The Road Is Finished!

Friday - June 11th, 2010

As the title would suggest, the trouble spots in the road are now finished!

This morning, Kelly notices the mosquito bites on my legs turning purple and yells at me for not using enough repellent. She then offers me hers and threatens to beat me up should I continue to neglect using the repellent. I'm glad I have friends that care that much (This is to be meant sincerely).

As for the rest of the day, we paved the area in front of the shack were we have been staying.

John helps wrangle a 6ft Boa Constrictor into a bag and thus earned some man-points. (Josh's side project for this trip is to turn John into a man).

I'm particularly tired today, also feeling kinda useless. Went to bed early.

And Now the Real Fun Begins!

June 10th 2010
Morning
Breakfast with coffee and fresh fruit - groups disperse.

Myself, both Cory's and Frommer work on the road. We are to go to the "trouble spots" and pave them so vehicles have traction going up. Others fix a roof and the rest have a VBS for the kids.

We dig out tracks then filling them with rocks and cement - this was after we originally put the rocks in the wrong spot, thus giving us Santos flashbacks.

At one point during moving the rocks, myself and Josh jumped from a moving truck.

Work is hard but productive, we will have the road finished sometime tomorrow.

We might be taking a walk to the Honduras border, but I hear thunder . . .

Since the roof and kitchen floor are done and the road work almost done, we will have time to go around the village and meet people, talk with them and maybe help with projects they may have.

Some people have gone to the waterfall for a shower, I haven't any swim trunks, so I am not one of them.

Not too long later . . .

A group of us took a trek to the border to Honduras. It was great, however, for reasons I won't go into here, I kinda walked into a tree branch and popped the lens out of my glasses. Everyone stopped to help me find it. It was foggy when we got to the border, kinda erie. A couple of people (Mike + John) decided to relieve themselves in the newly visited country.

Coming back, there was a downpour. Everyone got soaked. ALL of my clothing was drenched. My jacket, shirt, pants, socks, unmentionables, everything . . . except the pocket Bible I had with me. It was completely dry. Cory said it was because "You can't water down the Bible"

And sleeping comes waves - I fall asleep and wake up over and over again. Concrete isn't comfy.

¡Dia dos!

June 9th 2010 6:00 AM

Four hour car drive in hot van, at least there's room for everyone - more or less.

Breakfast at Sarita's - it's like their Eat'N'Park, we've been there four times over two trips to Guatemala, except there aren't any Smiley Cookies . . .

John Key has taken it upon himself to make a mark on his arm with a sharpie for every "That's what she said" moment he witnesses. He's currently got around 20 or so . . . Josh plans to "help".

Almost to the mountain: The Winiches get out of the car, into the van, then back into the car.

Soon after this almost-transaction, we take note that the air conditioner is off. The general mind sight of us all is a consensus of W . . T . . F.

Half-way up the mountain, the van breaks down. Justin and Zak choose to jog a ways whilst the rest of us wait for another truck to come along. It picks us up and we find Zak and Justin along the way - both very sweaty. We're now riding in the back of a pick-up truck, but we need not worry about carrying luggage up the muddy path to the coffee farm.

The plan was to take a hike up further to see the border between Guatemala and Honduras. However, there's too much rain.

Wanting to avoid idleness, we commence (and finish) with one of the "planned" projects - leveling the dirt floor of the kitchen and paving it with concrete.

Micheal and Lori have an accomplishment of their own: They have taught a few of the kids to say "oh no you didn't" - funny.

For some reason, a photographer has come along with us - I can't recall if I ever found out why this happened.

Dinner was awesome. Good food with some awesome Guatemalan coffee :D

Now for bed, fortunately, it's cool enough to wear full pants and a hoodie to help keep the mosquitoes at bay.

Happy 4th of July!

T'was the fourth of July this past weekend and it wouldn't be so without people drinking and playing with fire-works.

Much fun was had at the residence of Josh's relatives.

Included was food, drink and games along with the aforementioned firecrackers.

Josh and Kelly took on Frommer and Lori in a rigorous game of corn-holing in which Kelly attempted to apply the sub-standard Ohio rule-set which claims points can be scored via the bean-bag "rolling off the ground and onto the board". Said suggestion was unanimously rejected.

Later on:

-- In a conversation that shall live in infamy - John Key (the intern) earned three new nicknames: KeyJohn, KeyJ and ************ (The third nickname has been censored due to a political incorrectness violation)

-- The group of us set out into a field to set of some of the more expensive fireworks and it was loads of fun . . . until Kelly accidentally knocked over one of the tubes and almost launched the firework AT Josh's uncle. It exploded on the ground and fortunately no one was hurt.

Assemble the Team!

Monday June 8th 2010 - Day One!

The following occurs between the hours of 4:00 AM and 6:00 AM

Events occur in quasi-real time.

We mostly assemble at the Blue Violet. Mostly, in that Justin and John will meet us at the airport. A couple of us, myself and Cory included, have expertly packed all we need for the week into our carry on bag, and thus have an empty check-in bag for stuff to be donated. Said items include a few hundred tennis balls, so many tennis balls.

Mrs. Hustead is kind enough to drive us in the Hustead van - she also brings along Jimmy and a pizza.

At the airport:

As it happened, Justin fell from his attic ladder, bruising his arm, leg and body in the fall, but overall, he is ok.

I sit next to Micheal and John at the terminal and across the aisle between the seats, are Greg F. and Heather and Greg tells a story regarding a losing lottery ticket. Mike's solution is sell it to a blind man (A Dumb & Dumber reference - Jim Carey sells a dead parrot to a blind kid). After a bit of laughing, Greg comes over and informs him that the man sitting a few seats away is, himself, blind - awkward.

Not too long after, it occurs to me that there is a slight problem. After conferring with Mike and John (and Cory later), we all agree that there aren't enough single girls going on the trip (there were, in fact, zero).

We pray before boarding.

6:00 AM - 8:00 AM

Flight to Houston - on a small plane . . . with only one row of overhead compartments.

Whilst in Houston: Had 45 min to get to proper terminal and board. Made typical "cart jokes" and a couple of people grabbed some coffee in the interim.

Arrived in Guatemala City at approximately 11:00 AM Guatemala time (about the same as Rocky Mountain I would suppose)!

11:00 AM - 11:00 PM-ish

Cheerful reception from Armando, Karina and Mynor! They have a van from the school for most of us to ride in.

From the airport we paid visit to a local church and patronized a nearby hot dog stand (chefs note: Hot dogs with guacamole weren't too bad).

Our original plan was to climb a volcano the first day we were here - however, since it erupted the other week, we have to make alternate plans. These plans include some of us fixing up a house and the rest cleaning an area (Myself, Cory, Frommer, Lori, John, Greg F., Heather and Karina). This plan somehow went from cleaning ash to digging a drainage ditch near a compost site. We had barely begun to work when a rainstorm forced us to seek shelter. After a slightly too long period of wind-driven rain and thunder, we continued and actually accomplished quite a bit.

At the conclusion of the days event, we gathered at a house which is used by missionaries. From what I was told, they live there most of the year, but were away in the states visiting relatives. It was a nice house - really nice. It had electricity, running water (hot and cold), four bedrooms, four bathrooms (of which, only one did NOT have a shower), washer/dryer, dishwasher, inside a gated community and also had it's own wall, steel driveway door and security personnel.

To put this into a bit of perspective here:

1: Maybe half of the population lives below the poverty line.
2: Many people live in sheds, shantys and/or on slopes of hills due to lack of space that are vulnerable to earthquakes and mudslides.
3: Electricity and running water are, for the most part, luxuries whilst hot water is practically non-existent as we (in the states) know it.
4: Usually people claiming to be Christian missionaries will at least make an attempt to spend the most of the money spent toward helping the people of the country/community that they have traveled to, which usually doesn't lead to living in one of the nicer homes/apt in the area.
5: It was commented that this house is actually nicer than several apt/homes in the Beaver Falls area.

Devils advocate moment: While this house did (and for the most part was) on the extravagant side for Guatemala and what seemed like greed on the part of the home owners, there is still this part of me that wants to take a minute and make an attempt to see things from what may be their perspective.

(Note: These three points are speculative and not based on information gathered or learned.)

1: We did not know their income level or job status (or more specifically, the ratio of money used for this house - maybe $300 a month - to money used to help the people of Guatemala)
2: What possible requirements may or may not have come from the Church that may have been sponsoring them.
3: There could have been nicer/more expensive homes that we did not see.


Later on in the night - Laura and Edgar came by to visit. It was nice to see them and we had much to discuss.

(Travel note: I really haven't experienced the "culture shock" nor have I really felt like I have traveled over a thousand miles to a foreign country - I hope this means I'm at a point where I could go anywhere and do anything the Lord calls me to. I'm also hoping this is a correct analysis.)

From Sinkhole to Sinkhole

Tomorrow, this reporter will join 16 other people (almost 1/3 of Ignite Church) on a missions trip to Guatemala. The second trip to that country and third overall missions trip and all in the span of one year!

Going are: Pastor Cory, Josh, Kelly, Justin, John (who is also our intern), Jeremy (who is called Frommer), Lori, Zack and Natalie, The Winich family (Greg and Deb with son Michael), Heather and Greg, Corey Sobah (a co-worker of Kelly's at the infamous Olive Garden) and myself (James, who is called Quigs).

As it happens, two weeks previous to the scheduled trip - mount Pacaya erupted, sending ash into Guatemala city and temporarily closing the airport. Later, tropical storm Agatha, blew over, resulting in mudslides and a large sinkhole in the country's capitol city. The sinkhole, much like the one in East Rochester (between a Pizza Hut and Get-Go gas station) swallowed a three story clothing factory and caused an evacuation of the immediate area.

The group from Ignite will spend most of their time in a small village on a mountainside not far from the country's border to Honduras.

This reporter will document events in great detail as they unfold.

BREAKING!: President Obama Urges Congress to Outlaw Crime!

President Barrack Hussein Obama, in an emergency press conference at 4 AM this morning, urged congress to outlaw crime. The half-asleep press corpse slowly filled the room before White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs welcomed them a creepily-cheerful "Good Morning!" The Press Secretary then announced that the President would personally announce his request for Congress himself.

After the half hour that was required to set up the four tele-prompters Mr. Obama has with him at all times, the President gave this message:

"Good Morning, Due to the hour, I will be quick. Due to unprecedented amounts of crime, I have forwarded a 10,000 page bill to Congress in the hopes that they will disregard their own political parties and come together and outlaw all crime. Thank you and may Alla . . .um, I mean God, Bless America."

The 10,000 page bill, which Mr. Obama referenced during his 30-second speech, doesn't specifically outline which illegal activities will be outlawed. However, the proposed bill does make vague references to "guns", "drugs", "bad people" and "kryptonite". In a particular section, the bill also calls for all fines, jail time and other punishments to be doubled for criminals who commit crimes on Sundays. Our News-room has yet to discover what, precisely, the term "other punishments" refers to.

In the final 100 pages, the bill also enacts a special task-force to enforce this new bill. The task-force includes the following members:

RoboCop, Judge Dredd, Bobba Fett, Batman (who insisted on being the only person to enforce the new bill inside Gotham City Limits), Superman (who will enforce everything EXCEPT the section pertaining to Kryptonite), Freddy Kruger (who will assist with "thought-crime" punishment) and a contingent of 300 Spartans who will be lead by Chuck Norris, Master Chief and the spoon from "Beauty and The Beast".

The task-force will also be, occasionally, assisted by the "Super Best Friends", which, is comprised by Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Buddha, Joseph Smith, Krishna, Lao Tzu and Seaman (who insisted everyone was mis-pronouncing his name).