The week in review

Here is the latest from this week in la vida de Los Brown...

Its mango season in Guate which means you can buy a bag of 10 huge & delicious mangos for a whole $1.50. Why oh why are we leaving???

 Gregg's hair is officially out of control. We tried to tame it with a bobby pin but as you can tell we weren't very successful

We saw these two kids milking a goat right on the street in Antigua and then sell the very fresh milk right to an adorable old lady who was sitting at her window

 Erika wore this original Starbucks shirt to church and it made me homesick

 Katey came over and we made s'mores! She also came to Yalu with us and took some awesome pictures that I'll be posting next week. Gracias Katey!

 We hung out with a sweet new band that just hit the Antigua music scene...

 ...and then they made me sing with them and now I hate them. 

But Wait! Just when you thought our week couldn't have been any better, here is the most exciting news.........

we bought our tickets HOME!!!! Hooray! We will official kiss Seattle soil again July 16th at 9:23pm! Unfortunately its a little on the late side but at least its a Saturday. AND then we'll know who are real friends are :) We used a travel agent to book our flights and were able to get a four day layover in Mexico City, with a hotel, for less than the outrageous prices I was finding online - score! Gracias a Erinita por la idea!
So friends you can now officially put it on your calendars in INK. 50 days and counting!

Let the fun begin!

    As mentioned in our last post, the past month or so has been full of meetings, program planning, stratergizing (theres a George-ism for ya), and basically working on the 'boring' behind-the-scenes stuff that makes an organization run. Since Barb and Gerry came we've been focusing on getting them acclimated and ready to take over the show when we leave in July. Although that type of work is never officially over we are happy to be moving to more of the fun stuff in the ministry! We had a great debrief of sorts with Barb and Gerry last Thursday where they basically encouraged us to put away the computers and work on what is most important in our last two months...the relationships. They have a lot of experience with this having been missionaries in the Congo before coming to Guatemala. The gist of their very wise advice was that yes processes are important but its the people and the moments together that you will remember long-term.
    So as our first order of fun business, we decided a dance party would be the most appropriate - of course! We mentioned a while ago that we have started tutoring a group of about 10 junior high students who are in their first year of school in the big city. This is a huge transition as the schools in Yalu SUCK! The kids have really struggled but praise the Lord we are starting to see improvements little by little - especially in the ones that faithfully come to the tutor group. As an incentive to get all of them to come, all three days we are there we started taking attendance. Unfortunately teenagers are too smart for their own good and they decided that putting a little white dot on an attendance sheet wasn't good enough for them. In a moment of weakness it might have slipped out that I would make them cookies if they all had perfect attendance for one week - whoops! Well it finally happened this last friday and to celebrate we had a little dance party. At first the kids weren't so into it but as you guys know...its hard to sit still once Gregg starts dancing.

The kids had a great time once they got over the initial fear of having to compete with Gregg's dancing! Plus there will be homemade chocolate chip cookies tomorrow, so really, everybody wins.

Countdown

Only 2 months left! We have officially started the homecoming countdown! Although we don't have tickets yet we are 99% sure we will be coming home July 16th - put it on your calenders friends! Man o man are we excited to be back in Seattle for a short time but it is very bittersweet. We have made some awesome friends down here and leaving them is going to be very tough.
Just last week in fact our new MCM missionaries arrived in Guatemala! Barb and Gerry moved into the house we have been living in for the past few months in San Lucas and we are having a great time getting to know them better. Now that they are here we are able to start doing some really exciting stuff out in Yalu...more about that soon!

 Besides Barb and Gerry we have also been hanging out with Darvy and Danny, our favorite Guatemaltecos! Gregg must have thought he had supernatural strength due to his Samson-like locks because he challenged Danny to an arm wrestling match.

Thoroughly defeated

 Of course I had to avenge my loves defeat...

not even with both hands!

After arm wrestling we decided to try a game where the odds would be a little more even. 

 Lets just say that Danny definitely isn't as good at Uno as he is at arm wrestling!

Hole in our Gospel

"When...Jim Wallis was a seminary student...he and some of his classmates did a little experiment. They went through all sixty-six books of the Bible and underlined every passage and verse that dealt with poverty, wealth, justice, and oppression. Then one of Jim's fellow students took a pair of scissors and physically cut every one of those verses out the Bible. The result was a volume in tatters that barely held together. Beginning with the Mosaic books, through the books of history, the Psalms and Proverbs, and the Major and Minor Prophets, to the four Gospels, the the book of Acts, the Epistles and into Revelation, so central were those themes to Scripture that the resulting Bible was in shambles. When Jim would speak on these issues, he would hold his ragged book in the air and proclaim, "Brothers and Sisters, this is our American Bible; it is full of holes. Each one of us might as well take our Bibles, a pair of scissors, and begin cutting out all the scriptures we pay no attention to, all the biblical texts that we just ignore." Jim's Bible was literally full of holes."
  ~Hole in our Gospel, Richard Stearns - President of World Vision

 ⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
   and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
   and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
   and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
   and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? 

¹⁴ then you will find your joy in the LORD,
   and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land
   and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.”
            For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Isaiah 58: 6-7, 14

Alfombras

Well today is actually Easter, which I'm sure all of you already know, so that means I am a bit behind on the blogging front! Se la vie...
Another huge aspect of the week are the beautiful alfombras or carpets that are made all through-out the week. There are two type of carpets made during Semana Santa. The first are carpets in the churches that are made for the holy vigils and are made by the brotherhoods.
The carpets are made in front of the religious figure on display and are surrounded by fruits, vegetables and candles brought as offerings to the church the day before.

So much food going to waste - eek!

Jesus cake and lizard bread

The second type of carpets are along the processional routes in the streets. These carpets are made by residents or businesses and express both religious as well as contemporary messages in the designs.  Preparations for the carpets begin weeks, sometimes months, ahead. Sand or sawdust is generally used to level the cobblestone roadway.  Sawdust is then collected and dyed in different colors.  Favorite colors are purple, green, blue, red, yellow and black.  Flowers such as bougainvillea, chrysanthemums, carnations, roses and other native plants and pine needles are also used.
Carpets are started the day before the procession and the construction is timed so that the carpets are finished just before the carriers of the float arrive so that carpet looks its best.
The carriers of the main float are the first ones allowed to walk over the carpet.  They are followed the rest of the procession. These are a few of my favorites that we have seen this week:

yes those are bank pens, free advertisement!

bottle tops, cheetos, and tea bags. por que no?

toilet paper rolls and mayan worry dolls

no quite as pretty after the procession

So that is Semana Santa in a very small nutshell. We had a great time this week hanging out with friends in Antigua and soaking up the cultural experience. God had truly blessed us with an amazing community here in Guatemala and we are already getting sad to leave them in only 2.5 months :( On a happier note we are excited for tomorrow when we will be adding to our awesome community by welcoming the new Mano Con Mano missionaries, Gerry and Barbara to Guatemala! Stay tuned for more on that front...

Happy Easter and He is Risen!

Semana Santa

Buena Pascua! All this week Gregg and I have been in Antigua to join in the out of control celebration that is Semana Santa or Holy week. These Guatemaltecos sure do know how to party - well the Catholic ones at least. 

Antigua is famous for its Catholic celebration of Holy Week, which commemorates the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The entire city participates in the event, and thousands of national and international visitors flock to Antigua to witness the dramatic happenings. The main events are the daily (sometimes twice or thrice daily) processions that depict Jesus and Mary in the events that led up to his crucifixion. Processions generally begin with incense carriers and the brotherhood's banner, followed by the carriers and the float. The floats can weigh as much as 7,000 pounds! Carriers will carry the float for a block and then a new group will take their turn. A block behind the main float, the women carry a smaller float with the figure of the Virgin Mary. Following behind is a funeral march band. There is even one day of children's processions. 

Semana Santa: brought to you by Pepsi

Although there are a lot of beautiful aspects of this week, at the heart of the celebrations is the Catholic sacrament of 'penance'. Believers actually have to pay for the privilege of carrying one of the Jesus floats. It's considered to be a special form of penance, that wipes away their actions of the previous year and lets the person start the coming year with a zero balance in the sin department. When you learn that, the whole event becomes a little less appealing. Especially when you see the poor little niños struggling under the weight of the floats. One article I read said that the weight will feel lighter or heavier to each person, depending on how much one sinned during the past year. Gracias a Dios that we know we have been saved by grace and not works!

Lovely lice

One of the many enjoyable things we get to do while working for Mano Con Mano is hosting teams from the US. Last week a team from South Carolina came down and helped build additional rooms and desks for the local public school. Later on in the week we stole a few of the team members to have a 'spa' day with 50 of the kids. We deloused their hair, painted their fingernails (even some of the boys!), applied lotion to their very dry skin, and basically just loved on them. Kids don't get touched or talked to by adults very often in Mayan society so its pretty special just to have physical contact with them. You would think that they would hate the hair washing part but they actually loved it. Probably because none of the home have running water so 'showers' and few and far between. It is days like these that make all the data entry, being unable to communicate anything in Spanish, and 'what is wrong with this country' days worthwhile!

If you didn't already know that we deloused kids last week, then you need to 'like' Mano Con Mano Health Reach on facebook!! Do it now! Please, and thank you :)