Crazy Guatemala

Were to begin, where to begin......

Our time in Guatemala was spent on a few very different things and so much happened that I can not give a chronological exposition of our time there, but broke it into pieces, from the crazy to me (with me of course the least crazy :P )

Triking

Triking, where to begin... The best description that I can give is that you take a bike; grind off the back end; weld a round steel bar to the back with a rod and two small wheels with no traction in it and try to fit a seat in there somewhere. Then, you put on a helmet and go down a steep mountain with your trike, praying you don't get killed while drifting through corners and traffic. See photo and the Hanna Montana helmet. It is so much fun. Part of the ministry of pastor Ben is the new sport of triking, Ben uses it to attract attention and get people to interact that would not normally be interested in church and through that share the gospel. So we spend some time fixing up some half built trikes and then we went out to test them and after they did not fall to pieces after the first few runs we took it all the way down the Solola to Panajachel mountain, 27km of pure downhill crazy. The first time a guy on a motorbike followed us and we reached speed of up to 80km/h, Ben has been on a run that went faster than 100km/h. Then we took them down 2 times more and all were on a bit of an adrenalin high and with surprisingly few injuries. The next week we went to Guatemala city where we took them on a long but slow run with the traffic police stopping traffic for us, but that evening the real fun started. We hooked up with the car drifting club of Guatemala and went out to trike with them, it was dark and it was raining and I did not want to go since we would get killed. And wow was that the most amazing evening, we met them in their drifting cars with a few trikes and went looking for a mountain, at 11pm we found the spot got out the trikes and there we went, eyes blinded with rain and spray, no brakes from the wet and no idea where the road is going, it was scary and fun all at the same time. We ended in a red light that the first 2 of us almost ran over, got picked up with the van, loaded the trikes and off we went to mountain 2. It really felt like something out of a drag racing movie. Mountain 2 started the same as mountain 1 except that the 4^th corner caught us and we did a chain crash of 4 trikes. At the bottom we were loaded up again and back to mountain 1, at that time the rain stopped and it was all still wet and you sort of had an idea what was coming, the adrenaline was flowing and it just got better. We did 5 runs and on the last run we drifted past a truck, it was so epic. I woke up the next morning still on an adrenaline high. The week after that we did a Solola to Panajachel run again, but it felt so ordinary compared the the previous week, but we did get to speak to a few more people this time.

Digging

Most of out time spend with Pastor Ben was in the construction project of the missionary house he is building. We worked there most days from 8h-15h. For more details on the project and if you feel like making a donation to the project here is the link http://www.gcex.org/440-frontpage/2967-build-guatemala.html .We did a few different things round the project to help with the building. The part where I was most involved was in the digging of what would be the below ground workshop level. This meant we had to dig a 3m wide by 6m long by 3.5m deep hole right next to his house. As we only had picks and shovels and 4 guys and 8 girls this was fun. I did enjoy the digging, it was hard work, but it was also good time to process everything else that was going on. The house is build close to where a river use to run before the town was build on top of it so the soil was mostly sandy with lots of small to medium rocks in it, it made digging a bit more difficult, but the bonus was that the rock could be sifted out to be used as rock for concrete. The sand we dug out at the deeper levels could be sifted ad used as building sand for both concrete and cement for laying bricks. The fact that it was rainy season in Guatemala made the work a bit more difficult and the sides of the hole we were digging became a bit more unstable as we went along and we had a few mini cave-ins. The last few days we did finished most of the digging and put in some support and on the last day we got to pour concrete bases for the pillars.

Teachings

For 3 nights a weeks we had teaching time from about 7-11pm. There was other times like on Sundays where we also had input time, but the main input time was in the evenings. The teaching was made to stretch our way of thinking and our way of thinking about how to reach people. We also had 2 teachings by the way of watching movies with a spiritual perspective and not a normal view, first time a watched “The Knowing” a very interesting movie.

Ministry

Our main ministry during our time in Guatemala was to help with the building and serving Ben. And as mentioned before we also spent some time on the triking as a few to reach people. But we were also involved in a few other things like the youth dance ministry where we got to do some break dancing and the spinny on the floor dancing. We developed a combined dance with the youth and got the opportunity to showcase this at an event while in Guatemala City for the weekend. While in the city we also got to minister to the youth at the church that we stayed with. We also had a few loose standing events in Panajachel. The only other main ministry we had was some coffee shop ministry, we had some time to hang out with people from a lot of different nationalities in Crossroads coffee shop (Kasia's parents coffee shop) and had some time to speak and share with them.

Team and family and visitors

While in Guatemala we stayed with Kasia's parents. The girls stayed at the house while the 3 guys stayed on top of the coffee shop together with Jean that has done 2 previous journeys and for this year felt that he is called to be in Guatemala and are staying with Kasia's parents, almost like a bit of a house swap between him and Kasia. Kasia's dad is from America and her mother from South Africa, a real afrikaanse tannie. It was so good to be in a place that you walked into and it just felt like home and then to hear Afrikaans and see an old wooden Spur menu against the wall, it just made you feel even more at home. Team time in Guatemala was difficult, there was tiredness from lots of physical labour, 4-5 of us that was still sick with the stomach bug at the start and then our understandings were stretched in the teaching since it was made to shake our foundations and look at what we believe. After 1 week there we also found out that Arthur would be leaving the team at the end of out time there and this caused a lot of sadness. This all contributed to making our time there a bit emotional. We did have good times and it was good spending time with family there. I found Kasia's younger sister Lungi very entertaining. We also had our first visitors for the year while in Guatemala, Elsabe, Danie and Henk came to visit us. It was good to spend some time with them and to get some input from people who has done a journey especially since it was closer to the end of the journey and being able to hear and learn from their experiences. They also made it possible that we could do another challenge and this time the with team (the small group leaders) could challenge with them. The challenge was quite chill and was very good for us and of course we also won the challenge!!

Anniversaries and randoms

Guatemala was a time of quite a few anniversaries and significant times and random events:

24 Aug, birth of my first nephew Wessel

25 Aug, 16 years of the day of my mothers death

31 Aug, 1 year from last day of work, thus 1 year unemployed and I shared it with Charlotte

15 Sep, 1 year from the day my father past away

Some randoms:

we were 7 in a tuk-tuk.

we were 5 on a 400cc moterbike.

I drove a left had drive car on the right side of the road.

me

I had an interesting time in Guatemala. I was still sick for the first 4-5 days there, making it 11 days in total with a stomach bug (on the positive side, after that and some labour my six pack was almost back after eating to much in Cuba). The teachings the first few days stretched me and made me look at a few things, but the main theme that was pressed on my heart at the start of the time there was the future. Now the subject of what I am going to do when this journey is over has been a subject that I have been avoiding since I was afraid that it will distract me. But I was confronted with my fear, did I actually believe so little in what has been done in my life till this point that even knowing what I would be doing next year could still distract me? Do I still think that it will distract me and because of that I do not allow God to tell me what he wants me to do next? I had to have a sit down and see that I just have to trust God that if He wants to tell me that I am ready. Then I had to to 2 sessions of getting rid of all my expectations and dreams for the future, all the things I still want to do or dreamed of, so that I have an open heart to receive. After that He did come and tell me some things, but nothing directional as yet, so it is still homeless and unemployed for now. God came to show me what He has been establishing me in this year and the things he has taught me. He came to show me the talents, gifting and role He has given me. There were also a few bigger picture less clear things that is still scaring me because of the size of it, it made me wonder if it was for me since it does not sound like me it is way to big, but at the same time it is making me excited since I know that for me it is impossible, but for God it is not and if it comes to pass all the glory would be to God and not me. In this time I also had a few times of my mind wandering of on things of the future that was not of God and I had to be reminded every now and then to keep focus. The time there and the teaching did make me look at how I look at people, do I see some people as lost cases or do I see everyone as being loved by God and because of that love them? I had the realisation that I was getting the practical for a lot of the things that has been imparted in the first half of the year, it was so cool to see how it works out.

F