(Slight) Change Of Plans
Guatemala - March 01, 2006
It's been an interesting experience for us to go against something that intuition (or logistics) would tell us is the illogical thing to do. However, we are learning exactly what that means at the moment. Logically, it makes a lot of sense to begin heading south so we can depart Costa Rica in time. Instead, we have decided to go north to the highlands of Guatemala.
A few days ago we were sitting outside waiting for Jaime to pick up his wife, who had been with her parents for the afternoon. Jaime came out and asked if we would like to meet her parents. "It will only take five minutes," he said. Those five minutes quickly turned into four hours. In fact, we were even invited to stay for dinner. Unbeknownst to us, Lilian's parents (Eliseo and Juana) are at a similar crossroads that we faced just less than a year ago. They both feel called to uproot from their comfortable lives and follow a calling in the northern highlands of Guatemala. The village they feel called to (Chichang) is very remote and very impoverished. But they know it is something they are called to do. As we sat and listened to both of them, I was amazed at the boldness and the faith they both exemplified, especially coming from a place in life where it would be very easy to settle down.
On the following morning of the departure, we got up around 4:15 am in order to get an early start on our eight our journey to the Guatemalan highlands. Eliseo and Juana were hoping we could ride with them in their car, but we found out late last night that the car was not working properly. As a result, we ended up riding in the bed of their Isuzu pickup truck all the way up. Thankfully, they were both kind enough to prepare the back for us far beyond our expectations, complete with a mattress and even a tarp to shelter us from the rain It was a pleasant surprise to see what they had set up for us, since we were both mentally preparing for eight hours on a hard metal pickup bed.
When we finally reached our destination, we were amazed how far inside the thick jungle this community was set. Just few minutes after our arrival, we watched two locals with shotguns enter the extremely dense vegetation in attempts to find and kill a tiger that had eaten two cows in the last week! Poisonous snakes, crocodiles and many other insect and animal species are also very prevalent here.
Eliseo wanted us to get a grasp of this community he and his wife feel called to reach, so he took some time showing us around and introducing us to some of the villagers. From our initial assessment of the village and it's people, the poverty and health issues are quite extreme here. The majority of families live with little to no access to clean water, and the majority of water is drawn from small water basins that are barely below the soil. One family we visited had a two foot deep water basin in their back yard that they were using for everything (drinking, cooking and cleaning). The sewage from their outhouse literally ran right into the basin. All four of their children sadly had very evident signs of malnutrition and ringworm. I really felt an incredible heaviness and oppression at that home. There were no smiles, even from the children. It was a major contrast from the smiles of the children we witnessed just a few weeks prior at Ixil.
At the moment, we do not know how long we will stay here, but we are blessed to be in the company of two individuals with such an incredible vision. We definitely feel humbled and encouraged to see the enormity of what this great couple is called to.
-Lee
dap said...I'm feeling very spoiled right now. Keep up the good work and hug one of those kids for me, will ya?