Finding God in the Banana Trees and Coffee Grove

Catholic church in Xoxclac, one of four churches there

Thoughts of Guatemala came streaming back this morning after a couple of us gave a little mission report at Marine View. Afterward we were approached by many well-wishers from the congregation, some of whom had made the journey before, others who wish to go in the future and even more who just wanted to say job well done.

Since it is Sunday, this would be a good time to reflect more on the spiritual side of our mission. Above all, we were an ensemble of Christian men out to do God's work, even if it meant being away from our regular lives for 10 days to moil through stove installations in homes with dirt floors and open doors, with chicks running around at our feet.

It became apparent to us early that the people in the remote and rugged village of Xoxlac themselves are a spiritual, God-loving lot. For a village its size (maybe 500 people scattered far and wide) to have four churches of different denominations told the story right away. The Sunday night-of-arrival church service Pastor Jon, Rueben and I attended was chock full, amazing by itself considering that many of its parishioners had to walk great distances with young children on steep trails illuminated by flashlight. This church has a nicely polished and ornate hardwood floor, a stage, benches, lights and a large sound system to support a small band and choir. On the wall behind the stage area stretched a large mural with a seascape depiction of Jonah and the Whale, an especially curious scene considering most of these folks had probably never even seen ocean before.

We did not see the other churches in operation but I wouldn't be surprised if they had been filled earlier in the day. One of the buildings was fairly new.

The Spanish Bibles we lugged along for both the kids and adults seemed very well received but were in short supply. In fact we almost couldn't bring all of the adult Bibles due to airline weight restrictions, but somehow managed to stuff them all in our personal luggage at the check-in counter at the urging of Doug's wife, Carol DeVries.

One man from a yonder village heard we were giving out Bibles and made the long trip over to ask if we had an extra. We didn't think we did, but he refused to take no for an answer. Finally Willy asked if he could come back the next day just in case. The man was there early the next afternoon with a big smile of anticipation. Sadly, we had to send him away one more time because all of the Bibles we brought were for the villagers we had come to serve. It was a hard decision and hopefully he understood.

One night a few of us were grilling Pedro, the friendly local school headmaster, about life in the village. Unfortunately I got into the conversation late and if the subject of religion and its importance came up I'd missed it. Perhaps another team member can fill us in if it did because I didn't think to ask. Or maybe it's a question that didn't even need to be asked.

As I wrote in an earlier post, Pastor Jon prepared a mission study guide of "Upside Down Stories" in the Bible that model the importance of serving and giving. As he introduces:

"The Bible is full of what might be called "Upside Down" stories. In fact the Bible might be considered an "Upside Down" story. Jesus put it like this: The first will be last and the last will be first. Again, he said that if we are going to receive we must be willing to give and if we want to live we must be willing to die."

While our team couldn't have devotionals every night due to our packed schedule, we did find time three or four of the evenings and were able to engage in long, meaningful discussions around these stories. In the village we were able to have our discussions in comfy camping chairs in the lit school yard with stars and planets shining down from above. I'm sure Pastor Jon would be more than happy to send a copy of his guide to anyone interested.

John and Maxx were among the six Gringos
piled in the bed of a Toyota en route to church

We attended church - the one Marco with Hands for Peacemaking attends - on the Sunday morning after our arrival in Barillas. We didn't know then, but getting to the church would be a sample of our travels later that day. Six of us "Gringos," all in our Sunday best, piled in the back of a Toyota pickup truck, parading through town then up a long and bumpy dirt road.  The church was once located downtown, but a few years ago the elders of the Centro Bíblico Vida Abundante decided to relocate it in the way out in order to better serve the population of farmers and villagers living out there and due to the availability of land.

Exterior of unfinished church in Barillas

As it turns out their plans may have been a little ambitious. The church is a large, concrete and cinder block structure, more of a cathedral along the lines of what we might call a "mega church" in the U.S. Being built on the pay as money allows plan, the two-story building is pleasant but far from finished. With an array of exposed wiring, re-bar and unrailed upper balconies, no self-respecting building inspector would allow occupancy in its current state of construction if it were, say, located in Federal Way, Washington.

Sanctuary of church in Barillas. Only a few seats were occupied.

We dutifully found our seats in plastic lawn chairs toward the front, joining perhaps 70 or so of the regulars, including kids. In format it was not unlike a service at Marine View or many other American churches. The Spanish language service opened with several songs played by the band and choir and the congregation encouraged to sing along as the words were projected onto a screen.  During his sermon Pastor Freddy warmly welcomed the group from Washington. 

Those of us who don't speak Spanish tried to follow Freddy's sermon  in the handout as best we could until the session came to a musical closure. What we didn't know was that only signaled the intermission. We wandered out of the sanctuary in the fellowship area where deserts and pastries were being served and spent the next 45 minutes roaming around upstairs to see the Sunday school classrooms and to get a better view of the sanctuary from above. During the break John Kirk was able to chat in Spanish with Pastor Freddy and ask about future church plans. The church would be finished in another two years "by God's grace," he cheerfully informed us. I pray their numbers will swell as well as the church could easily seat 500.

Another session lasting perhaps another half-hour followed that. Marco stood and said some closing words and we filed out.

As we returned back down the hill we passed by a very small Assembly of God church and Pastor Jon asked me to take a photo, which I did. He and Jesse Skiffington, associate pastor at Marine View, both hail from small towns where Assembly of God churches are often dominant and he wanted to share this photo with Jesse. On the final day of our mission, when visiting the City of Santiago by Lake Atitlán, we saw huge, hilltop Mormon churches festooned with satellite dishes to beam in services from around the world.

Assembly of God church en route

We prayed a fair amount over the length of our mission. Grace at every meal, of course, taking turns at each. We asked God for safety, for guidance and protection, for the means to accomplish our mission in a spirit of sharing and humbleness. We prayed that somehow we could make a small difference in this big world as we went about the business of serving those who did not have what we have in America. We asked for Him to bless each home. I believe, as a team, we left Guatemala knowing God delivered on all counts.   

Shelton in Xoxlac?

Remember Shelton, Washington U.S.A.

Hiking up the hill to our next installation project, we came across a nice white stucco house -somewhat rare in these parts - with its slat wood kitchen structure off to the side. Over to the right was a recently built concrete basin of some kind covered by a shiny piece of tin, perhaps for storing coffee beans.

A view of the house that Shelton built

As we got a little closer we could see big green block lettering neatly drawn across the front of the house: RECUERDO SEHLTON WASHINGTON U.S.A.  Wait a minute, we didn't know at the time what recuerdo meant, but could that be our own Shelton, Washington?

Dahgo, our helper from Hands for Peacemaking, could see us marveling at the connection and nodded knowingly. At dinner that night he was able to tell us through Willy that first word, Recuerdo, translated to something like "remember."

Woman flips the peace sign, knew some English.

He speculated that perhaps an organization in Shelton provided funding for the house and outbuildings. Others thought, and I tend to agree, that a family member or members found their way to Shelton and were able to make enough extra to send back to Xoxlac to build the nicer house. Unfortunately we were not able to ask the homeowners. We saw a few instances of houses that stood out from the others. In one of these lived a woman who knew some English and dressed in more of a western look, sported an eyebrow stud, and when I took her photo gave me the peace sign. I tried to ask her where she learned English but she didn't understand my question.

A few years ago I wrote a speech for a public official in which I noted a conversation with someone who counts homeless populations in Thurston and Mason Counties. He told me there is a large population of people living in the woods around Shelton from Guatemala, Ecuador and Mexico, finding work where they can. A quick Internet search today turned up an article in the local paper that notes the Guatemalan population of children attending school in Shelton.

Pedro, the head school master for Xoxlac, told us one evening that at any given time there are about 10 people from the village who are working in the United States. So, while it was a surprise to suddenly see a salute to Shelton way out in the boonies of Guatemala, it's perhaps not as remarkable as it struck us at first.

It would be interesting to interview the Shelton population of Guatemalans sometime to see if anyone living there is from Xoxclac or a village nearby, to learn how they made their way and if they plan to go back. My assumption is that a good proportion of them are there without legal documentation, so perhaps would be shy about talking to a stranger. Maybe I'll bring John Kirk, who did so much of the translation for our team throughout our time in the country.

Snohomish County Rotarians bought the HFPM rig

Mission Landcruiser

The connections to the state of Washington on our trip were many. Of course were are all from Washington state, except for Kirk, our stand-in from Salem, Oregon. Hands for Peacemaking is based in Everett, with two of its board members from Marine View Presbyterian in Tacoma. Marco's big Landcruiser was purchased nine years ago by several Rotary clubs and individuals from Snohomish County, says so on the side. Marco himself received his association's degree in business administration with honors from Everett Community College and is putting his skills to work in Barillas masterfully as he coordinates a myriad of on-the-ground details for these missions.

The state of Washington may be our home, but when we are away from home it's nice to see the difference Washingtonians are making in places as far away as Xoxlac.

Doug and Dude

Doug and Dude

We drew team partners out of the hat and mine happened to be Doug DeVries, our team leader. I was just fine with that, and I think Doug was too, because you see we are both graduates of Washington State University in Pullman, in fact both products of the fraternity system there (for better or for worse). We roomed together and worked in partnership throughout the mission.

Doug and I with our Cougar colors on

Since Doug was finishing at WSU about the time I started we didn't know each other back then, longer ago than we both care to admit. But Cougar connections are very strong and we found a lot to talk about from our respective college days in the Palouse. Even so, I think Doug got a little impatient with me at times as, being more of a words guy, my mechanical aptitude for engineering stove pipes and stuff just doesn't come as naturally to me as that of Doug. Doug is a hard-charging sales leader, typically tops among his peers in his company, which sells second-hand shipping containers to assorted markets around the world. I found him to be a very focused individual and eager to get things done. In addition  he was a fine team leader.

So here I was, fumbling along fairly competently, I thought, with our local guide BearnaBay (shout the Bay part and you'll do just fine) and Hands for Peacemaking worker Dahgo.

On the third morning we met our match in Dude.

Dude owns property deep in the lower basin below Xoxlac. One slide like the one that dropped off half the town in 1994 and Dude's house, yard and cornfield would be toast. Dude was all smiles as we arrived and, remarkably, even had all the pieces laid out and had one leg bolted to the firebox already.

Dude and his family

Dude both watched and helped and we had his family's stove installed in record time. We did the typical blessing ceremony and said our goodbyes but, to our delight, Dude followed us up to the next house. He was simply amazing. Even though he didn't know a lick of English, he knew the next steps instantly. BearnaBay, whom we found out was the village leader, was okay and certainly did his job, but Dude outshined him from the start. If we merely thought we needed a pencil, Dude would be standing there with a pencil. If we needed to know the best way to attack the horizontal pipe through the eve, Dude would gesture a way. Things just went better with Dude. He was, as Doug said, Dude. Not The Dude. Just Dude.

Dude muttered something to me just as we were doing the fourth house of the morning and was gone. Doug said, "where's Dude?" and I told him he just walked away. Doug was clearly sad.

So we had lunch and puttered the afternoon away without Dude. On our final hut of the day, we ran into a situation with dead drill batteries where I would have to hike back up the hill with a board and drill a six-inch hole through it. Dahgo had to show me the way and assist at the top. So that left Doug alone with BearnaBay. Just as we were walking toward the trail, there was Dude. Doug told me later he walked in, tin-snips in hand just in time to cut the roof.

I came back with the board, we installed it, the job was done and we walked on. We gave Dude a knife as a token of our appreciation.

At the closing ceremony Dude showed up again.  We learned he had also assisted Steve Drury and John Kirk. We found out then his real name is Roberto. No matter, Dude is Dude.

"I miss Dude," Doug stated forelornely, even long after we left Xoxlac.

Dude was everywhere

Nurse Jackie and Other Comforts of Home

Water carriers fill the cisterns after hauling it up from the river below.
You can see our wash basin to the right, and the shower is adjacent to that.

Thanks to the great preparation work by Hands for Peacemaking and their generous donors, our team felt well supported and cared for during the entire mission despite our remote location in the rugged outskirts of northwest Guatemala.

We had electricity. While the nation's power grid does not reach Xoxlac, HFPM brought in a generator so we would have lights and electricity during our stay. Occasionally this generator would sputter and die, like the night when hundreds from the village congregated in the sports field for a stand-up "movie night" where they stretched a big screen between the goal posts. They were also there to hear the words of a visiting preacher Marco had brought in from Barillas that day. The preacher was able to give his sermon before the power went out. In fact Pastor Jon was supposed to speak that night too, but got out of it due to the technical issues which led to total darkness and the villagers dispersed. That was okay, because Jon doesn't know much Q'anjobal anyway. The villagers never saw the movie either.

Hauling water, two jugs at a time

We had fresh water. HFPM supplied large bottles of sanitized water for drinking and teeth brushing. There were also three huge black cisterns from where water was pumped (electrically) to our two-stall shower system and a three-basin sink for hand washing and dish cleaning. I guess most of us didn't think too much about where all this water was coming from until early Tuesday morning when we saw a steady parade of mostly women and girls hauling three-gallon jugs up a trail on their backs to pour into the cisterns. I walked down this steep and rocky trail to see the source and was stunned to see how far it was - at least a half mile to a swift-flowing creek in the valley below. 

Village water source

Hiking down to the river to get water  and do laundry is an every day occurrence for the villagers, especially during the six months of the year when it doesn't rain very much. During the rainy season some of the houses employ crude water collection systems using tin gutters and a jug. After seeing all of the work that went into getting our water for us, I was determined to keep my shower short, which wasn't too much of a problem as the water was bone-cold anyway. (Pastor Jon playfully suggested that as long as they were going to the trouble of bringing it up, they might as well heat it for us too).

We had latrines dug just for us, with tissue. I won't go into detail on this topic, but having used the traditional hole and water method common to many parts of the world, having this small comfort was, well, a Godsend. One afternoon Jon was compelled to use a baños out in the village and it didn't turn out so well. Marco told us a story of how, in another village, a young girl went missing until her search crew finally heard her calling from the depths after she had fallen in. Fortunately she survived. The HFPM latrines were left in the village for use by the school children.

Steaks in Xoxlac

We had great food. Marco's dear wife, Mimi, had carefully planned our meals in advance and taught our two HFPM kitchen staff, Marte and Lydia, how to prepare an American feast. We're talking barbecued steak, omelets,  salads, corn-on-the-cob, fresh bread, lots of fruit and other delights. We had hot and fresh, hand-tossed tortillas with every meal.  Usually we'd eat heavy for lunch and light for dinner, perhaps just a bowl of soup with tortillas and fruit. Our meals in village were truly awesome, as they were at the mission house in Barillas. Even though we worked hard and heavily sweat, I don't think a one of us left any lighter on this mission.

Marte and Lydia prepared our meals

We had emergency medical care. A couple of years ago a HFPM volunteer on a school construction project got clobbered by a wayward hammer and at that time there was no medical staff. The organization has since provided nursing services for its mission trips. We had Nurse Jacqueline, or Jackie, with us, a contract nurse from Barillas. Nurse Jackie was well qualified for the job. She received three years of rigorous medical training at a school near Guatemala City, one of 50 accepted into the program out of more than three-times that many applicants. She was just one of 16 in her class to graduate.

Nurse Jackie treats Doug's hand cut

Jackie attends to Pastor Jon

Nurse Jackie came in handy.  I think it was the first afternoon when Doug and I were just finishing up a stove pipe installation. Doug was notching the roof with tin snips when suddenly blood began gushing from his left hand, onto the ground and really all over. Somehow he was able to finish the job before he took time to deal with it. I grabbed my little first-aid kit and we cleaned his soot-covered wound as best we could with moist towelettes and alcohol swaps and were able to apply gauze and a big bandage over about a three-inch gash. Then Doug stretched his fingerless sailing glove over his hand to keep the dressing in place. Later, Jackie did a more thorough job and re-patched it several times over the next two days. Fortunately no stitches were needed. Pastor Jon suffered a little boo-boo too that he reluctantly had Jackie care for. Maxx became ill one evening but I do not know if he paid a visit to Jackie or not. When not nursing, Jackie helped out the field, teaming mostly with Steve Drury and John Kirk.

We had comfortable sleeping quarters. Hands for Peacemaking brought in mattresses and bedding for our team and for staff, which were plunked down on the floor of the school house for our use. Each night the bedding would be freshly folded at the head of our beds.

We had laundry.   Not in the village itself, but when we returned to Barillas our dirties were turned into the HFPM staff at the mission house and were laid out nicely for us the next morning. The only problem was they were all mixed together so we had to kind of go through the piles and claim what was ours. Learning from last year, Doug had pre-marked his stuff with his first initial. I'm still not sure if the Hanes I grabbed were all mine.

We had Wi-Fi.   Again, not in Xoxlac but at the mission house. Willy, Marco's right-hand man, lent his personal laptop to our team so we could take turns checking our email, news and sports scores. We could also connect with our smart phones. Service was sporadic but still available. Unfortunately I had somehow locked myself out of my blogger software and my recovery system requires cell service, which I didn't have.

We had emergency cell service. Giant cell towers are a part of the landscape. Amazingly, a lot of the villagers living in huts with tin roofs, rotting siding and mud floors have cell phones. One family, clearly better off than most, even video-recorded almost our entire stove installation on their smart phone. Apparently those with phones use a pay-as-you go type of plan.

One of my personal highlights was being able to borrow Willy's Blackberry while in Xoxlac. Standing at the edge of a ravine where the signal was stronger, he dialed my daughter Hillary's phone number and I was able to reach her - all the way in Connecticut where she attends school - so that I could wish her a happy 22nd birthday. I kept our conversation short, but what a thrill it was to hear her voice and be able to send birthday greetings all the way from one of the more remote regions of the world. 

A lesson in process management and teamsmanship

On the ride into work today a co-vanpooler asked my thoughts about interrelationships within the workplace and we got into a whole discussion about team dynamics. She asked how one can best tell if the right people are truly suited for the job in order to be able to focus on the work.

I immediately thought about our experience in Guatemala and the dynamics that went into play as we got on with the task of assembling stoves. It occurred to me that what we really had was a work place, with an extremely diverse team to do a very specific job.  The Marine View team itself was diverse, with a mixture of ages, occupations, educational levels and backgrounds among the eight of us. Add our village guides, the Hands of Peacemaking staff and sometimes the hut owners themselves stepping in to help, throw in some language barriers and you have one of the more diverse teams imaginable.

Yet, after the first stove or two, we all knew what needed to be done and, together, especially in our small stove installation teams we were able to focus on the task at hand. We didn't need to talk to each other, we all just knew that certain pieces had to be fitted in a certain order (legs on first, big bolt or little bolt, washers, leveling, install stove pipe, etc.). We had deadlines. We had pride of workmanship. And we all had some skin in the game.

Step by step, stove by stove, we continued to improve as we went along, and by the end of our time we were all just, well, pretty darn good.  In manufacturing process lingo, we were about as "lean" as could be (despite the distractions of being watched constantly by children, the chickens clucking around us and at times unbearable heat while we worked).

What if all teams worked together this efficiently? What if we all just went about our business each day, dedicated to the task at hand and be able to partner with others who were equally as dedicated to work so closely together to get the job done, without regard to title or position? Okay, perhaps I'm sounding a little utopian here but you no doubt get the point. So let's all go forth and install some proverbial stoves.

91 Guatemalan Stoves by the Wall

Guatemalan family with their new stove 

Since our mission was about stoves - sort of - I should write about stoves. To recap what I wrote previously, Marco with Hands for Peacemaking insists the mission is not about the stoves, it's about building friends and lasting relationships, and sharing God's love.

But you get eight guys together, break them into teams of two, and send them out in the field to reach a certain goal and it becomes more about the stoves than I think anyone would like to admit.

We received our Aller stove put-together training at the big shop behind the mission house in Barillas. Thankfully the disassembled stoves were already waiting for us at each household in Xoxlac. The Hands for Peacemaking staff had trucked in about 100 stoves to the village and with the help of the locals hauled them to each house - not such an easy feat considering that some of these houses were either way, way up or way, way down steep and rocky trails well away from the core village. Just hiking to each one was often a challenge.

Bearnabay hauling tools up the hill

Each team was assigned a village guide, and this guide, very porter-like, would haul our hefty tool bag to each house on their shoulders. In the tool bag would be hammers, electric drills, levels, rasps, files, nut drivers, wrenches, two kinds of wire, tin snips, screw drivers, a hack saw, a tape measure and other assorted weaponry.

So we'd arrive at each hut, announce ourselves to the family with a friendly buenos días, maybe give the kids some of the candy John had purchased and get to work. Most of the huts had a separate cooking building so that is where the stove would go.

Lying around somewhere on the premises would be the stove fire box. Inside or somewhere around each box was a package of nuts, bolts of two sizes, and washers; four stove legs; two shelves, shelf braces, three sheet metal stove pipes, three pipe elbows, a top piece we called the "sombrero," soft metal loop pipe braces, six protector strips, wire mesh, a set of pre-cut bricks to line the inside of the fire box, the stove top and a handle to lift the burners. The homeowner was responsible for supplying two boards on which to rest the stove.

Larry assembles a stove

Each team developed slightly different processes for putting the works together. Some would build the stove mostly outside where it was bright and light, first carefully measuring the door to ensure that it would fit through once the shelves were installed. Others would do most of the stove assembly on the darker inside, which was the case mostly with Doug and I. Typically Doug, our guide Bearnabay and I would set to work bolting the stove together while our friendly assistant from Hands for Peacemaking, Dahgo, would begin the  ground leveling operation (we decided we'd be fine with letting him do it after our little experience with fire ants). The idea was that the ground would be level and the stove put together about the same time. It didn't always work that way, but usually pretty close. In almost all instances the tightly-fitting brick liners would be too tight and someone would have to file down the bricks until they would fit. Again, good jobs for Dahgo and Bearnaby, neither of whom spoke any English. 

In a typical installation Bernabay, left, and Dahgo put protective wire mesh
around the braced stove pipe after assembly.

While that was going on we'd go to work installing the stove pipe. One elbow would go out the back of the stove to attach to a pipe going straight up the inside of the house. Another elbow would go to a vertical pipe that normally would go straight under the open eve (sometimes the eve wasn't all that open and we'd have to improvise a bit). The top horizontal pipe would then go out to the roof, where another elbow would be placed and attached to the third vertical pipe. The horizontal piece would always have to be cut to match the distance between the side of the house and the roof, a tedious task that both Doug and I learned quickly to hate. To fit the top vertical piece we (almost always Doug I should say) would stand on something high to notch a small piece out of the tin roof as a way of securing the pipe. We'd secure the pipe to the inside of the house and eves with A-nails over the pipe brace. Sometimes, if the hut was particularly shoddy or made with soft wood, finding a place to put these braces was a challenge. Occasionally we'd fortify the roof or the eves with bailing wire, which will be fine in the short-term but will likely rust with heavy rains. 

Doug wrestles with roof installation

As soon as the top piece was on, we'd ask the lady of the house to light a fire. Then we'd show her and the family the smoke outside. Before leaving we would have a little blessing ceremony and present each family with an adult, Spanish-language Bible and a kids' Bible if kids were around. We'd also snap their photo by the stove so we could print it with our portable printer and present it to them in the closing ceremony to help mark this important day.

Each house was different so there was no "one size fits all design," but we became better and better as the job went on. The first day we ran into a number of problems early so only built four stoves, including the first two in the same location. The second day we installed six, three in the morning and three after lunch. On the third day we managed seven, and the fourth day, which was just a half-day, we eked out three more. Jon Schmick and Maxx Snyder had the best day - they installed nine stoves one one day and I believe eight on another. Other teams had varying degrees of success. At the end of each day we'd rap about what worked best and try to adopt best practices from one another.

Fire in the hole!

All in all we collectively put together 91 stoves! Not bad considering the previous year's team, which assembled a slightly different model but had six more people, installed 62. Our initial goal was 100, but no one really expected we'd do that. Marco had to make a run to Barillas to sign some papers and picked up more stoves to make a total of 104. By now, the villagers who had helped us were well trained on stove installation and would assemble the rest themselves with tools left behind. Hands for Peacemaking will follow up and make sure the villagers know how to periodically clean and maintain stoves too. 

Trying out the new stove

Now you're cookin' grandma!

           

The Where We Were

View overlooking downtown Xoxlac

As a team we'd read about Xoxlac, saw it on the map and looked at a small photo or two on the advanced information provided by Hands for Peacemaking.   But of course we really wouldn't get a true sense of the place until we were there, on the ground and could see this northern Mayan village for ourselves.

Town jail

Downtown Xoxlac consists of four churches, a crude play yard, a school compound and a health clinic. There are a couple of Tiendas (small roadside stores that sell mostly junk food like chips and pop). If you know what you're looking for you can look up the hill and see the town jail - a tiny, low-slung building where they will throw in chronic drunks or other miscreants for a few hours or, depending on the severity of the crime, up to a day or two. If that doesn't do the trick the offender will face the whole town on the next offense where they will beat him or her silly. I got the feeling there isn't a court of law, attorneys or the like. Call it the Xoxlac justice system.  The town is generally peaceful, and you can't buy alcohol there, so its jail doesn't get much use.

Turkey on the hill

Just up another hill overlooking the village is a compound where some of the women and teen girls bring their corn each morning to be ground. There's a guy who has a little gas-powered grinder and for a few Quezels he can spare them the labor-itensive process of hand-grinding the meal, which is used primarily for tortillas. The line was fairly long the morning Larry and I climbed up to look inside the grinding shack. We were met along the way by a big tom turkey, suitable for any Thanksgiving table.

Mr. Corn Grinder helps a client with his mean grinding machine

Here's how to get to get to Xoxlac: Find the city of Barillas, wind your way through narrow, crazy streets and around the street vendors while avoiding dogs and pedestrians, until you're on the other side of town. Climb the hill past the old coffee plant that was hit in the middle of the night by a devastating mudslide last fall, killing 11, and just keep going. You'll pass through many small villages along the way and the roads, save a few places where paved, will just keep getting worse. If you make a wrong turn you'll probably land in Mexico, possibly in the hands of the cartel drug traffickers known to frequent other parts of northern Guatemala. (We were told this wasn't a concern in our particular region).

Eventually you'll see a gravel road that cuts sharply to the left and up. Take that. Drive another hour or so, passing a huge tree on the right growing out of a deep valley, past the areas where the locals have supplanted corn on the slopes where trees once stood.  Shortly after seeing a scrawny dog standing on a big berm you'll reach a T-intersection.

Scrawny dog on the berm

Go right for another couple of miles and you're there. Oh, I should mention that if you don't have a sturdy four-wheel drive vehicle or a big dirt bike you probably won't make it as there are too many serious hills to climb and rocks to jump over. Someone in our group compared the drive to Xoxlac to one of those Ford truck or Jeep commercials where they are trying to prove the toughness of their latest model. Only more so. Pastor Jon waggishly described the road as a "no nose picker." Rueben called it pure "shake and bake." Three of our team (Larry, Maxx and John) chose to make the long trip standing in the back of a Toyota pickup.  They have my greatest admiration, and hopefully their chiropractors' as well.

We were told that each morning around 1 a.m. a pickup truck with a standing rack passes through Xoxlac and other villages and as many as 30 people will climb in the back to make the long bumpy ride to Barillas for shopping, work and the like. I wouldn't have believed this, except one morning I awoke to the sounds of voices outside, dogs barking and then a truck rumbling through.

On his first trip to Xoxlac a few years ago, our host, Marco, had to unexpectedly spend the night after his hefty Landcruiser got stuck in the mud on the trip out.  It poured all night, pelting the tin roof on his makeshift lodging in the school house so he didn't sleep. The next morning he had to walk five hours to a distant village to meet his help. Worried his wife sick as she'd been expecting him home. Marco has a winch for his vehicle now in case this ever happens again, but it has yet to be installed.

A warm welcome from the Xoxlacians

There is probably a linguist somewhere who can tell us whether the proper way to describe people who live in Xoxlac as Xoxlacians, Xoxlites, Xociables for Xoclettiers. I don't really know, but I do know that these resourceful band of Mayan villagers do know how to throw a good welcoming ceremony.

Larry shows photos

As we arrived at the village a little after 5 p.m. Sunday, there were dozens of villagers lined up along the road to greet us, the young and the old and all in their best dress. Fireworks started lighting off immediately and we were greeted with open arms and gentle embraces.

We would learn later than we were the first Americans - and most likely the first Caucasions - to ever enter the village. The reason: While there are many mission groups that come to Guatemala, few venture the distance that our team did. Most are centered in the major population areas.

John Kirk makes friends with the kids. They dissed me.

We got all of our gear off the Landcruiser caravan and the villagers well, just kind of took over. The men got our luggage off the truck and stacked it at the doorstep of the school building where we would stay. Meanwhile, teammate John Kirk, who is fluent in Spanish, went right to work with the kids. He gathered them around, giving candy, smiles, warm greetings and otherwise breaking barriers.  (I tried for a time to infringe on this little party, asking Jon to ask the kids if they could gather around me for a photo. They were shy and refused, to which John said with a smile, "you gotta make friends first, Brian!"  Language barriers, ugh! Plus I didn't have any candy). John had also purchased two new soccer balls in Barillas and threw them out to the kids right away. They really liked the balls, forming teams and playing away in their big, rut-filled field with a big rock in the middle of it.

Xoxlac kids for teams for a soccer game. John Kirk brought the ball.

Marco, our Hands for Peacemaking host, also told us that the kids love seeing their pictures on our digital cameras.  Guatemala mission veteran Larry Schmick remembered, and proceeded to take kid photos and make friends that way too.

After settling in we were invited back to the central compound, where Pedro, the headmaster for the village school, collaborated with Marco on a formal introduction ceremony. The villagers gathered around and after some introductory comments and overcoming technical problems with the microphone, we were each invited to introduce ourselves. We all knew enough Spanish to state our names and after each introduction Marco would ask the crowd to repeat our names again and again until the villagers could say them.

Villagers stand in line to sign, or thumb, contracts for stoves

After this ceremony the villagers congregated for the most important part of the evening - signing their contracts for the stoves. This was the deal: Each family would pay for part of their own stove (or probably the whole thing, they thought). In exchange they would be obligated to participate in a village clean-up project (trash was all over the place in this village as with many others) and remove their old stove or open fire system from their cooking area. And if for whatever reason they welch on their contract, their extended family or fellow villagers pick up the share. Peer pressure, yeah. Some of these people don't know how to write, so sealed the deal with thumbprints. I think Pastor Jon got a photo of this so hopefully he'll send.

Meantime, we had a team dinner, got a feel for the place and, after a very long drive, settled into our nice new digs on the mattresses in the schoolhouse. Jon, Rueben and I attended a rather lengthy  evening church service, sitting in the back pew behind the women's side (men and boys on one side, women and young children on the other).  Okay, I was the first to bail because I couldn't understand a word they said (the sermon was in their native Mayan language of Q'anjobal), other than to hear "Washington" and see folks turn around and smile at us at one point. Jon gave me grief about bailing later, so hey, I had to point out that he bailed shortly after I did too. Any Marine View readers feel this way after one of Jon's services? :-)

We would get up early Monday to start stove installation, but tonight we would rest and prepare for a busy day ahead.

First Cougs in Xoxlac (with Doug DeVries)

And Rueben Swept

One of the points of a short-term mission we had learned - from Pastor Jon, from our advanced readings, and from Hands for Peacemaking staff, was that we were there truly to serve and that, by doing so, we would feel especially graced and humble by the act of helping others who have so little by our Western standards.

Rueben in the Landcruiser

While we all did our jobs in building stoves and making friends among the villagers, no one among us took this to heart as much as our teammate Rueben Weeks. Rueben told us during devotions one evening that, while growing up in Fairhope Alabama, he spent a lot of his youth in the fields picking pecks of potatoes (there are 20.5 pounds of potatoes in a peck) for something like three pennies each. The farmer would get Rueben and his fellow pickers to the farm, but come payday would dock them the price of lunch and other "expenses," leaving them with a very short check. He looks back now and sees this as latter-day form of legalized slavery.

After losing his natural mother at age nine, Rueben went on to a troubled childhood which lasted well into his adult years.  Perhaps it was that humble background, along with a strong sense of justice for those less fortunate than himself, that drove Rueben to really practice what was being preached while we were in Xoxlac.

Today, at 63, Rueben is a man of strong faith who during our mission could be seen reading the Bible while the rest of us on the team might be engrossed in a good spy novel or other secular fare. We also learned that Rueben is an eloquent master of the spoken prayer and Doug would call on him frequently to say grace before meals.

Rueben on water duty

This isn't to say that the rest of us didn't work hard and show our faith by example to the village. We did. But Rueben would go the extra mile, helping the water carriers by lifting their three-gallon jugs into the large cisterns after bringing them up the hill, and helping our kitchen crew with kitchen duties like sweeping and washing the dishes. He would sometimes disappear for a time, usually to offer a hand to someone else.

On the return plane ride to Houston from Gautemala City, Rueben met a man from another mission team from Mobile, Alabama - just across the bay from Fairhope.  By happenstance they had same-aisle seats and during in-flight conversation determined they both graduated from rival high schools in the same year and knew many people in common, including one of Rueben's cousins still living in the south. So not only did Rueben make friends in the village, but just about everywhere he went on our mission. A true inspiration, that Rueben.

Rueben and I at the airport in Guatemala City

Of Monster Bugs, Fire Ants and other Crazy Crawlies

We quickly learned to expect the unexpected around the village of Xoxlac, including a big bugs, attack moths and other creepy crawlies, especially at night.

When I went out to wash my hands after dinner the first night, a big black "Rhino Beetle" about the size of a shoehorn was legs up and squirming in the sink. Thought I took a picture but can't find it now so if one of the team members reads this and has one please send.

Moth on latrine door

The doors of the two metal latrines up the hill, well lit and shiny and night, were caked with large moths and other winged creatures.

I tried to read by flashlight at night but soon learned that I could not because the bugs would see my little light as a big bullseye and soon swarm all over my book. There was no way to keep the bugs out as the school had open eves. In fact the Hands for Peacemaking staff sealed off the dining area with Visqueen in the rafters to keep out the resident bat population.

One night John Kirk introduced us to a moth with a wingspan of a legal male Dungeness crab that had gotten into the school house. Later while reading the same fellow tried to settle on my hand. I didn't want to kill him, so shooed it away. That  just made it mad. The heart-shaped apparation winged beast quickly started dive-bombing my hands and face. I yelped quietly as I tried to push him off me..it eventually settled down on my blanket, which I considered a happy compromise. The next morning, we saw that he had made his way over to Steve's boot, where he stayed for some time and even posed for photographs.

Our attack moth settled on Steve's boot at foot of his bed

I think it was that night, while I was inside printing photos on the portable printer Jon Schmick had brought, that John Kirk spied a hand-size something or other with big red eyes and yellow-brown body that was clinging to the wall of the school house. He was able to grab a photo and if he sends it to me I will post it here.

Another night, while we were in the middle of devotions outside of the dining hall, we heard an urgent "psst" of sorts from one of the villagers to another small group near us. The villagers took off to see what was going on, and Jon Kirk followed. When he returned he reported that someone had spied  a snake - he thought a deadly coral snake - over in the playing field across the road.  The villagers killed it.

One of the primary team tasks at every stop was to level the ground where the stove would be placed. This was not an especially pleasant job and especially at first proved time consuming to get the ground just so. Doug and I were working on our first installation and Doug started digging dirt with the claws of a hammer then his bare hands. Suddenly he felt a painful, burning sensation all around his fingers as he was bitten by itty bitty fire ants. A few minutes later I spelled him at this task and quickly learned for myself the horrible sting of these little nuisances as they gorged themselves on the bare flesh of my fingers. Fortunately the sting was short-lived.

Over the course of the first night I had to get up several times to, well, do what people must do when nature calls. Since the latrines were some distance away I just did the guy thing and went across the road. As I was standing there looking into the hills, I saw hundreds of flickering lights in the trees. Fireflies! We don't really get these glowbugs in the Northwest and it was kind of fun to see these small-winged creatures light up at a distance.

Later on the trip, while exploring the nature preserve in Panajachel in the Sololá district, we visited an enclosed butterfly area. Hundreds of beautiful butterflies, of which species I just don't know, were fluttering from flower to flower and very colorful to watch as we walked through the containment.

Bumping into Barillas

(Note:  I am home now, but this was a post I typed up the night of April 14 on my little smart phone after our arrival in Barillas. Due to difficulties with our Wi-Fi connection at the Mission House, and some additional technical challenges that I could not resolve while there, and unavailability of Internet in the village, I decided to save up my photos and experiences and present them in a different way in this space than "traveling blog" style. So please check back soon! - Brian).



Team with a view. From top left is John, Brian, Larry, Jon, Rueben,
then Marco, Steve, Maxx and Doug

The heavy rain, unusual for this part of the world at this time of the year, has quit pounding on the tin roof of the mission house for now. The noise if the rain has been replaced by a loud chorus of men singing in Spanish at the church nearby, part of a continuing service that's been going on for a couple of hours this evening.

We are now in Barillas, a city of about 125,000 in the upper northwest quadrant of Guatemala. The drive here from Huehuetenango was quite an adventure. Larry, who brought a GPS, reported it was just about 35 miles away as the crow flies but over the windy, hilly and bumpy "highway" it took nearly 7 hours to cover not quite 80 miles in our Landcruiser caravan through the hills of the Sierra Madris.

A cross marks the spot where a bus went over the hill, killing about 30.
Notice the posts without guardrails - locals steal them for the metal.

As we climbed out of Huehuetenango, Marco had to keep it in first gear most of the drive up to elevations as high as 11,300 feet. We had fine driving weather with sunny skies most of the way in. The road got progressively worse, marked in places with crosses or other markers where cars and busses had gone plummeting over the side. Every so often we would drive through a village or even a small city.

Lots of cities along the way have colorful hut-like cemetery
markers  like these covering a hillside or two.

In several of these cities we would see hillsides dotted with what appeared at a distance to be small colorful huts. These were actually cemeteries. We stopped at a Tienda (rough translation: crude roadside store) and bought snacks. I bought a hotdog (chaveres) from a young street vendor and had to choke it down out of sheer politeness. It was one of the worst I'd tasted. A van full of giggling young ladies took a real liking to Maxx - they insisted he climb into the van with him so I could take their picture with him. He asked me not to post it but I reserve the right!

At times we saw whole families gathered around large slaughtered animals (cows and pigs). They will take what they need and sell the rest as fast as they can as there is no refrigeration.

A reluctant Maxx with friends

As we bumped down the road into Barillas, Pastor Jon assured me that the worst of our travels was yet to come.



Steve rests his dogs after long ride

The Aller Center where we are staying tonight is quite an amazing place. We were greeted by Marco's wife Mimi and young son Alan at the gate. It is a two story building with full dining facilities and comfortable rooms. There is a large shop building out back and it was there where we learned to assemble the stoves we will be installing in the village. It is somewhat of an oasis among streets of rough cobblestone, dirt and a mixture of businesses and houses in various condition, some ramshackle and some new.



We received detailed instruction on stove assembly by Marco and his two assistants, then broke into our teams of two to build one each on our own. I am teamed with Doug, Jon Schmick with Maxx, Rueben with Larry and Steve with John Kirk. I think there will be some friendly competition on this trip as to whom can build the most stoves. Steve, an engineer, marveled at the brilliance of the latest stove design.


Team receives stove instruction from Hands for Peacemaking
stovemasters. The head stovemaker is Franklin, at right.

Marco tells us the mission isn't about the stoves really. If that were the case we should just send a check. The real point, he told us over eggs this morning, is to make friends, build relationships and share God's word.

After stove training some of us took a short walk around the neighborhood, passing through a carnival with what has to be the world's fastest ferris wheel. I mean it was spinning around at least four times faster than the ferris wheels we are used to seeing here. After Marco told us heavy winds had toppled the thing over three times in years past, none of us has any desire to get on.

After a wonderful dinner of beef and vegetable soup at the mission house Marco gave us an orientation of what to expect in the village of Xoxclac over the next few days. Pastor Jon then lead us through devotions.

He has prepared a booklet just for our mission that he entitled Upside Down Stories in the Bible. He asked us to think about both what we are going to give and receive over the next few days as we serve some of the poorest people in the world. But are they really poor even though they lack what we all have? Then the four mission veterans shared their thoughts about what it has meant to them.

The music has quieted down now. There is still some ruckus out in the streets but not unusual for a Saturday night I suppose. Tomorrow we will attend church in the city, load our bags and make the two and a half hour drive to Xoxloc. The villagers will have a welcoming ceremony for us then we will likely install our first in-home stove in late afternoon.

I won't have Internet access until we return from the village on Thursday so this will be my last blog post until then. May try to get more pics up on Facebook in the morning. The mission has been wonderful so far but the real work is ahead. Please continue to pray for the safety of our team!

In Christ,

Brian