Monday, March 23, 2009

Wellshire group in Guatemala: Post 2 from 3/22/09

Sunday was an amazing day for the Wellshire group in Guatemala. We started out the morning with a delicious, traditional breakfast of tamales wrapped in banana leaves at our hotel. Then we all loaded in our two vans and made the 30 minute drive to Chimalatenango.

Chimaltenango is the city where we will be spending the week working. It is a large industrial city with a poverty rate of over 60%. Healing Waters International has two water systems there and Habitat for Humanity has a number of building projects there as well. When we were preparing for our trip here, a number of members of our group bought Guatemala guide books. They tried to look up the city of Chimaltenango in the books, but to no avail. Although it is a large city here in Guatemala, much bigger than Antigua, there is no real reason for tourists to travel there, so there was no information listed about it in the guide book.

Sunday morning we were going to Chimaltenango to worship with a church there. Healing Waters International co-locates our water systems with churches that have a vision of holistic transformation of their communities. We work to empower the local church to provide physical, social and spiritual healing to their community, and the two churches we work with in Chimaltenango do just that. The work team from Wellshire will be split in to two groups and half the team will work with Habitat for Humanity on a house building project, while the other half of the team will be working with one of these churches in Chimaltenango where Healing Waters International has a water project. We took the opportunity Sunday morning to go worship at that church where we will spend the work weeking.

The church service was great. We prayed and sang with the congregation and then split out into bible study classes. The group really had the chance to have an authentic interaction with the members of the congregation. We were there from 9am until 11:30am and loved every minute of it!


The praise band leading worship

The "True North Singers" if Chimaltenango: kids helping to sing and lead the worship service.

During the worship service, the congregants wave flags to express their joy and adoration of God. Here you can also see Jim Kitchen and the group behind the flag waver.
Wellshire group worshipping in Chimaltenango
More of the group worshipping in Chimaltenango, along with Daniela Rosales, the communications coordinator for Healing Waters International in Guatemala

The group in the courtyard of our hotel, having just returned from worship in Chimaltenango
After the service we returned back to Antigua for lunch. After lunch the group set out to explore Antigua and all it has to offer. During the season of lent, every Catholic church has parades and processionals on Sunday where they line the streets with flower petals and parade over them in purple robes carrying platforms with different religious figures on them. We had a chance to see some of these processions and were amazed by beauty and detail. We also explored the Sunday market and just walked the charming colonial streets of Antigua.
Market day in Antigua at the foot of the ruins of an old colonial church

Lenten Processional

Wellshire folks walking the streets of Antigua
At 4:30pm we returned to the hotel for a presentation and orientation from Habitat for Humanity Guatemala. They gave us a rundown of the work that the organization does here and it was very impressive. Habitat just celebrated building their 300,001 house in the world, and nearly 30,000 of those houses are here in Guatemala, representing over 10% of all Habitat houses built worldwide. Habitat Guatemala is the largest Habitat affiliate in Latin America and they receive over 80 work teams per year! After the orientation we headed to dinner and then back to hotel for bed. It was a very long and fulfilling day for our group.
Habitat orientation in the lobby of our hotel
I was thinking about saying something like, “Tomorrow the real work begins” as our work teams head out in to Chimaltenango at the church and Habitat project to do some manual labor, but for this group the “real work” began the moment we started trying to build authentic relationships with the people of Guatemala. God designed us to be social people and to live in relationship, and part of the purpose of this trip is to not just do manual labor, but to open the team’s eyes to the reality of life in Guatemala for our brothers and sisters that live here. Sometimes that reality is hard to bear, but by truly striving to be in relationship, we can come along side our new-found Guatemalan friends, pray for them, and love them, and maybe change that reality a little bit.
I will post another update tomorrow morning detailing our first work day in Chimaltenango. Thanks for reading and LET THE CLEAN WATERS FLOW!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is neat to read about and see pictures of what you all are doing or are going to do. Keep up the good work in the name of the Lord.
God Bless
Don and Aline Brown

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the wonderful pictures and commentary about the Wellshire group's activities! We are happy to be able to read the postings and learn about the important work you are doing for our neighbors in Guatemala.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Craig, Sue, & Becky Wildrick