Firsts, Last, and More

Even though I have been here for over a month, this week I experienced several Guatemalan "firsts."

• My first power outage! (I studied by the light of my trusty Coleman lantern!)
• My first glimpse of the Volcan de Fuego from my roof! (an active volcano near Antigua)
• My first time actually seeing fireworks here! (Guatemalans LOVE fireworks and are always setting them off. They also set off cannons. Don't know why, but I always think a war is breaking out!)
• My first earthquake! (More like a 5 second tremor, but still cool!)
• My first Caramal Frappuccino in Guatemala, made by a YWAM staff member at their cafe.
• And to top it off, my first 3-way sister Skype call from 3 different countries!

Today's photo is actually from a few weeks ago, as in our first week in Guate! We like to go to McDonald's for Sunday breakfast. Now before you start laughing, just look at this picture and the VIEW you get at McDonald's - you get to sit on the patio and see the fountain, the ruins, and the volcano. Awesome.

Sunday Kyle and I went to The Oasis, the Kids Alive girls' orphanage between Antigua and Guatemala City. An American team was there and they threw a Princess Party for the girls. Think 50 mostly elementary school aged girls with hair colors, nails done, lots of makeup, and pizza! Then add a power outage and the Americans bringing them a Wii, and you can start to get the idea!

I also experienced a "last" this week: I took my last Spanish test! (Ever, hopefully!) Now I practice translating (being able to translate a story about reforestation in Turkey is going to be really helpful teaching music in the DR...), talk with my teacher, and review grammar that I still mess up. It's exciting to be done with workbooks and tests, though!

Please keep praying for motivation to study/practice these last 7 days of classes. Also pray for my apartment in the DR - my roommate Lauren is trying to sign the lease and get the landlord to let her move in without me being there or paying my deposit, and there will be a lot of logistical things when I first get to the DR with money, lease, reimbursements, bank accounts... yep. So pray that God will show me that He is going before me, because even though I know He is, sometimes I forget.

Fin de Semana!

(That's Spanish for "weekend")

Another week down. Only 2 weeks, 50 hours of class left before I hit the DR! I have to admit I'm a little jealous of Brian, who finished classes today, but I now have a hilarious, wonderful teacher named Olga who makes my classes mostly fun.

This week was game week here at CSA for Kids Alivers... we played SkipBo, a slapping the cards that match game (of course I got a little injured, but it was well worth it!), Guatemala Trivial Pursuit, and Pictionary. All in Spanish. We only got in trouble once for making too much noise - it probably should have been a lot more often! The games were a good break from grammar, though.

This weekend is homecoming at Wheaton, which makes it a prime weekend for reminiscing and hopefully watching the homecoming concert online. I may be a music nerd, but I'm excited to hear this year's concert choir! In honor of that, the QuadForce at Christmas Festival '07:


In other news, I have a plane ticket home for Christmas! It's a little crazy to think about leaving when I haven't even gotten to the DR, but I am excited that I will get to spend 3 weeks at home and that I will get to go to Skytop (family reunion in the snow at an elegant resort... wonderful/culture shock!)

I am also EXCITED EXCITED EXCITED to see Molly in two weeks! The weekend I arrive in the DR is her last free weekend before she leaves for Costa Rica on DTS Outreach, so we will get to spend a little time together - for her birthday and just for life!

Ok I know you probably would rather see pictures of Guatemala/me, but here is a fun sequence of pictures of Molly and Dad at Skytop this January: (I told you it was reminiscing time...)

Pictures! (Finally)

A beautiful sunset from my bedroom door. I have incredible views of flowers, sky, ruins, and volcanoes from my room!

As much as I loved the fall background I originally had, it was a little too hard to read, and I want people to read my blog! So I have chosen a new fall background - hope you like it!

I also decided it was time to put up a few pictures here. If you want to see more, you can see them on my facebook page! Today I am writing from Pollo Campero, the Guatemalan fried chicken chain where we like to eat Sunday lunch and use free wireless! We just found out that there are Pollo Campero's across the US, including Chicago, DC, and New York - delicious!

The group of students who climbed up the "Cerro de la Cruz" (Hill of the Cross) our first Friday in Antigua. Brian, a fellow Kids Aliver, is the guy next to me. The city of Antigua is behind the cross, and behind that is the Volcan del Agua (Water Volcano).

This is the view I wake up to every morning when I open my bedroom door! The flowers are called "Queen's Necklace."

Brian and I hiked up the Volcan Pacaya (see previous post). Here is a little sample of the lava rivers we saw - these are active, hot, flowing rivers of lava about 10 yards from us!
Here I am on the way up the volcano!
The marimba is the national instrument of Guatemala; one Wednesday I went with my teacher Gladis to a Mayan culture museum and coffee plantation and they had lots of displays of marimbas!

October!

Happy fall! Today is the first day of October, which is the month in which I go to the Dominican Republic! (Finally!) Although there are no deciduous trees in Antigua, the weather is fall-like - cool, a little rainy, but still warm enough for flip flops! I also decided my blog could use a little fall makeover...

As of tomorrow I will be halfway done language school! That means 84 hours of Spanish tutoring. Crazy. The good news is that for the rest of my time here I will be taking only 5 hours a day, which means I have 75 hours to go. I also am switching teachers this coming week. They recommend switching teachers every so often so that we hear different people speaking and different vocabulary.

Fewer hours of Spanish also means I have more time to watch the Phillies... Katy says it's called self-care. They actually put stories about the Phillies in the Guatemalan newspaper, which is fun.

Another news of the week: Paige came to visit on Saturday, and it was WONDERFUL to see her and spend the day with her! We climbed the hill with the cross on top in the rain, then walked around Antigua in the rain and ate a delicious lunch and had a great time!

Keep praying, please - I need lots of prayer that I will keep a positive attitude about my studies here and that preparations for the DR will continue to go smoothly. Thank you!

Finally, I will leave you with the verse I have been meditating on this week:

2 Cor. 1:20: For no matter how many promises God has made, they are YES in Christ.

A Glimpse into My Playlist

Maybe it’s just because I’m a musician, but every time I am feeling like the world is crashing down here in Guatemala, one of the songs on my worship playlist speaks to me, as if it were written just to express my feelings or to remind me of a truth I need to meditate on. Yesterday I was sitting on my bed, stuck at home in the dark and the rain, feeling a little homesick and a lot restless, and the first song that came up on my randomly shuffled playlist was “Your Grace Is Enough.” I started thinking about how I am not choosing to let God satisfy me right now. I desire earthly things, thinking they will bring the fulfillment I am seeking. I need to be spending more time with God as my sustenance. A little conviction can go a long way… Then came “Everlasting God,” and I was reminded that my strength will rise as I wait upon the Lord. What it means to wait upon the Lord is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. I think part of waiting upon the Lord is recognizing and claiming that God desires to make all things work together for me for good – even 6 weeks of Spanish school in Guatemala. Even when I can’t see or understand what God is doing, if I wait on Him, He will reveal His purposes and strengthen me. The third song that played was “Alábale,” a Spanish worship song I learned at SPLICE. I was so encouraged by this song – it helped me (as it does every time I hear it) to remember what God has done for me. The Israelites were commanded over and over to write down the good things God had done for them and to teach their children about God’s faithfulness. Never once were they commanded to remember the misfortunes they experienced. This was also a practice we began at SPLICE, writing down a few moments of joy and a few things we were thankful for every day. As I listened to, “Alábale,” I was struck with how much God has indeed done for me! He has provided me the ability to learn a new language easily, a beautiful city in which to study, a teacher and a host family I get along with well, the funds to serve in the Dominican Republic, a group of friends waiting for me to get there, fellow Kids Alive missionaries to discover Guatemala with, and soooooo much more. So much. Changing my frame of mind from self-pity to thankfulness has been a critical piece of adapting to life in Antigua. I will survive these next 5 weeks, and my prayer is that God helps me to enjoy my studies and my homestay more and more each day. And when I wonder what in the world I am doing, when I wish I were home watching the Phillies or relaxing with my parents, when I feel trapped as a single woman in a city that gets dark at 6 pm, when I am positive I can’t memorize another verbal clause or write another sentence using the imperative tense, I will proclaim that God has been good to me. I will set up my Ebenezers, my stones of remembrance, declaring that God has done mighty things for me, that He was here first and that He continues to go before me. ¡Alábale!

¿Qué El te ha dado a ti? What has He given you?
¡Alábale! Praise Him!
¿Que El ha sido para ti? What has He been for you?
¡Alábale! Praise Him!
¿Qué El ha hecho por ti? What has he done for you?
¡Alábale! Praise Him!
¿Qué El te ha dicho a ti? What has He said to you?
¡Alábale! Praise Him!
¡Alábale! Levanta tus manos, tu voz también Praise Him! Lift your hands, your voice too
Jehová habita las alabanzas de su pueblo. Jehovah inhabits the praises of His people.
¡Alábale! Con toda tu alma y todo tu ser Praise Him! With all your soul and all your being
Jehová habita las alabanzas de su pueblo. Jehovah inhabits the praises of His people.
Eres Santo, Eres Digno You are Holy, You are Worthy
Tú mereces todo, Dios You deserve everthing, God

Ok, one last song. “Big Enough” (Chris Rice). My emotions are a roller coaster; some days, some hours, are great, and some are miserable (paradox…). Some days it’s easy to live the questions, and some days I just want answers. “I imagine the size of the universe, and I wonder what’s out past the edges. And I discover inside me a space as big, and believe that I’m meant to be filled up with more than just questions.” This is how I feel a good portion of the time. I am filled up with questions, and I do believe God will reveal the answers to me in His time, but patience is hard! As this song also says, I am not big enough to find my own answers or solve my own problems, but God is big enough to hold all my questions and problems and doubts in His hands even as He holds me. God doesn’t have to let go of me to hold my questions. There is room for all of me, my secure beliefs and my insecurities, to exist together in God. ¡Alábale!

El Volcán Pacaya

To celebrate surviving our first week of Spanish school, Brian and I decided to climb el Volcán Pacaya on Saturday. Guatemala has 33 volcanos, of which 3 are active, of which one is Pacaya. An active volcano. What better way to spend a Saturday morning? It’s safe to go to because (we were told, anyway!) there are so many outlets under the volcano for the lava that it won’t erupt upward. We hopped into a van at 6:00 am ready for an adventure and drove a little over an hour to the national park where Pacaya is located. Our group of 14 people and one guide began to climb the mountain through a forest. We pretty much went straight up a volcano for an hour and a quarter! Some men followed us on horseback, ready to rent the horses to us if we got tired. After about a mile and a half, we emerged from the forest, and in front of us was the volcano. Think Mordor from Lord of the Rings. Also think GIANT sand dune but made of volcanic ash. After we crossed the ash, we got to the hardened lava. Hardened lava is sharp and a little tricky to walk on! The reason for going, of course, was to see the molten lava, and there was plenty of it! We saw lava falling (literally) down the side of the volcano, we stood unknowingly on top of a thin layer of hardened lava with molten lava underneath it (until we felt it through our shoes and quickly stepped off!), we saw glowing crevices, and we saw rivers of thick, flowing, orange lava. They don’t have rules like we have in our national parks, so we were only 5 or 6 feet from these huge rivers of lava. It was hot – our guide roasted marshmallows over the lava! After walking around and admiring the lava for a while, we hiked back down the mountain and arrived back in Antigua by lunch.

I spent that entire morning in awe of creation. Every time we stopped at a scenic overlook and looked out over the villages to the other volcanos or looked out over the plains to see the Pacific Ocean or looked up and saw only volcano, all we could say was “Wow,” and the other person would respond, “Yep.” God is so awesome and great. I am amazed that He made this incredible earth, that He made entire mountains out of slow-flowing lava. Standing there when we first came out of the forest, looking at the volcano in front of us, was one of those moments when I was overwhelmed by my smallness and God’s greatness. It was like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. If we remain silent, the rocks really will cry out.

ps - I would post pictures, but my camera card isn't working right now... sorry!

Spanish Class, Guatemalan Host Family, and American Church

Brian and I were talking about people who never update their blogs and then put up 4 or 5 posts in one day, and I said I wouldn't do that. Well, I lied. I'm putting up several (sort of long) posts today for your reading pleasure!

I have been studying a lot of Spanish. I took my first test yesterday and passed from Grade E to Grade F. The school goes through Grade G, so I am on track to finish all the workbooks and then some in the next 5 weeks... My tutor, Gladis, is wonderful and does all sorts of things with me to keep the 6 hours a day interesting. Every day we check the newspaper to see if the Phillies won, study lots of grammar, read short stories, translate paragraphs from English to Spanish, and read articles from the Spanish version of Today’s Christian Women. We also try to do the newspaper crosswords, which is a humbling experience for me. I don’t have the vocabulary to do Spanish crosswords. Neither does my teacher, so we sit with a big Spanish dictionary, my little Spanish-English dictionary, and spend an hour completing a third of the crossword! We also play Scrabble, which I can do in Spanish (Thanks, Molls, for playing so much Spanish Quiddler with me!). Some days we take little trips to the cross up the hill, to a museum, or to some ruins. There are ruins on every block here because there was a big earthquake a few hundred years ago. I have homework every night too, worksheets or compositions or translations.

I am living with the Morales family here in Antigua, close to school and to the central park. I live with my host mom and dad, two sisters (18 and 15), one brother (19), aunt, and grandfather. We also have a cat, Llemu (since nothing is upholstered, my allergies are fine), and a turtle, Manuela, who has free range of the house. I haven’t seen her yet, but I’ve been told she lives under my brother’s bed! We eat dinner together every night, which is the true test of my Spanish because everyone speaks quickly and in short phrases and at the same time – sounds like an American dinner table, doesn’t it!

I went to two church services this week. The first, which I will go to every Thursday night, is the weekly YWAM service. It is completely in English and will be a good opportunity for fellowship. Then on Sunday we went to Iglesia El Camino, a bilingual church. Bilingual listening and reading is good for learning a language because you see both languages at the same time and immediately hear translations. The church was almost all Americans, which was a little strange, but it has been really refreshing to have some time to hear English and worship God with other believers. You don’t realize how hard you’re thinking to understand your second language until you’re listening to your first language and realize how easy it is! My Spanish is definitely getting better, though. My host mom tells me that my Spanish is “Super bien!” Still, English is my heart language, so going to worship services in English has been good.