En Santiago

After three months in Guatemala - an experience I'll never forget - I am now residing in Santiago, Chile. Here's a look at the crazy-sweet apartment they got for me.

Chile is very different from Guatemala. It reminds me a lot of Seattle, and the Spanish here is very different. But I love it.

I live alone with my coworkers nearby - most within walking distance. Our neighborhood, Providencia, is gorgeous! There's a park every couple blocks, and biking/jogging paths everywhere. I'm going to have a pretty easy time staying in shape here.

A missionary who lives here, Cliff, has befriended me and shown me around Santiago. He taught me how to use the metro and the busses, and how to recharge minutes to my phone. He even found a bike for me to use.

Our media offices are still being built, but that hasn't kept me from working. I was in Santiago for only a week before getting on a plane and coming back to the States on assignment.

I had to meet up with a team before going to write about the earthquake in Haiti. Right now, I'm in Barahona, Dominican Republic, making contacts.

Canopy Zip-line

This was a BLAST:

Looking Back

I have described the highlights of my time in Guatemala, but I’ve really only scratched the surface.

Here are some pictures that touch on other aspects of the experience:

Goodbye Guatemala

When it came time for me to leave, Gaby, Laura and Pablo walked me to the school where I was being picked up.

Along the way, I ran into Luis one last time. He hugged me tight and told me:

“No tenga miedo. Solamenta tenga fe.”

When my ride arrived, I said goodbye to Gaby. Her eyes were glistening, but she didn't cry. When Gaby told Pablo I was leaving, he just started saying "no" over and over again, and he refused to hug me. Laura hugged me and started crying - she kept crying for as long as I could see them.

I had to wipe my eyes as the car pulled away. I am really going to miss my Guatemalan family.

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

Folk Catholicism was one of the hardest things I had to deal with while in Guatemala.

My biggest problem was in regard to Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Bible contains about two chapter’s worth on Mary – that’s it. And what the Bible says is that, though she was blessed with a miracle, she was merely a human being like us - sinful and in need of the savior.

Regardless, Mary is the star of the show in Latin America.

In one church I saw, the alter-piece was a porcelain statue of Mary surrounded by ornate gold. Above this, a modest wooden carving of Jesus hung on a plaster wall. It wasn’t hard to see who was more prominent in the hearts of the Church members.

The people believe that Mary, like Jesus, was sinless. They also believe that Mary, like Jesus, helps to save us from our sins. And they believe that Mary, like Jesus, hears our prayers.

Shortly after Christmas, San Juan prepared for “The Procession of the Virgin.” They hung lamps and decorated the street with dyed sawdust in colorful designs. Like Jerusalem laying out palm branches, they prepared a path for Mary.

Then, they waited nearly all night for the procession. In the chilly darkness, we could hear a band playing and the hum of an electric generator being dragged through the street. Lights danced on the cobblestones, and people began to appear waving incense burners. Suddenly, a crowd turned the corner and began making it’s way up the street. On their weary backs they carried a huge, lit-up platform. And on this platform, an angelic statue of Mary surrounded by the disciples was illuminated by lights.

All night, the band played as the crowd followed Mary through the streets of San Juan.

I never saw a procession like that for Jesus.

The heart-breaking thing was that the people don’t really believe the Jesus is enough to save them. They believe they need Mary. They believe they need the Church. They believe they need to live "a good life." Only then, do they think they have any hope for Salvation.

And they believe this because they un-questioningly accept everything the church has ever told them. They don’t use critical thinking at all. And they don’t believe they can understand the Bible for themselves.

So when we shared our faith with the people of San Juan, we focused on reading the Bible, and on Jesus. We did everything we could to demonstrate a faithfulness to Scripture, and an obsession with Christ alone.

Though Latin America is nominally Christian, they do not know the saving power and love of Jesus Christ. My friends and I have since moved on from Guatemala, but our work is the same – to share JESUS with these people.

Feeding Robbers

There are many people living on the streets in Antigua. The older people sit and beg. The children try to sell trinkets. And the teenagers hand out nightclub fliers.

I got to know three of the flier guys.

They stopped me as I was walking by one night. They offered me drugs (a daily experience for me in Guatemala) and women (not so common) but were content to chat when they realized I didn’t want anything from them. Their names were Oman, Juan Carlos, and David.

After a minute, they asked if I would be willing to buy them some food. So I walked with them to Pollo Campero and got them something to eat.

A couple days later, I saw Oman and Juan Carlos again, and offered to buy them some coffee. We talked some more, and I heard about their lives. They said that living on the street was hard. They never knew where their next meal would come from or where they would sleep at night.

Oman confided in me that he struggled with drug addiction. He told me he had Jesus in his life and was a new person, but drugs were hard.

Juan Carlos said he had family in another town and wanted to visit them. But he couldn’t without money. He loved his little brothers and sisters and wanted to be able to take care of them.

“We do anything we can man,” Juan Carlos told me. “We work. We beg. …Sometimes we even rob. We’re just trying to survive, man.”

I ran into Oman and Juan Carlos one more time before I left. I bought them some Pollo Campero again and shared with them about how Jesus changes lives. They told me that they wouldn’t forget about me. Helping them out had really made a difference to them.

[Photo borrowed]

As I shook their hands for the last time, Juan Carlos' comment about robbing to survive echoed in my mind.

These were not the same three guys who had robbed my friends and me. But these were three guys in the same situation, making the same decisions. And God had led me to buy dinner for them and talk with them, just like I had wanted to do with the others.

He had given me the chance to share the love of Jesus with three guys who were just like our robbers.

Volcanoes and Robbers

On one of our last free weekends in Guatemala, a few of us decided to climb Volcan Agua. Luis was supposed to come with us as our guide, because we had heard about how dangerous it is for gringos to be alone in the mountains. But at the last minute he was unable to come – so we left without him.

The climb up the volcano was pretty. We were moving through lush jungle and every new height gave us a different view of the expanding landscape. It would have been prettier if the path hadn’t been carpeted with litter. We were almost wading through trash the whole way.

At the top of the volcano, we rested in the dormant crater, ate lunch and took pictures. Though exhausted, we were in good spirits, and made our way back down the mountain, greeting those we passed and stopping to pray for the city we were returning to.

But near the end of our climb down, I suddenly heard Corey yelling.

As we came around a bend in the path, three young Guatemalan men wielding machetes suddenly jumped out of the bushes. Shirts wrapped around their heads covered their faces, exposing only their frantic eyes.

Corey – called “Oso” (bear) by the Guatemalans - began waving his arms and yelling in Spanish for the bandits to leave. He was worried we’d have to fight for our lives. But when the lead robber chose to throw a rock rather than use his machete, Corey realized they weren’t going hurt us. They only wanted our things.

Panicked, the robbers yelled at us to stay quiet and give them our bags. I handed my backpack to the one closest to me and sat down on the ground. Corey told all of us to just stay calm, and I nodded in agreement. It was best to just stay out of their way and wait for them to leave.

They cut my bag open – the machetes were apparently very sharp – and took some cash.

From the others they took cameras and cell phones. Parker, bold as usual, asked if he could keep the memory card from his camera. Surprisingly, they let both he and Landon take their cards back.

Then, just as quickly as they had appeared, they left.

“Quieres mantequilla de maní?” (You want Peanut Butter?), Corey yelled after them sarcastically. They hadn’t taken our lunch supplies.

In town, we reported the robbery to the police and got a ride back to San Juan. When we told our host families about what had happened, we found out how lucky we had been. They weren’t surprised we had been robbed, but they were surprised by how.

When bandits rob gringos, they typically have guns instead of machetes - and they use the guns. They also take everything, even clothes, leaving their victims naked in the wilderness. And if there’s a girl, like there was with us, they usually take her with them.

God had totally been protecting us. We had avoided guns, total robbery, and kidnapping. I guess if you’re going to get robbed, it’s best to get robbed by amateurs.

I had some trouble sleeping after that. I had always believed that people are sinful and capable of hurting each other, but I hadn’t really encountered it so strongly before. The experience left me feeling exposed and vulnerable. I now have a much more accurate perception of human nature.

The next couple days, those of us who had been robbed talked with each other to process what had happened. Some were angry. Some were shaken. But we all agreed that we had handled the situation as best we could.

Surprisingly, I was not angry at our robbers. They were three stupid kids going down a road they would someday regret. More than anything, I wished I could buy them dinner, talk with them about their lives and share the love of Jesus with them.

La Esperanza

While in Guatemala, our group obtained a video called “La Esperanza” (The Hope). The video uses Spanish-speaking narrators to give an overview of the Bible - focusing on the gospel message.

With the school’s permission, Rocky and David arranged to have a public showing of the video at the APPA San Juan campus. We borrowed some projection equipment, arranged for tamales and punch to be served, and invited all of our friends and families in San Juan to come and watch the show. Almost every seat was filled with a bundled up Guatemalan on the chilly night the video was shown.

The feedback we received was wonderful. People loved being able to hear a clear gospel message in their own language. My own teacher told me she was so moved by the story, she almost cried at three different points during the movie. The Good News is very good news if we can just give it to people in a way they will understand.

Holidays

During the holidays, Latin America is one party after another. We got to experience all of it.

The Day of the Devil is the day they symbolically rid their homes of demons by collecting their junk and burning it in the street. The day culminates in strapping fireworks to a piñata representation of Satan and blowing him up. Some of the boys and I were visiting a friend in the Capital on this day and had the pleasure of blowing up our own Satan effigy.

Christmas is a little different in Latin America. Though some families have a Christmas tree of sorts, the real center-piece of the decorations is the family Nativity Scene. They pour hours of work into creating a complex landscape of figurines, showing all of life rejoicing the coming of Christ. Some had whole menageries of animals. Some had tiny waterfalls. My family had a wedding in theirs. But the mangers remain empty until the stroke of midnight Christmas Eve, when each family prayerfully places the baby in the manger, and the entire town erupts in cacophonous firework explosions to celebrate the coming of the King.

The day after Christmas, San Juan hosts an enormous Parade competition. The families who enter spend months preparing – building floats, making costumes, rehearsing dances. Because Rachel, Landon and I were living in the same extended family, we were invited to participate in that family’s entry: A dancing pirate crew. In the month before the event, we practiced once or twice each week. They taught us some common Guatemalan dances, and Rachel taught them the Electric Slide and Cupid Shuffle. When the competition finally arrived, we donned our pirate garb and spent four hours dancing through the cobble-stoned streets. In the end, they never announced a winner, but we had a good time.

New Years Eve, my friends and I were hanging out in a house near the top of the hill. This afforded us a view of Antigua and it’s surrounding villages in the valley. We gazed in awe as an entire landscape of fireworks appeared all around us and out before us. I had never seen anything like it before.

Each special day was accompanied by Guatemala’s traditional holiday food – tamales and punch. Guatemalan punch is served warm and is like cider filled with chunks of fruit. It’s delicious.

My family always invited me to share in their holiday celebrations with their extended family. I opened Christmas gifts with their kids and cousins. I visited their grandparents for holiday food. And I shared in their New Years Eve bar-b-que. They adopted me into their family and shared with me as though I was one of their own. I was touched by the love they showed me, and will never forget my holiday season with my San Juan family.

The Guardería

David had worked with Children in his church back in the states, and wanted to also minister to the children of San Juan. With the help of his language instructor, he arranged for us to visit the local daycare for an hour each week. David had studied Spanish in college, so he was fluent enough to lead our visits.

When we arrived, the children would cheer and eagerly arrange themselves at a table. Then one of us would share a Bible story with them.

One week we talked about Creation, and the kids drew pictures of the story. Another week, we talked about Jesus being the good shepherd, and the kids used cotton balls to decorate pictures of sheep. And another time, we told the story of the Good Samaritan, and the kids acted out the story.

We then ended each visit by singing songs with the kids in Spanish, usually with hand motions. Then we handed out candy to each of them. As we left, the kids would hug us and give us high-fives.

They were always excited to see us come and sad to see us go. Our visits gave us the chance to practice some Spanish, but more than that, it gave us a chance to share the love of Jesus with the kids.

Culture Shock

When you live internationally, culture shock happens. And not just once. Like a bad hair day, it comes and goes and comes back.

Whether it was cold “widow-maker” showers, constant firecracker explosions, eating beans with every meal or walking through trash-strewn streets, we all felt it from time to time. For those living in households afflicted by alcoholism, it was sometimes worse.

Given time, we could get used to most things – some of us even developed a taste for beans. What was harder to get used to was existing in a context of political corruption and social chaos.

[Photo borrowed]

As we prepared to return to San Juan after visiting other missionaries in Panahachel for Thanksgiving, we received word from some friends who were already on the road.

A taxi driver had pulled up beside a Chicken Bus and shot the driver, making the bus full of people almost go off a cliff. Apparently, the taxi drivers are trying to extort money from the bus drivers by threatening to kill them in this way.

When a couple bus drivers further down the road heard about this, they used their busses to block the road, trapping the taxi driver ...and all other drivers.

This enabled the police to catch the taxi driver they thought did the shooting. Only that's not where the story ends.

Unsatisfied, the Bus drivers created a mob around the police station demanding that the suspected taxi driver be killed ...without a trial. This mob burned tires to block the roads around the police station, and even blew up a police car.

When they starting burning down the police station, the police turned over the taxi driver along with 2 women suspected of being accomplices. The mob dragged all three people into the street, doused them in gasoline and burned them alive.

The next day, eleven bus drivers were shot in the Capital.

I can't wrap my mind around how anyone could think extortion, threats and murder are a good idea. There's no possible way that kind of plan could work out for anyone.

And I was shocked that there's no due process. In Guatemala, people are assumed guilty until proven innocent, and mobs are permitted to carry out lynching.

And then there’s the whole issue of burning people alive. The people there rationalize that it's the “traditional Mayan execution,” but there is no context to justify that sort of thing. I don’t know why they want to emulate a fallen civilization anyway.

Hearing this whole story as it unfolded helped me to appreciate the systems we have in place in the States. I’d suffer bureaucracy for the sake of security any day.

Ceclie

One of the international students who spent some time with us at the San Juan campus was a Norwegian medical student named Cecilie. She was taking some time off from her studies to learn Spanish, volunteer and backpack with some friends. But for about a month, it was just she and we in San Juan, so we adopted her into our group.

Our friendship with her was greatly helped by the fact that she spoke fluent English.

Cecilie came with us on our big weekend road-trip to Flores, the Tikal ruins and Livingston. The hours-long van rides gave us plenty of time to talk and get to know her. To my delight she loved to discuss big topics. We covered everything from the death penalty, to the welfare state to the nature of humanity.

Though she and I operated from very different assumptions and usually had contrary opinions, we loved talking to each other. She was able to talk light-heartedly about deep issues. And even though we never drew definitive conclusions on anything, we respected each other and learned from each other.

She was particularly interested in talking about our Christianity. She took full advantage of being surrounded by young missionaries and tapped our brains for explanations of our faith. Almost all of us shared our personal testimonies with her at some point.

The one thing we stressed was that our “religion” was not about rules, but about a relationship with God. Though she continued to subscribe to a characteristically European Humanism, she told us that we had changed her view of what it means to be a Christian.

When the time came for Cecilie to move on with her plans, she wanted to have a going away dinner to say goodbye. She told us that we had surprised her by being a family for her while she was alone in Guatemala and that she would miss us.

Getting to know Cecilie meant a lot to me, and I hope to see her again in the future. I am going to keep praying for mi amiga noruega.