Shadow of His Wings and Monjas 2012

If I’ve ever told you a story, then you know I tell it as the information comes to my mind, and not necessarily in any logical order. It’s a pretty good reflection of the general disarray of my scattered brain. Keep in mind that I am starting this while my brother is teaching himself the piano in the other room, my dog is whining at the squirrels in our attic, and the TV is on nearby. Oh, and I just realized the Star Wars theme is quietly humming in the speakers of the computer. That's off now. Bear with me. Soooooo, that being said, I think I’ll just start telling about Guatemala by using my old friends, bullet points.

·         Seeing Monjas showed me one promise I want to make to myself: that I’ll never believe I need anything that I don’t. I’ve never seen poverty like that before in my life, and I’ve seen poverty. Most of the people there don’t have running water and many of the houses I saw had dirt floors. They smelled awful. They had walls of tin or cardboard. They lived with their chickens and their dogs, that I’m positive had no shots. One house sat by a small river of sewage. One had exposed electrical wires everywhere… in a house where children lived. My college dorm room looks like a palace now.

·         We delivered food baskets to about 10 families, which is how I got to see so many houses. First of all, know that money goes on forever there because everything is so cheap. For $50 a basket, money that amazing people had generously donated to our team, we were able to purchase several pounds of rice and beans, 3 bags of flour, tomatoes, pineapples, consume, toilet paper, candy (for the kids), oil, a flat of eggs, and a TON more for each family. Once we had spent that money, we wondered how on Earth we were going to spend the rest. One American dollar equals about 8 Quetzales, so we had to get creative.

·         We ended up stumbling upon a house where the mother used to work for our translator. We got talking to the dad and he told us we couldn’t have come at a better time. He was out of steady work, but he really wanted to build a room for his 7 year old daughter before the rainy season. The main room in their house floods in the rain and he wanted a place for her to stay dry. So, we were able to buy him the building supplies he needed to get the project done.

o   He invited us to have chicken soup at his house one day. No thank you, kind sir.

o   He also told us that since Monjas is so rural, and his house is even in the rural part of Monjas, the international community is from whom they receive most of their help. They’re kind of forgotten.

·         Hmmmm… I’ll get back to food baskets later. My mind wants to talk about Vacation Bible School now. Eeeeek!