Healing Waters International on 9News last week, Welcome back Wellshire and some light-hearted stuff

Greetings to everyone! The whole group from Wellshire made it back safely on Saturday and Sunday after an incredibly fulfilling trip to Guatemala.

If you want to read about our trip, all the blog posts are below. If you want to do it chronologically, scroll down to the post from Sunday March 22 entitled: Wellshire Group In Guatemala! Post 1 from Saturday, 3/21. Then you can read up from there:
Wellshire group in Guatemala: Post 2 from 3/22/09
Wellshire Group in Guatemala: Post 3 from 3/23/09
Wellshire Group in Guatemala: Post 4 from 3/24/09
Wellshire Group in Guatemala: Post 5 from 3/25/09
Wellshire Group in Guatemala: Post 6 from 3/26 and 3/27

Or you can just read straight down and learn about the trip from the last day to the first, totally up to you. Trying to appease both linear and non-linear thinkers. :)

While we were in Guatemala, the UN celebrated World Water Day, which is a day designed to raise awareness around the issues of the 1.1 Billion people that lack access to safe drinking water. We got some very positive news coverage from a few local TV stations here in Denver including 9News, our NBC affiliate. Below is the video:



If the video doesn't come up in the blog, you can also access it and an article on the 9News website here:
http://www.9news.com/life/programming/shows/mornings/article.aspx?storyid=112223&catid=229

We also were interviewed by 7 News, and I will post that video when I get it.

If you are passionate about the cause of safe drinking water and believe that Healing Waters International is doing good work to address it, please consider becoming a monthly donor. Every little bit helps, and every $50 that is donated provides a person access to safe drinking water FOR LIFE! That's right, not just for a year or five years, $50 provides access to water for LIFE! You can click on the button below to donate, it will take you straight to our eTapestry donation page.



If you still have more questions about Healing Waters before you are ready to make that commitment, feel free to e-mail me: Greg Allen-Pickett or visit our website at http://www.healingwatersintl.org/

Finally, I wanted to share a fun, light-hearted video with everyone after all this serious water stuff. On our trip we had various levels of Spanish speakers, and it was a real joy watching people speaking in Spanish, trying the phrases they knew, and building relationships with Guatemalans.

As a part-time Spanish professor, I tried to share my insight, knowledge and tips. One of the people on the trip told me about this video, which is absolutely hilarious. For anyone who has ever taken a foreign language class and remembers their experience and the vocabulary from that class, this video perfectly captures it. The video is called "The one semester of Spanish - Spanish love song." It uses all the phrases that you learn in your first semester of Spanish to try to win over the heart of a lovely lady. . . ENJOY!

Wellshire Group in Guatemala: Post 6 from 3/26 and 3/27

I want to begin this blog post with an apology for not updating the blog yesterday. Our days are so full, and I am so profoundly enjoying spending time with this group and with the Guatemalan people that I just ran out of time yesterday to update the blog.

Thursday 3/26 was our final work day. Half of the group was back at the school painting while the other half was working fast and furious at the Habitat site trying to get as much of the house built as possible. Around 3:00 in the afternoon, the teams reunited on the Habitat site for a final look at our house and a closing ceremony put on by the Habitat Chimaltenango affiliate.

Emy, the director of the Habitat affiliate for the city of Chimaltenango said some very nice words and handed us all certificates and a bracelet as a way to remember Guatemala and feel a sense of solidarity with the people here. We also gave small gifts to the masons we spent the week working with as well as to Esther, the woman who is receiving the Habitat house.

Emy, the Chimaltenango affiliate and Casey Leo, the Habitat employee that accompanied our group all week, speaking to the Wellshire team with the house in the background

Casey translating for Esther, the woman who is receiving the house. She was sincerely grateful to the group for the work we did, and we could hear it in her words and see it in her face.

Janie Johnson presenting some hand knit hot pads to Esther as a "House warming gift."

Jay Allen and Ted Griffith, who worked as the masons' helpers all week, presenting a soccer ball to each mason signed by the whole group. (We played some fun soccer games in the street with the masons while taking a break from working on the house.)

Emy reading the certificates she presented to each member of the team

The masons in front of the house, proudly holding their soccer balls.

Pattie and the pastor from the church in Chimaltenango talking and praying together. Giving thanks for the friendship that is forming between the two churches

Our van had some power issues and went really slow up the hills every day between Chimaltenango and Antigua, so we took this fun photo on the last day we drove between the two cities. The sign on the right says "This is not a high speed road."

Friday, 3/27 we started the morning with a debrief of the trip led by me and Daniela. After that, 16 members of our group loaded in to the two vans to head off and climb the volcano Picaya. It was an incredible experience as you can see from the photos below:

The group getting ready to climb the volcano

You can see the steam and smoking coming out of the cone of the volcano here

Rivers of red hot lava. We were standing less than 50 feet away from this!

Some of the group posing in front of the freshly formed rock at the top of the volcano

Roasting marshmallows over a heat vent from the volcano, we started to melt our shoes! By the way, a marshmallow roasted over lava tastes better than any other roasted marshmallow I have had.

After we got back to the hotel from climbing the volcano and got cleaned up, Pattie Kitchen led us in a closing ritual. We had all drawn names earlier in the week of someone in the group that we would pray for each night and give a small token gift to on the last night. We went around the circle and it was clear that authentic relationships were built and strengthened over the course of the week, not just with the Guatemalan people, but within the group as well.

There is a sense of melancholy as the team prepares to leave this morning. We all eat breakfast out in the patio of the hotel, and usually the conversations are load and jovial. Today they are being had in hushed tones.

We will drive out at 8:00am and stop by a Healing Waters International system on the way out for one last look at the work that is being done in this country and to motivate all of the group to take this experience home and let it transform them, just like Healing Waters works to transform the communities where we work.

I will write some follow-up blog posts when I get back to the states next week. I promise to post more photos and reflections from the trip and the group. Thank you for following along on our journey. LET THE CLEAN WATERS FLOW!

These photos are from the closing ritual that Pattie led us in, you can see the joy and exhaustion in everyone's faces

Wellshire Group in Guatemala: Post 5 from 3/25/09

Wednesday was a day of building houses, building relationships, and changing lives (both the lives of the Guatemalans and our own lives.) I don’t think that anyone on this trip will be the same person. We are forever changed, the Guatemalan people have made their way into our hearts and we will never be the same for it.

On Wednesday morning, half of the group went to visit a public primary school in a rural area about 20 minutes outside of Chimaltenango. This visit was arranged by the church we are working with that has the Healing Waters International project. The pastor has a vision for reaching out and serving his community, and he works with a lot of local area schools, using the proceeds from the water system to help in this much needed community service.

The group arrived and was greeted by over 600 children singing and reciting their lessons. The feeling was indescribable to see so many children who were so excited to meet the gringos. The school was very poor and the classrooms were overcrowded and in need of a lot of work. The group had a presentation from the school; the kids had made US and Guatemalan flags and were waving them. Our group went in to each classroom and did some arts and crafts activities with the kids. We also took a photo of each class which we will print out and send back to the school later. During recess we had the opportunity to interact with the kids as well. It was an incredible morning for everyone!
Healing Waters employee Daniela and Rachel Wildrick getting ready for the presentation from the kids.

Kids holding hand drawn Guatemalan and American flags

Pattie Kitchen and Daniela Rosales greeting the students and teachers at the school.

Contagious Smile! One of the kids at the school.

Janie Johnson playing with the kids during recess

Hannah Johnson and Rachel Wildrick enjoying their new friends.

Typical classroom scenes

The other half of the group was back at the Habitat for Humanity site. We added more layers of cinderblock to the house, mixed lots of cement, and basked in the fellowship of each other, Esther (the woman getting the house) and the masons who were instructing us and helping us build.

Heave-Ho on the cement blocks!

Esther, the woman who is getting the house, mixing concrete. Habitat requires their house recipients to work on the project site to provide a sense of ownership and a "hand up not a hand out"

We did take a break mid-morning and decided to play a game of soccer with the masons. You should have seen their grins, playing soccer with the gringos in the street! It was a site to behold.

In the afternoon we headed back to the public high school where we had been working and painting for the past few days. The school had put together a program and basketball game for us. They brought out their “seleccion” (the best players in their school) to play against the team of gringos. While we towered over their players, these kids had played together a lot, so their passing, ball handling and team work was amazing. I guess I am just making some excuses, because we lost to them. It was a lot of fun.

After the game was over, they set up tables and chairs and the school put on some presentations for us. They did a traditional dance, presented us with gifts they had made in shop class, played the marimba for us, and then served us a traditional meal of tamales and horchata. This was the first time that this school had ever had a group of foreigners visit, and I think both the students and that group of foreigners got a lot out of the interaction.

We returned to the hotel exhausted and happy. As we were getting ready to go out to dinner, the electricity went out all over Antigua. So we improvised and a few of us ran out to the one restaurant in Antigua that we knew would have a generator: Pollo Campero. This is a Guatemalan fast food chain that serves lots of chicken dishes. We brought the food back to the hotel and ate in the lobby, and enjoyed a quiet night.

The electricity did eventually come back on, so an adventurous group went out last night to listen to salsa music and dance.

It was another blessed day in Guatemala. I will update again tomorrow. Thanks for reading and LET THE CLEAN WATERS FLOW!

Wellshire Group in Guatemala: Post 4 from 3/24/09

Tuesday was another day full of service and ministry for the Wellshire group. Our purpose here is two-fold: to do some projects that help the community through Habitat for Humanity and Healing Waters International and to build relationships and solidarity with the people of Guatemala. Today we had the opportunity to do a lot of both!

We started out the morning going to one of the Healing Waters International systems in Chimaltenango to learn how the water systems work. To learn more about our water systems, how they work, and the work of Healing Waters International, you can view this video.



We took a photo of the whole group in front of the system before splitting in to our two work teams to go to our worksites.

One team returned to the public high school where we had been working and painting the day before. We started off the morning with a basketball game between some members of our group and some Guatemalan high school students and teachers. This was an opportunity to not only play some hoops, but also build relationships with the Guatemalan people. We were able to break down some of the cultural barriers between the two groups through basketball, shattering our own stereotypes of Latinos and Hispanics, and hopefully changing the Guatemalans’ stereotypes of Americans.

Basketball game photos

This is a photo of Brian Lays taking a break from painting to interact with some kids at the school, building relationships.

Once the game was over we went right back to work painting. The church in Chimaltenango that has the Healing Waters system helped coordinate this community service opportunity for our group. The great thing was that they also worked side by side with us as you can see in this photo. Members of the church came along side members of the Wellshire group and worked together to repaint the school.

Terri Kipple painting with two "hermanos de la iglesia" (Brothers from the church)

The team that was on the Habitat site was also hard at work building a house and building authentic relationships with the Guatemalan people. As I said in an earlier post, the recipient of the house is Esther, and today she was at the worksite with her family. You can see her daughters and granddaughter in the photos below.

Hannah Johnson blowing bubbles for the grandaugther of Esther, the person receiving the Habitat house

A group photo of the Wellshire work team with Esther and her family

Intergenerational ministry with our youngest and oldest team members working on the Habitat build site.

Our fearless Guatemalan based leaders, Daniela Rosales from Healing Waters and Casey Leo from Habitat for Humanity

Lunch today was a very special experience. We had the opportunity to eat in the home of a family that is a beneficiary of the Healing Waters system. We got to see them prepare a traditional Guatemalan meal and then they served us in their home. We left lunch with full bellies and warm hearts after such a delicious meal and such a unique opportunity to eat in the home of a Guatemalan family.

The family serving lunch to our group

The family preparing fresh tortillas for the group

Making Tortillas and smiling!

The group eating lunch at the house

As we left the home and were getting ready to load in to the vans, we had some visitors:

I also took this photo of a girl hiding inside the front door to her house. I saw her and asked her mother if it would be ok to take her photo. She said yes, so I did. . . The people here are so beautiful, outside and in. We have been so warmly received as a group by all of the people we have met. They have opened their homes and their hearts to us, and we will forever be grateful for that experience and for the relationships we are building here.

This is a poignant example of the blend between urban and rural when you see a man walking his cows down the middle of a city street.

After leaving lunch we all went back to the Habitat worksite so that the work team who had been on the site for 2 days could get train the other work team, as we will be switching worksites for the second half of the week.

After that we returned to Antigua, exhausted but happy! Daniela Rosales, the communications coordinator for Healing Waters International in Guatemala taught a salsa lesson in the lobby of our hotel before leaving for dinner. I didn’t post any photos of that at the request of those who were dancing.

It was another great day for the Wellshire group. We have two more days of work. Stay tuned, thanks for following our trip and LET THE CLEAN WATERS FLOW!