MN to Panajachel on Lake Atitlán.  It was fun to see a little bit of Guatemala beyond Antigua/San Lucas, and we had a great day with the team!  

Every friday during lent, the catholic churches in Antigua take turns putting on a velación which is best described as a very big, very elaborate nativity, except the story is different every time.  It might be the story of Job, the second coming of Christ, the creation of the world, whatever each church picks for that year.  Whichever church has the velación on Friday has a parade on Saturday that goes all over town and lasts for as many hours as a Green Valley work day in Spring!  

Velación
The story depicted above is "The Second Coming of the Son of Man"

Also in front of the “nativity” is a large alfombra, or carpet made of dyed sawdust, sand, fruit, and/or flowers.  Sawdust alfombras show up all over Antigua on the weekends and are super pretty!  The piles of fruit creep me out a little . . .  maybe it just looks too much like a ritualistic temple offering.  Anyway, after it’s done being used to decorate the church, the family who made the alfombra takes it home to eat or donates it to charity.  I'm trying to suspend judgement on which things are syncretism and not; for now, it's a huge part of catholic culture in Antigua and something worth learning about!  

The alfombra in the Merced church

For those of you who love corny little one-liners (ahem*Dad*hem) there's a great one about the carpenter's phone and the Spanish word for sawdust.  Ask me about it and I'll tell it to you!  


Well, even barring the hour I didn't lose today, it's time to sign off.  An all-too-familiar sound awaits me tomorrow morning!
  
Lorenzo . . .  before 7 . . .  every .  morning .   This bird cracks me up!  Enjoy =)

Glory and Grace

This week has been one of many things learned! I forget just how much changing countries is like starting over as a baby and trying to "grow up" as quickly as possible, but it really is!  You exit your comfy, familiar home and enter another world where you now need to learn what to eat, how to speak, where to walk and how to get around, how to relate to others, and generally what the set of norms is for the people with whom you now live. Learning is both fun and exhausting - I find myself wanting to sleep like a baby too!

This week I learned . . .

One of the new things I could really get used to!
Even socks and undies come back from the
lavadería sorted, folded and tied with bows.

. . . how to eat on a pretty strict 7:00, 1:00, 7:00 meal schedule.
. . . that calidad or “quality” means “cool” in Guatemala and that saber or “to know” really means “I have no idea!”
. . . that walking in the middle of the street and/or right next to moving vehicles is completely normal, expected and often necessary.
. . . how to push my way through a crowd of 200+ people in a comparatively small space and back again.
. . . that market day is Thursday, Saturday, and Monday. Yaay! (But expect to make your purchases elsewhere on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday! :) 

My full-length mirror, the sholders-down half...

... and the shoulders-up half!  

With the amount of energy that it takes at first to do the most basic of activities, it’s challenging to make time for other things that are more important but more easily pushed aside. After 5 hours of one-on-one Spanish school and homework, etc. for a few days in a row, I found myself wanting less to study my Bible or read a deep, thought-provoking devotional or devote serious time to praying and wanting much more to just sleep. The only problem with that is that it totally unplugs me from the only One who has the power to sustain me and keep me going! 

The view from my window - I love this indoor/outdoor house!

So, this week my prayer has been that I would find space in my life to delight in God, to revel in his glory, to bask in his grace, to lose myself in something greater than day-to-day living, to be reminded of my smallness in the presence of someone who sustains the whole world. 

Simply put, to enjoy God for who he is!  Every day. 

And as always, God has been faithful to remind me of his grace and to fill my heart with his love and to provide “all things pertaining to life and godliness” because he’s God and he can. I read this week that discipline is “making room for God to work.”  This is truth.  Nothing I can do on my own will fulfill me like making my time and energy and affections available to the Lord!  

These are just as awesome as they look, and they hang from almost every balcony I've seen... including at school and in the downstairs hallway of our house!  Beautiful!   =)

Live for His glory!

Love every minute of it.