First Puppet Show !

Today we had the children's club and I can't tell you how much I love it, and I know that I'm in my element. Glen made us a puppet stage and the kids have made puppets with these huge wooden spoons that I found in the local market. Today they made clothes for them and some of the girl's puppets look like little Mayan women with wild hair and eyes (probably a little ladina thrown in ! I told them the parable of the sower. I wish you could see the 'puppets' and props I used. It took some imagination to figure some of this stuff out, but I had so much fun. Then the kids went outside with chalk and made pictures re-telling the Parable of the sower and his seed. I plan on staying on this parable for a few more weeks. I'm not going to rush through these stories. Afterwards, we made homemade s'mores!!!!! I made some round little cookies, and had some chocolates that were also round. We gathered around our copper fire pit and roasted those marshmellows ....The looks on all of their faces as we put these sandwiches together! All of this is new to them and they are having a blast! They just hug us and I can see that God is weaving our hearts together. So I thank you for your prayers. Somewhere in my heart I have a little seed of a dream to have a little 'esquelita'. (A little school). I already have the place picked out. But I will try not to run ahead of God........

"I Have Consecrated this house, says the Lord"

Today we broke ground on our new chapel! Amazing, definitely NOT coincidence, but all of today's scripture readings were about temples. Ezekiel 47; 1 Corinthians 3; John 2:13-22! We all felt a sense of wonder now that the chapel has begun. This morning we gathered with our crew and spanish teacher (who are becoming more like family) and prayed for the dedication of this chapel. I suspect this is the first time for some of them to begin their workday praying with their work team.
This has been on Will's heart for some time. I have definitely felt the need for a quiet place of reflection and being alone with God. The vista is incredible, it will be as if we are suspended over the lake! We hope to have a more monastic - type chapel, much like we experience at the beautiful 500 yr. old monastery-turned hotel in the old Guatemalan capital, Antigua. My hope is to bring my children from my kid's club into this sacred space to learn to be present to one another and God in a more worshipful atmosphere. Praying and singing in spanish is next on my list.....if I can just speak, period.

"God is Driving Me Out of My Mind!"

I read this in one of books that was recently given to me and thought 'how appropriate'! I am a muller of thoughts, I am 'up in my head' alot. Plain and simple. And yet that is not where I need to be all the time. That's probably why I am married to a 'heart man'. We really do balance one another.
Well, we have had a wonderful team from Blessed Sacrament in Seattle here for the past 10 days. They are great people and hard workers. Working together is a good test of community. We have been very blessed to have them with us. Glen and Piedad have prepared some great meals for the group and we are also greatful for their hard work. I'm a little concern about the extra bit of fat building around my waist ;) The team helped us finish our workshop with stuccoing the building and painting it a wonderful primary green. It has created a great canvas for the kids and I and others to paint some type of mural. I would love to capture the beauty of nature here. We've had so many butterflies around here and flowers are quite happy in the rainy season. Glen has started the work of a children's playground area, built with the trees around the property. We hope to have a treehouse and jungle gym for the kids that live here and those visiting. Our children's club is doing well. We've had up to 18 children here on one Saturday afternoon. This past week we taught them about David and Goliath and that with God "all things are possible". Gela, one of our team members from Mexico was a riot with the teaching lesson and has brought such enthusiasm and laughter to the kids and adults at Opal House. I have tried to bribe her to stay with us as the official house mother but well, it never works out exactly as you hope! Last night we had Pedro's oldest son's birthday party. Leonso turned 16. Piedad made a big meal of fried chicken (Leonso's favorite) for 20 people. Everyone had a great time and plenty of laughs as Gela guided them in the game of 'gossip' where you try and repeat what has been said to you. You can imagine how that could get crazy with 3 different languages represented around the table. These are the times I enjoy the most. People sharing a good meal and the walls of division coming down. Will and I have had alot of adjustment in our lives and in our marriage as we are learning what it means to be the "Body of Christ" and living in community. But even with some struggles, we still pray and look for God to bring fine wine to His table.........

What question is your life an answer to?

The Women's Club

Will and I started back up again with our spanish lessons. According to our teacher we didn't lose much after 3 weeks back in the U.S. es un milagro (it's a miracle). I had Josefina (Pedro's wife), Samuel (new baby), Piedad (her sister and our new House Mother) and Michelle (her daughter) over for some "women time"! It was great. Oh, Piedad wanted to learn how to use my sewing machine and the rest showed up. So I gave her a lesson on winding and threading the machine and then helped her to sew her new 'falda' (Mayan skirt), which is just a wrap around skirt with a belt. They were in awe (no kidding). I gave them some needles to help them with beading and I gave Piedad a simple thimble which was a new and strange thing for them. Everything I own is new and strange for them and it's a kick in the pants for me to explain it all. The ladies will be making things for me to bring back to sell to some of you. They are excited about that and so am I. I'm grateful to share my life with them!

Time for Fiesta!

Beautiful day on Sunday. The sun was out, the lake sparkled, there were big billowy clouds...heaven sent. Marina celebrated her 13th birthday. She is Pedro's daughter, our guardian of the property. The family joined as well as 7 of her friends from school. The ages ranged from 9 to 15 yrs. old. Very different in our culture where normally the kids are the same age and siblings may be excluded. We had a blast! I wish I could have video taped the kids racing to dress in gringo clothes as one of their games. We all laughed so hard! I'm certain it was the first americanized birthday party for them all. We did have the traditional pinata. This thing was big, it took alot of candy. But when it busted (I made the final death blow) the kids descended like locusts on a green field. I love the family-oriented culture here. They enjoy being with one another. And there isn't this mentality of separation. I remember Pedro working to level the ground where we are finishing up a work shop. He had a large piece of wood and his kids were riding on the wood while he raked it across the ground. They work and play together and sometimes have fun doing it. We feel a part of their family now and this was brought home to us when Saturday night they made lots of tamales and brought it over for dinner to celebrate Marina's birthday. They told us that they were bringing tamales, which they had done in the past but we did not know that we would be included in their own family celebration. We are learning. We have a lot to learn. But we are trying to go slowly and thoughtfully. The party helped me to develop an idea of having a kid's club here at Opal House. I spent a good deal of time teaching Sunday School and VBS back home and I enjoyed it so much. And here, well my mind is jumping with ideas. I've never had so much space and possibilities with a ranch. I would have help with Marina and Michelle here and also their aunt Piedad (Mercy in English). As Will would say "the possibilities are endless". I felt so much joy yesterday with the children here, laughing and playing games that I thought wouldn't it be neat to have this once a week here? And who knows where it might take us?.......

Summer Break :)

Back in the states and it's truly summertime! Sweltering heat, yesterday triple digits. I was ready to return to Guatemala and the wet season. And I know I'm talking like someone from Seattle. We finished our 2 months of immersing in Spanish. It was tough at times, and my test scores proved it. I have to believe that people in midlife have the capacity to become fluent if they just stick with it. And we are committed to becoming fluent. We really enjoyed our teacher Diego. He corrected us from the get-go and we are grateful for that. The last thing we want to do is to continue mis-pronouncing words and not getting the annunciation correct. We will continue our lessons and hopefully learn as many of the tenses as we can.
Glen came down with his huge truck of donations....we love you Glen :) and proceeded to get things going for a big workshop to store equipment and machinery. Pedro and his boys enjoyed unloading the truck and seeing what Glen brought down. We had an opportunity to use the ATV with the kids and boy did they have fun! I enjoyed the sense of freedom myself. It is a powerful ATV and will be useful on the property. We enjoyed Glen's cooking and hope that many of you can experience it also when you come down. We are going to collect Opal House recipes and create a cookbook in the future.
Other friends that joined us were Wayland and Courtney from Bothell, WA....just around the block from our house. They were such a help to us, helping us finish up all the painting in the homes and picking up trash that people would throw onto the property from a lookout point near the house. They were very hard workers and we enjoyed the conversations around the table at the end of the day.
After Glen, Wayland and Courtney left, we had our friends Wes and Sue down for about 9 days. We so enjoyed their fellowship. Sue is a spiritual director and Wes teaches at Seattle University. We spent alot of time in conversation around the Word and what it means to be in solidarity with the poor. Hard questions were asked and even now I mull over them and allow them to challenge Will and I. We are like babes in the woods with all of this. We are learning so much about how we think as North Americans. How we want to be in control, to dominate, and what kind of "power" the poor have. They have watched the land go from the hands of a rich Guatemalan to the rich Gringos. Not much difference there. And so we find ourselves in this dilemma, for example, of knowing that they need wood to cook their food and heat up their little shacks when it's cold. But if they take cut the wood, we are looking at landslides. We need to reforest large chunks of the property and we know it will be at the expense of the Mayan farmers who are renting our property for their corn. We are preparing to leave certain portions of the land alone to create pea patch farms for the women and children around the community who don't have husbands (or wish they didn't have husbands.....)in order that they may have food for their households. San Lucas Toliman, a mission that is about 20 minutes from our home will be helping us to screen women who may come to live at Opal House. We thank God for their help. They will also be sending up men to help us figure out what to do about reforestation and how to cultivate the coffee. Who knows if sometime in the future we have our own brand to offer folks back home? We truly want to be 'fair trade' and Father Greg from San Lucas can tell you what is fair trade after speaking to the local Mayan coffee farmers. You may be surprised to find our that some of those rich coffee producers aren't as fair as you think.......