TUK TUK

Here is one of the three-wheel vehicles that serve as a taxi in Gualan. We also saw these in the town of Antigua. They are called a "tuk tuk". The "u" is pronounced like the "oo" in the word "zoo". I definitely want a ride in one of these sometime! Didn't have time during this trip.

Maybe next time! At the end of the road is the construction site. I'm pretty sure that's Pastor Jasinto standing there in the red team t-shirt that we gave him...If the price of gas gets sky high again at home, I think I'll buy a tuk tuk!

WHAT'S NEXT?

Two more teams (June '07 and Aug. '07) headed to Gualan and continued construction and building relationships with the local congregation. Meantime, those of us at home continued with fundraising efforts which included selling Guatemalan coffee and souvenirs at the Roselle Market, brewing and selling coffee at church, and hawking peanuts for Kiwanis Peanut Day.

In April of '08, we were blessed to have the Spirit of Life Chorus do a benefit concert on behalf of the school. More than $8,500 was raised to put towards the furnishings and classroom materials for the school.

Pastor Jasinto agreed to have a group come to Gualan in November of '08 to assist them with their annual Vacation Bible School, so plans began in earnest.

EPHESIANS 2:10

I think that God really blessed our efforts during the week we were in Gualan to do construction. Our team t-shirts said "Building lives on the solid rock". Even though the school didn't look like much of a school at this point, it was a great feeling to know that we were being the hands of Jesus during this trip. Many kids will benefit from having a Lutheran school in Gualan. In addition to that, it will be a great tool for Pastor Jasinto to use in the evangelism work of Iglesia Luterana la Resurreccion and will help kids to build their lives on the solid rock.

I love the sign above that we saw at a public school in Guatemala. It translates "The children of Guatemala are the seed of hope". We know that the Lutheran school will take this even one step further when they teach the kids that their hope comes from believing in Jesus.

Ephesians 2:10 We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.

TEAM E-MAIL--MAY 2, 2007

One of the fun things we always like to do is send a short team e-mail to let family members and friends know how things are going. This is an abbreviated version:

Pastor Jasinto tells us today that it is 40 degrees Centigrade, which is pretty HOT! But God is protecting us and keeping us safe in the sun. All is well, and everyone is feeling good considering the heat. The air conditioning and the pool at the hotel at night keep us going and refreshed. Stomachs are all doing well. Here's some news from everyone:
RICHARD--Will be going back to work Monday. Retirement is hard work!
PETE--Having a lot of fun. Thanking God for sleeping with air conditioning!
JANET--Worked with the kids yesterday--FUN! Moved dirt for 2 days and today we are moving rocks.
CHERYL--It is very hot, but we are doing much better with the heat. It was great to work with the children in the afternoon. We had a craft and asked how many wanted to do it and one girl raised her hand, as they didn't know we had enough for everyone! They were all overjoyed to work on them.
KEN--Today we start pouring the foundation for the school rooms.
DOLORES--We are having fun working together to build the school. Yesterday was especially exciting when in the afternoon we had a chance to have some time with the children -- like a Vacation Bible School.
BETTIE--Greetings from Guatemala - warm weather, hard work, and wonderful, friendly people. The children are priceless.
NANCY--Picture me working in long pants, gloves, and a hat in hot, humid weather. I'm not sure why I'm not passing out! The Guatemalan people are a joy, and the group is a joy too! Sometimes we are laughing so hard we are almost crying--which is a good thing! Working with the kids yesterday was really fun.

Please pray for our work and for our safe return!

ACTIVITIES WITH THE KIDS

It didn't take me too long to figure out that construction is definitely not my thing! I decided probably from Day 1 that when we left the work site for the last time, it would probably be a good thing for me to just give my brand new work boots to one of the workers there! I looked forward to 2 p.m. everyday, when we would have activities with the kids. We had a Bible story, sang songs, worked on crafts, taught The Chicken Dance, played a fishing game, and even managed to work in a little bit of English. One day we had over 50 kids -- all in one room! There was a teachers' strike on at the time we were there, so I'm sure they looked forward to having something fun to do each afternoon. We taught the lessons Noah's Ark, the parable of The Lost Sheep, the Fishers of Men story, and the last day we did a lot of crafts and taught the kids the story of the faith bracelet. Each day when the kids left, they left with a treat -- a bottle of bubbles, a rubber bracelet, a cross necklace, and a faith bracelet.

THE APRIL 2007 TEAM ARRIVES

We had been told that a tremendous amount of progress had been made, so I'm not quite sure what we expected when we pulled up to the construction site. There was a big hole in the ground ( I called it "The Tunnel"), and at that point it was very hard for me to picture a school. We were amazed that everything was done by hand, even the mixing of cement...But would this ever really be a school? Stay tuned!

So the April 2007 team arrived, work boots and all. I don't think we had any idea how warm it was going to be! I chose to go in April simply because I didn't want to go in June or August because it's hurricane season. To look at the weather on the internet, it was a bit of a "fooler", unless you noticed that the humidity was usually 85-90%. This made the REAL FEEL temperatures more than 100 degrees. We did very well though and paced ourselves, realizing that we were not used to this heat. We also were fortunate to have our parish nurse (Bettie) on the trip, who was prepared to help us in any kind of an emergency. We had stored a construction saw in the medical trunk, but she assured us that she would not use that saw on any of us! :-)

PLANNING FOR SHORT-TERM TEAMS

Trinity's Mission Ministry decided that the school-building project was something that we definitely wanted to pursue, and plans began in earnest to take the first team down to Gualan in April of 2007. Ground breaking was done in January, 2007. I agreed to co-lead the first team, so we "pioneers" were wondering what this would be like! Many communications started going back and forth between us and Pastor Jasinto, so this was a great chance to use my Spanish.