A Planting of the Lord.....

I love sunflowers, especially the ones I used to buy at a local grocery store in Washington. They had brown centers which were big and then smaller yellow petals. I'm not a rose lover (there may be some of you gasping right now, who doesn't love roses?...) but after having my arms sliced during a thorn to pruning shear battle with a climbing rose, I am done. Anyway, the sunflower is a happy flower, like daisies. It's face strains towards the sunlight. And when their time is over, they bow their heads and look humble as if they have given their best and understand that their time is fading. But the resurrection side is they give TONS of seeds, don't they? And their glory continues...
These happy flowers represent each and every child that we have here. As I have thought and meditated on this little school, the word 'flourish' or 'florecer' in spanish has become my word for the next coming year. My desire is that these children flourish. That this is a happy place for them and they will know that they are loved. Well, as I have pondered and pondered, one day as I was inside the school taking a looksy at what had been accomplished that day by our workers, I came across this:

growing right smack dab in the middle of the computer lab! Not another one in sight. Here is a sign of things to come. I trust that they will flourish inside these walls (and outside too). And so I trust that they will learn to gaze upward to the One who can cause them to grow and have strong roots in Him.

And this will be the end result.....ahhh......

A VERY JOYFUL ADVENT

A Christmas Thought

There is a child in each of us waiting to be born again. It is to those looking for life that the figure of the Christ, a child, beckons. Christmas is not for children. It is for those who refuse to give up and grow old, for those to whom life comes newly and with purpose each and every day, for those who can let yesterday go so that life can be full of new possibility always, for those who are agitated with newness whatever their age. Life is for the living, for those in whom Christmas is a feast without finish, a celebration of the constancy of change, a call to begin once more the journey to human joy and holy meaning.
Let the soldiers stomp through life. Let the cold winds blow. Let the birth points of all our lives be drowned in obscurity. Let the days seem mundane and fruitless. The crib in Bethlehem justifies them all. Jesus has been here before us. Bring on the days of our lives. We have a God who has already walked them and found them holy making.

–from In Search of Belief by Joan Chittister (Liguori)                    

And Here are Those Pictures.....

This is at the top of the stairs. On the left hand side of this pic, on the side where the small picket is, we will have a reading nook with a tree hanging over it, in the corner. Underneath the bench, we've created a 'cage' that will hold all our stuff animals. We will put a sign over it..."The Zoo".

Here is the front door! Beautiful and solid...not going to move during a earthquake, I imagine. I am grateful that our workers didn't fall from the second story, they said the school is pretty solid.

Hard to see, but these are the stairs - made of cedar and each one is very thick.

 

 

We built a wall of benches which hold the hospital mattresses that were donated. We are going to cover them with the colorful Mayan material. Underneath is lots and lots of storage.

 

 

Here is the bottom of the bench that will hold the stuffed animals!

 

 

Here is that tree that will hold wind chimes, bird's nests, and wooden birds! To debark this small tree took an incredible amount of patience. I told Will it would be easier if we just put our parrots on it, they could debark in minutes.

 

And this is the backside of the school. We'll have a small outdoor patio below this ledge but we are
going to have a firepit beyond that. Will is going to have some palms planted in this section of the school and Glen is going to construct an aviary for the parrots.....and speaking of parrots, this has nothing to do with the construction of the school but here is Amorita getting ready to rumba :)

and here on top of a wooden reindeer that I made for a craft fair that the women and I are going to have this Sunday:

Unfolding of a dream.....

     How amazing it is to see something unfold (like the Opal House) so quickly when it is in God's timing! It seems like it wasn't so long ago our workers were digging the dirt to begin the foundation and now, things are moving right along.
     Awhile ago, Will and I went to visit his sister in Laguna Beach, CA. One day we went with her to pick up her two children who attended a Montessori school. The owner actually has more than one school. But this one I would have to say is enchanting (I've never used that word to describe anything). My thought after I left was that if I had been living there I would be a volunteer, no one would have to pay me. It was designed with children in mind. It had a pen for all those farm animals, like chickens and rabbits and ducks etc. It had a 'house' specifically made for their parrot, siding and window boxes and all. There were little nooks here and there and the school rooms were actually octagonal, like little hobbit homes. They have gardens for teaching the children how to grow their own food and cooking also. We collected photos when we began to dream of having our own school. So here I am watching the walls go up and Glen helping us with those whimsical ideas and I am so very grateful. I have to chuckle when I think of our workers probably wondering why on earth we are putting a tree upstairs in the corner of a reading nook. And the poor man that is chiseling the bark off that tree up to the tiny ends of the branches. I have been collecting ideas, and more ideas, every day knowing that some will fall by the wayside but nevertheless yearning to make each part of that school something that the children will enjoy and call their own. The children and I and Jacklyn have been visiting the school and walking around after their afternoon lessons. They are excited and we dream together.
     We've ordered the Montessori materials which took 4 hours one night (the hamsters must have been on break the computer was running on one wheel). Glen and his helper, Francisco have been cranking out the bookcases to hold the materials, wash tables, coat racks.....Glen just left today and was busy right up to the last 20 minutes. He has always been so enthusiastic and I feed on that enthusiasm. Will too, ofcourse. Will is everywhere these days, running to this hardware store and that hardware store. It's not like we have Home Depot. We were pretty excited to visit a store in the capital that had so much hardware stuff. As a woman who doesn't spend that much time in hardware stores, I look at it with different eyes now :) 
     We have a dear friend, June who is going to be training us in January. God has sent her, no doubt. I would have more anxiety if not for her. She quiets that anxiety over the unknown. The other thing that overwhelms the anxiety is looking at our future students. Little ones who I would like to adopt in a heartbeat. One little boy, especially. His name is Emerson. It takes much self-control not to laugh when I watch him watching us during our lessons in the chapel. The only way to describe it is quiet wonder. His eyes move from Jacklyn, to me and then to Will. He is studying us. I just want to grab him right up, then and there and hug the wonder right out of him. I remember the words of Bill Cosby who once said that he could rule the world if he had about 200 toddlers. Quite true......They are a species of people all to themselves.
 P.S. WILL ATTACH PICS SOON :).......

     Finallly, a moment in time when our dial up internet service is running on 4 hamster wheels. No pictures this time, but an update.
     Summer vacation is finally here for the children, which means no vacation for the mothers. The summer, dry weather is upon us which means lots of watering of gardens. I remember how our backyard in Washington was time-consuming but here with 60 acres and lots of side gardens, it's overwhelming at times. We were SO fortunate to have delivered in our container a nice chipper machine. This is what we are going to be working on shortly. We have so many branches all over the place, we will not be without bark chips for awhile. This will cut our weeding time which can be back breaking. The workers are cleaning under the avocado trees now. I thank God for their hard work. Weeding on my hands and knees may be hard but these guys are swinging a machete all day and the brush under the trees are high due to the rainy season. And before you know it, it will be harvest time for the coffee. We are hoping for an even bigger yield this year.
     On the animal side, we had a set of twin goats born from the 'mama' goat. We bought her with her twin daughters awhile back. This was her 2nd set of twins, I think. Anyway, they appeared to be premature, they were tinier than the others. The next morning after they were born, our head worker, Juan, said that he thought they were dying. We found them alone, the mama goat was busy eating and they were crying feebly. Will and I spent the rest of the day trying to feed them formula through a syringe and just holding them. The girl died in Will's arms and later in early evening the other died as I tried to keep him warm in the house. You may laugh, but we even tried CPR. It's pretty desperate but watching anything die is heartbreaking. It was a really sad day. Other things happened that week that hurt Will and I and the deaths of these baby goats was the finale to a gloomy week. I remember the fog and mist rolling in and then the rain begin, it was a sign of how I felt the whole week.
     As for the children.....we have new children, which each week I seem to be drifting from knowing all their names. And some names are just plain hard to remember. But they are still dear to me. We have some of the children who were here from the beginning who have left us. That has also been difficult. They are part of a neighborhood known for being robbers, liars and 'dangerous'. We have had some challenges, no doubt. And when you think you are gaining ground with them, teaching them how to tell the truth, to apologize......Dear Lord, can these children EVER say they are sorry? You find that they would rather stay home and hold their ground than come back and apologize for telling lies. We started serving breakfast to a group of 9 children  from this neighborhood Monday through Friday for various reasons. Two of the children we wanted to see them continue to go to school, they were on a slippery slope and their parents were not helping. Two of the children had problems between their parents and we thought if we could spend more time with them and give them some stability it could only help. Others were just plain hungry. At the end, we lost 2 of them, they actually 'dropped out of school'....they are in 2nd grade. Second grade and dropouts. Their parents do not care and the mother says she can do NOTHING. Already the little boy is becoming a hooligan. To me, a mother who was brought up by my a military father...".Nothing" is unacceptable. I don't have to tell you what I would do if he were my child, but the old expression of 'taking them to the woodshed' comes to mind. Two little girls decided to leave because they felt the pressure of  Will, I, Diego and Jacklyn (I will tell you about her in a bit) trying to get them to study and not fail math. Again, parents 'can do nothing'. Education is somewhat 'valued as abstract', as I have read somewhere recently. To a community that mainly does manual labor, it doesn't seem all that important. And to tell you the truth, it does not guarantee them a job. That is the hard truth. We've had people looking for administrative jobs here and had to turn them away. Still it's disappointing. But I am encouraged by God, daily. And He has given me Will, who also raises my chin when I am frustrated. I am unlearning and learning at the same time. What I know, without a doubt, is developing the children's character and faith is the most important. You can't change a village nor a country without changing a heart. This is what our school will be about. We plan on using the Montessori method and have a wonderful lady from the U.S.  who will be training Jacklyn and I. Maria Montessori actually was using this method of teaching among the poor children of Italy and somehow it came to the U.S. and become one of the most expensive programs (with very expensive materials) for children. We have been using this method of teaching in our the children the parables and stories in the Bible. It holds their attention because we use wooden figures and props.  We feel that the earliest we can teach the children the better and so we plan to start out with preschool, ages 3-5. I'm looking forward to seeing the difference this will make in their developement.
     Now for Jacklyn. One day as Will was picking up the Wednesday group of children, someone mentioned that their was a new family in town and they were gringos (white) and they had 'gringito's small white children. Will had a hard time believing that there was another set of gringos in town. He ended up picking them up for class and sure enough they actually looked very gringo. She had curly blondish, brown hair, blue eyes and the young boy has the same features. Well, the children obviously loved the class and told their family. One of the family members is their aunt. She is a single lady (28) and has received her teaching certificate and is in the process of finishing her thesis for becoming an attorney. She wrote us a letter stating that she would like to volunteer here for a year. She said she had never heard of anyone doing what we are doing. So, she came, she saw and is now a part of our community. And oh what a gift she is to us. She jumped right in and has taken the responsibility of our big kids (ages 10-12), we now have about 17 kids on Friday.  She is my helper Tuesday through Thursday with the smaller children. And she will be the teacher in our school. I remember praying for workers probably over a year ago and the Lord told me He would send them. And He has. She was completely out of left field. Who knew? And she couldn't understand why God was sending her from the coast to this small Mayan pueblo. She said that she did not want to go.
     I am praying that God forms our community into what He desires.  I still wonder at times about our being a women's and children's refuge. We are open to receiving women and children and yet this doesn't seem to be happening here as of yet. I found it interesting that Jacklyn is doing her thesis on women and violence. I am sure that this happens even in a small pueblo like Agua Escondida. One thing is for certain,  I am always being stretched here, and I know this is good. Discomfort is a good thing, it keeps the weeds from growing underneath me. I'm grateful to be here, I'm grateful to see God's movement in our lives. And even when I cry, or am disappointed, or angry and I just want to complain, I know it's the Lord being faithful to change my heart. God, please change my heart......

Becoming Better Off The world would be better off if people tried to become better. And people would become better if they stopped trying to become better off. For when everybody tries to become better off, nobody is better off. Everybody would be rich if nobody tried to become richer. And nobody would be poor if everybody tried to be the poorest. And everybody would be what he ought to be if everybody tried to be what he wants the other fellow to be. Peter Maurin The Catholic Worker

Lectio with the words of Joan Chittister If you refuse to hold things lightly, you run the risk of clinging to a thing long after it has ceased to be good for you. The trick is to hold everything in life so lightly that only death can kill us.

Wisdom

In the Book of Proverbs, we are instructed to “get wisdom.” Wisdom, in other words, is not a free gift. We are told to develop it. We are, then, required to seek meaning in life, to understand that life is not a series of events. Life is a series of learnings. Wisdom is what we are meant to cull from every event in life. Wisdom is the depth of soul that enables us to understand what must remain in our lives when everything else—the job, the health, the security, the excitement—goes, as all those things someday, inevitable, will. Lin Tang says, “The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of the nonessentials.” It is what we believe spiritually that carries us through life. It is the well of wisdom from which we are meant to draw. We must be careful as we seek wisdom not to confuse the spiritual with the religious. Religious rigidity and self-righteousness have destroyed a great deal in life. Only that which nurtures the truly spiritual in us, the search for the presence of God in every small dimension of life, is real wisdom. - Joan Chisttier

Here is the picture that I did not include in my last post. Here is one of the groups of children that Will picks up in our tutukote! It is like the question of how many people can you stuff in a telephone booth!

Here is Diego, our assistant, with one of our sleep-over groups.

The children enjoy these sleepovers, they have a nice hot dinner, normally something fun like hotdogs, hamburgers or pizza. They get to have a hot shower, a movie and then lights out. Diego and our new teacher, Jacklyn are tutoring them on Wednesdays. We hope to grow our tutoring program once the school is finished and we have the computer lab up and running. We have had adults and children ask us about English classes which our intern, Aubrey, taught while she was with us. But I would definitely need help in this area....maybe someone out there has that calling to help teach English????!!!

Here are the kids trying out a new dance step!

We have a neighbor, Ernesto, who had an accident while digging a well and the wall collapsed on him and now he is in a wheelchair. We teach his two precious girls in our classes. Will has been doing his wound care since he has bedsores. He complained of dizziness and so will had his blood tested and found out his hematocrit is 4, normal is about 12-15. The local hospital doesn't have the ability to do blood transfusions and so I gave a pint of my own blood (thank God he and I share the same blood type!) and then we hung it and gave it to Ernesto the old fashion way. He said that he felt the difference right away. Will and the local doctor had a challenge with finding a vein in Ernesto's arm but with prayer and patience, he got his blood.

 

Here are a few pics of some of the businesses in our town: This is a little tienda that sells a little bit of everything...move over Walmart!

This is the "Home Depot" that Will buys some of our building supplies:

This is a picture of the kids that we now feed breakfast to Monday through Friday. They are pictured with our friends from Vancouver, Canada, Mark and Tracey. They got up early to help us with breakfast and Mark even became our resident tortilla maker! Tracey has a gift for organization and boy did she organize.... 

Thank you both for your love and service!

Here we are with friends at a lunch that was being thrown for a young couple are are 'getting married'...The Mayan tradition is that the bride's family throws a luncheon for relatives and if I've got this right, the couple are present at this luncheon. But later the groom's family arrives bearing the dowry for the young lady. The dowry was a huge basket of sweet white bread and cases and cases of pop. Not the most nutritious present but traditional. Aubrey shared that they also had a big basket (I think it was the bride's side) of gifts for the couple. Then certain family members go into a separate room with the couple. The family sits along the wall and the couple sit across each family member or married couples and receive advice, blessings etc., and the patriarch like a grandfather speaks over the couple. This lasts for quite some time, I think Aubrey said 'hours'. Aubrey was honored to be part of this group and shared her experience with us as we were busy with guests at our house. I find it very interesting and heartwarming because this is about family. The couple is sent back to the young man's home where he lives with his family.

The food was delicious! We had homemade soup, tamalitos (small corn tamales), chicken and vegetables and ofcourse...LOTS OF POP!!!!!

We had a very kind group visit us this past month, Mike's Angels! They have a desire to help the children in Guatemala. They had a chance to hear the children sing and hear our story. They generously brought donations of shoes, clothing and toys, books and the thing the children loved most of all A PINTATA!

This picture above is called a Guatemalan 'mosh pit'........

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This is a 'wide screen' picture of our school that is finished on the outside. If you look real close, you can see it smiling! The foreground is our fruit orchard/coffee too. Sometimes I just stand outside and imagine how busy it will be once it is finished. This is where I see the gardens, the aviary, the children playing soccer. I hope that it is a place where children feel at home and can learn much more than book knowledge. Speaking of which, yesterday the school principal had a meeting with the mothers (majority) and fathers (I was told 5 came). It is illegal to charge the families in order for their children to receive their report cards, nevertheless, this is what the man is doing. Cost? 90 Quetzales, a little over $10....per child, mind you. It's hard enough to get the $10 to buy their school supplies but now you have to cough up quite a bit especially since most families may have anywhere from 5 to 10 children. In this meeting, he decided to fight back the protests by insulting the community. We had donated one of our donated old desktops but later Will went to the school and on this man's desk was a slew of new computer equipment. He then proceeded to tell the people that we had donated it but it was full of viruses. Right.....I was surprised that their wasn't an uprising, 3 women stood up and denounced his actions. It sounds like the rest of the women sat and whispered to each other. Some may know their rights but this man does not expect anyone to do anything, infact he dared them to make a public complaint with the minister of education. Either he wants to lose his job, or he knows that the red tape will prove too much for anyone to take on. We think we are going to make a little trip up to the minister's office.....

This is a view inside our chapel. The view is pretty incredible, you can't help but want to meditate, pray, just worship here. It would be a beautiful place for a small wedding. Our lesson this past week was 'The Heavens Reveal the Glory of God' or in Spanish "Los cielos revelan la gloria de Dios". It was not too hard to get them to look up and see the truth through these windows.

These are some of our kids that Will picks up in the Tuktukote Tuesday through Thursday. He has actually fit 20 in this vehicle. That would never fly in the U.S.!


thought I would try my hand at animal training. Pacote (parrot:) likes to chew on the pens more than learn to draw.

And at the end of a long day, this is what we have to tuck us into bed. I'm grateful for the beauty of this land, it reminds me to look up and to lengthen and widen my gaze, especially when we are sometimes so frustrated with problems that crop up, or misunderstandings or the work of blending a community so that we truly love one another. I found myself the other day doing the usual, cleaning the kid's dishes, straightening up etc. I decided to go watch the kids playing soccer out in the field. The kid's invited me to be one of the goalies.....that is one harsh position. But lo and behold, I was surprised by happiness and joy! Our german shepherd Allie, unbeknownst to us is quite the soccer player herself. She was right in the middle catching pop flies (I know, I know a baseball term)and running after the kid's trying to steal the ball away from them. I haven't laughed like that in so long. Just an unexpected moment when I thought "I LOVE BEING HERE, I LOVE THESE KIDS, GOD THANK YOU!!!!!" I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. God took me by surprise....again.

A day in our lives.....

Meet our two new members of this little community. To the left is Amarita (little love) and her friend....future mate????, Pacote. They look pretty adorable, don't they? But who knew how incredibly dangerous those iron-clad beaks are, and I have a gash in my lip to prove it. They are about 3 months old now. They eat baby cereal mixed with banana. They are also frequent poop machines, they could supply our compost pile all on their own. Weaning them will be the difficult thing as they enjoy rolling the fruits and vegetables around their beaks and then dropping them onto the floor. It really is like having 2 more children at Opal House.

Please meet Aubrey (in back), she is our new intern for the next three months. She is also helping teach English to some ladies in Agua Escondida. They had some gal time doing their nails the other day....a most important task for maintaining beauty!

Remember that "Anda" that I wrote about that Will and I carried for Easter???!!!Well, here is the pic, and let me reiterate HOW HEAAAVY it was, I wish shoulder pads were still in fashion, I could have used one then.....

A little face painting.....

No, he did not get his face painted (on the left)! Here are our twin baby goats that were just born recently, aren't they so cute? They really do remind me of what unbounded joy looks like when I see them leaping and practicing butting their little heads! Pimiento, the papa goat is quite the busy guy. Our rabbits are not doing so well. For whatever reason, one of the females gave birth and then proceeded to kill her babies. Farming can be a challenge for suburbanites. We're always learning.....

Hello Out There!

Looks like we will not have any pics with this post. Our computer had a melt down, we have a new system and it's not what it used to be....Anyway, happy belated Resurrection Day to all. We always enjoy the celebrations here because it is huge in Guate. The last couple of years we have visited Antigua and watched the large processions, this year we decided to celebrate in our neighborhood. We got up early Good Friday and I thought it was just to watch Ryan and Will help carry the "Anda" (float) from below Agua Escondida up to the church... Well, Will and I ended up in the front part of the float and we carried it a portion of the way through one of the small neighborhoods then UP the hill! And let me tell you, it IS HEAVY! I had my little, bitty light sweater as a pad on my shoulder and it hardly provided any relief. But it was something that helped me to meditate practically on the physical weight of the cross and 'bearing burdens'. Will and I felt part of the neighborhood, which being the only white people is very, very hard at times. We saw the children that we teach, their parents, people that Will has treated at the clinic, and it was really nice. Also part of their tradition is eating lots of sweetbread and drinking hot chocolate. We also felt compelled to partake of this custom. We enjoyed a very nice quiet weekend. We have been very busy up to this time with visitors, Healing the Children's first surgery team came and we were able to host them. We've had an college intern, Crystal, here with us for 3 months too. She was easily absorbed into our family! Thank you Crystal for your helping hands, wonderful cookies and love for us and the children here! We will miss you! We ended the week with a children's fiesta, but this time we had all 40 kids together....aaccckkk! Not sure we'll be doing that in the near future! Have to admit it was crazy but fun. It was Crystal's going away party and we all enjoyed it.......

Happy Belated Christmas Season....I will catch up!

I am a little behind with the blogging, no doubt! Here is a pic of some of my children in our chapel during Christmas time. We put the tree up in here so that all the children could enjoy it. I am sitting in my 'grandma' rocking chair. Just preparing for the future. We enjoyed celebrating Advent and making lapbooks which are a fun way to organize information.


Christmas day was spent throwing candy and little gifts out the window as we pass by groups of children along the highway, wishing them una Feliz Navidad! We cooked a Christmas feast and had a grandmother, her two grandchildren, her sister and her two kids over for dinner. The grandmother, Julia is living with her two grandchildren in a adobe and cornstalk hut. It was abandoned by the owner and so they moved in. Dirt floor, open fire in the main room, no running water, no toilet. We are trying to invite them to live with us, but so far, no response. The mother of these two children leaves them in pursuit of a man that they tell me is her husband. But less than two months ago he left her and now she has run off with him again, leaving the grandmother and her two children in this hut. It is frustrating to desire to bring them in to take care of them, but it appears that they do not want to do this. If anything happens to the grandmother, the childen would have to fend for themselves or wait for their mother, hopefully, to return. She already has two more children from this other man. It is a very, very sad situation.

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This is a picture of the grandmother and her grandchildren. The grandmother is on the far right and her grandson, Giovanni is standing on the bench in the back, and Maribella is on the left next to Ryan (he's the one with the goofy look :) We are hoping to get Maribella in school permanently but her mother doesn't have her birth certificate so the school can't register her. We won't lose hope, hopefully........




We had Matt and Molly return for a visit. They had lived with us for 3 months this past year and we and the kids have really missed them! The kids would ask about them every once in awhile. The children seem to easily attach to our visitors, especially those who are involved in teaching them. Here we are celebrating Epiphany with a King's cake. The tradition is to hide a little toy baby inside, which represents the baby Jesus. Whoever finds the baby gets to be "King" for the day! Luckily no one chewed into the plastic or there would be another trip to the dentist.