“When I pray, coincidences happen, when I don’t, they don’t,” is what William Temple, an Anglican bishop, wrote years ago. The truth of that statement repeats itself often in my life and it happened again in Guatemala this past week. Sadly, we were unable to return to the neighborhood where we have previously built homes. Consequently we could not visit with the families we’d made connections with on previous trips. In the mission field, one accepts the constraints of schedules and locations leaving to God the hopes and inclinations one has. So I let go of any idea that we might be able to get back to the “old” neighborhood and pass along greetings from people back home who helped construct
Arrived at All Souls around 5:10 to the sight of many cars and families. Home to beds... Praising God for it all!
Everyone reconvened at Hotel del Marques by 6:00 and Sergio closed out our week with a stellar meal. Our hostess gave each of us farewell remembrances and we had evening worship and a closing circle, All Souls style. We had senior blessings for Cat and Will Strauch (who were away on Senior Sunday). Several long time mission veterans expressed their deep appreciation for Renee's leadership of ASSIST-JC and many joined in. And now we've mostly packed our bags for morning. Breakfast's at 8 and the busses leave here at 9:30 for yhe airport. Our flight leaves at a minute to 2:00 pm (supposedly!). If all goes well, we'll arrive in Boston at 1:05 a.m. Then we have to collect our bags and load th
https://www.facebook.com/carol.j.sherman/posts/10155368593072567 Again, these posted to Carol's FB page
As you can see from the photos on FB, it's been a truly wonderful day. It's the first truly hot morning we've had--and it was steamy. The low clouds and relatively light rains that inconvenienced us all week (and we learned they greatly need the rain) actually kept working conditions more tolerable than if we'd had a week of this morning's heat . But as it has all week long, showers arrived around 11:30. Our house dedications were moving and tearful for each team has made deep connections with the families. As one site finished up, a team member stood on the homeowner's outdoor toilet bowl to reach the eaves, only to have it break. Not a good situation to leave our new friends to face! S
Good morning, friends and family😊 So far, so good this morning! Our work site teams had their debriefing sessions last night and later the "After Hours Mens Crafters Group of All Souls" (meets every two years in Guatemala; open to new members!) helped the Bible School team de-sticker the dishes we had brought from home as house gifts for the families. This morning we'll return to Ciudad Vieja for the house dedications. We'll take the mile and a half hike for the last time (the last half mile up a steep hill that has made for good conversations --between huffing and puffing for many). And we'll have a street party with the neighborhood before heading back to the hotel. Rumor has it Bruce h
No more quaking ground beneath oir feet after the 6:30ish (am) "tremblar". Those of us at the market had a clear view of how Fuego reacted to the quake, and folks still waking up back at the hotel were a bit rattled. But by 7 when Sergio and his crew brought breakfast out, we were all moving on with the workday. We had good weather til about 11:30 again and made great progress installing walls and painting the rest of the wall panals. As you can see in the photos, every team was buildingvin extremely tight space so as we got to enclosing the frames, teens took turns working alongside the adults. Lots of action playing with neighborhood kids in the street. All houses were complete by quitting
https://www.facebook.com/carol.j.sherman/posts/10155362068582567
About 20 of us got up early to see the mind-boggling market this morning. We had the unexpected memorable experience of a "trembler" (spanish for earthquake) and seeing Fuego's belch if smoke and lava. Because we know it might be mentioned in the news, we want you to know we're all just fine! More photos later. (See photos on FB. Blog isn't uploading them.)
Hopefully, the pictures pn FB (assistjc and mine) tell the story pf today well enough. We had a productive morning of painting and getting a few wall panels in place on most houses. Rain at lunch slowed things down for the afternoon and kept the bible school team from returning to "our neighborhood" after lunch. But their ways of entertaining themselves and each other clearly gave some local fellows a very different taste of Americans--and they were clearly amused in a giod way. Lots of rain since about 5 pm. Great dinner. On to evening program.
Good morning, family and friends back home! After a rainy night, it's a lovely morning here in Guatemala. Since several teams will begin pre-painting some of the cement boards used as walls of our houses, it will be particularly helpful to have good weather today. Everyone seems to be in good health and spirits are high. I'm going to try and put pictures up on the Assist-jc Facebook page from niw on, probably without much commentary , since it's a public site. Since the uploads are faster on FB, maybe You'll see more frequent picture postings there.
It's turning out to be 10 times easier yo put photos on Facebook than on the church blog. Not sure why--but I'm gonna go with it. Here's the link to today's photos. https://www.facebook.com/carol.j.sherman/posts/10155357297917567 No clue why the link isn't active. Cut and paste if you need to.
It's Tuesday, right? It's a bit hard to keep track! And I'm having trouble posting pictures, given just my iphone and the very slow wi-fi at the hotel and at Kairos school, our base of operations for the work. So I'll keep adding pictures as possible. The folks at Kairos asked To have two adults spend the morning with their English language classes so the children could hear Bible stories in English from some Gringos. So Renee and I stayed there while Becka and Tammy and ten of our teens led Bible School for about 45 children at a nearby school. Sorry, no pics available, but they reported a great morning. Building teams had some rain to deal with in the morning, but afternoon conditions were
After dinner and delicious desserts, we had an hour for games and conversations. We gathered for Evening worship with Mission Discovery's Derek and Jimmy, and then our own Assist-jc style debriefings. photos of the breakfast that will provide fuel for our morning.
We're here at last! It's Monday morning and the teams are going to their worksites. And I'm taking a few moments to let you folks back home know how we're doing. Accompanying photos will chronicle our experiences. We got off to a great start Saturday night, loading the Cyr bus with the help of Mike Warmuth and Dave Boomer. Then Renee led our team meeting and the trip officially began. We got to Logan airport around 3:30 a.m. and as all the travel teams began to check in, we were dumfounded and dismayed to find two passports had been left back at church through no fault of their owners. It's a long story, filled with God-sightings, and we'll tell you the whole of it when we get home. Suffi
