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.......