ahora

Today we had another busy schedule. For the past couple of days (and tomorrow, too), we have been walking over to Casita Benjamin - a little school that has a number of kids attending whose parents also work in the garbage dump - and putting on a day camp for the 60+/- kids that show up every day. This is a typical schedule for us:
*Arrive 8:10
*Play with kids.
*Start program at 9:00 with singing.
*Break up into 3 groups at 9:30: puppets, arts & crafts and games
*Rotate every 30 minutes-ish (and have a snack after the first session)
*Closing singing and the day´s memory verse from 11:30 to about 11:45
*Pack up, play with kids, and leave at noon

We all pile into the bus and head over to La Limonada (look for pictures of the place from this previous post, and read a bit about past experiences there in this post) and work with the 30+/- kids there (and, by the way, this was their first week opening the new school that is on the other side of La Limonada than the side Kent and I visited last year - the 2 sides are split by gang warfare so it is very dangerous for anyone to cross to the other side, including the children, even though the other school is just over the gang territory line. This has been a dream for Tita and the teachers to open up another school on the other side and it is finally coming true, praise be to God!).
*Arrive around 1:00.
*Serve lunch to kids at 1:30.
*Begin program at 2:00 with singing, a puppet show and the daily memory verse (I lead them in the memory verse).
*At 2:30 we split up into 2 groups: arts & crafts and games (only 2 this time b/c there are only 2 rooms in the new school which,
*At 3:30 we meet downstairs for the closing: more singing, going over the memory verse again and a final puppet show and prayer.

Yes, it's exhausting! Playing with little kids and always going going going at 110% is draining. By the time we are done with the day camps at 4:00, we all feel ready to take a nap, but sometimes we go for house visits (read one of the team members' experiences of a house visit here on our team blog) of families of the school system on the opposite side of La Limonada - usually where someone is sick or there are serious needs; however, sometimes it's just to meet them and pray for them and their families.

I always look forward to our evenings after the camps because we often have some good down time to not only relax, but to reflect on the day as well. We eat dinner at 6:30 and then have group devotions at 8:00 - this is one of my favorite times of the day. We have been digging into Matthew 5 - the beattitudes - and it has been a good challenge for our team to reflect on the words of a particular beattitude throughout the day and then to dig deeply into at night, have some time to worship through singing and prayer, and then we go to bed.

Tomorrow is our last hectic schedule like today's and yesterday's...and then on Friday we visit a maximum security prison where Kent and I made some friends last year when we visited and I am very eager to see them, hug them, see how they are doing and to remind them how much I care for them and, more importantly, how much God loves them and has not forgotten them. I can't wait! :)

I just published this on the team blog, but I thought I'd do it here, too.

My heart is so full right now. I feel helpless and unable to respond properly to the experiences I had today as our group visited the garbage dump.

The garbage dump is located on the far end of the national cemetery in Guatemala City. When we arrived at the look-out, Joel VanDyk challenged us to take 15 minutes of silence to take in the sights and sounds around us and to try to understand them with our hearts. At that time, I walked down to an edge that overlooks the dump and, with the sun beating down on me, witnessed hundreds of ugly black vultures eerily circling the vast area of garbage, swatted at the little bugs and flies swarming around and landing on my arms and clothing, and watched as dump trucks and bulldozers skimmed the tops of the ever-growing mound of trash to deliver and move the layers of garbage for hundreds of people to sort through to make a living finding scraps of plastic and metal to sell.

Earlier today, we spent time playing with many of the kids whose parents work day after day rummaging through garbage that has already been rummaged through by the truck drivers. It is difficult to connect the two experiences together: the joy on childrens’ faces as they sang the Spanish version of “Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia – Praise ye the Lord!” and their parents’ smelly, dirty workplace filled with death and despair.

After our 15 minutes of silent reflection, we gathered in a shady area to overlook the workers below as Joel proceeded to read Judges 19 – a story rarely/never preached on in the church because it is a passage that many Christians don’t know what to do with. It’s the story about a concubine who is treated in the most atrocious ways and then is cut up by her husband/master into 12 pieces and sent to all the tribes of Israel. At the end of the chapter it says that happened in order that the people would consider and reflect on how he had treated her when he had intended to go and speak tenderly to her. There is nowhere in the Bible where this concubine is named. We known nothing about her other than the fact that she is from Bethlehem (can you think of anyone else who was from Bethlehem? Yup, Jesus.).

This story, I believe, is in the Bible because there are many people in the world – like those in el basurero – who can relate to her story: the nameless, mistreated and abused – the least, the last, and the lost of places like Guatemala City and Grand Rapids and Lynden – the people who are cut out of society and forgotten.

How does one from Grand Rapids, MI or Lynden, WA or from any other well-to-do area of North America respond to this? How does one take these experiences – these sights and sounds – from Guatemala to their home? How can I, not having ever experienced anything like what I saw today, even attempt to understand what they are going through? How can I return to my house, my car, my job and my everyday life with the image of the garbage dump burned in my mind? How am I to live? How can I incorporate the experiences of the people here in Guatemala with my job as a Spanish teacher? How can I, in my own small way, help others who have never experienced this try to understand the more common experiences of people around the world in a non-“I’m-happy-I’m-not-them” or a “wow-that-sucks-to-be-them” kind of way?

One of the things we discussed in our evening devotions tonight was lament and how many Christians don’t have a language for lament or any idea how brokenness and pain fit into the Christian story (other than the Bible-school answer of “we sinned so crappy things have to happen”) because we preach a message of hope and of peace. And, although it is true that God is sovereign and is in control of the situation and can see the bigger picture of why things happen and how he will use them for good in our lives, I think we can too quickly gloss over the reality of brokenness and the need to be able to say, “Yes, this sucks – I am hurting and nothing you can say right now will make me feel better because this is not the way God created the world to be.”

There are times when I love my life on earth and I am not eager for Christ to return because I truly love living my life; however, there are times like today when I pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, come!” because this world is so messed up and broken and we are in desperate need of redemption.

As I looked over the dump and the constant movement of machinery, people and vultures, these lyrics from the chorus of “Multiply Your Love” – a song that our group has sort of taken as our theme song – kept playing over and over in my mind:

Let us see your kingdom come
to the poor and broken ones.
Let us see a mighty flood
of justice and mercy, O Jesus.
Let love be multiplied.

I’m not sure where to go from here. I have a lot of questions and no answers. As Joel challenged us, I am going to do my best to contemplate and to ponder the images I saw today so that it sinks into my heart and changes me from the inside-out – then, maybe a few more people who are the least, the last and the lost in this world will again have names.

I am currently in a computer lab at the seminary campus we are staying at and don't have much more time, so click here for the team blog for the as-frequent-as-possible updates.

I will try to update when I get more time. But for now, here's a few bullet-point-updates:
- visited a skate church
- visited Mensaje de Vida - the church Kent and I spent 6 weeks at last summer
- went to Antigua
- visited a handicapped hospital in Antigua
- worked at Casita Benjamin doing the 1st of 4 days of a day camp
- returned to the basurero (garbage dump)

It has been an amazing trip so far and God is doing amazing things in all the hearts of the team members. I am looking forward to see how God works in and through us throughout the rest of the week!

The past few weeks I have been in Michigan visiting my family and friends there. I will try to post some pictures and more details of that trip in the near future. In the meantime...it was wonderful to be refreshed and to have my fill of Michigan again; at the same time, it is very good to be back in Washington with my family and friends here. :)