Guatemala otra vez – el dia nueve

No, I did not skip a day. I didn’t have access to my computer so I’m doing two in one. Yesterday morning we boarded the bus at 8:00 and traveled to Panajachel – a two hour drive from Antigua. Everyone was fascinated with the scenery and especially the farms on the sides of mountains. We arrived at Panajachel around 10:30, so we checked into our hotel and then went to the launching dock and took a boat ride across Lake Atitlan to San Francisco. It is such a beautiful trip. Lake Atitlan is surrounded by volcanoes. In San Francisco, we visited the church and then went to a local restaurant for lunch. While we were waiting for our food, we had a discussion on the overall experience so far. Actually I was quite surprised that everyone had positive responses. I thought by the look on their faces over the last week that many were not appreciating the experience in the way I had hoped. The only criticism is that our schedule has had too much free time. I have a feeling after next week, that opinion might change. After lunch we spent a little time browsing the shops and resting by the water front. We then took the boat back to Panajachel and took it easy for a couple of hours. Carl and I went to a coffee shop near the hotel, had coffee and talked about our ministries for an hour and a half.
Dinner was at a restaurant on the waterfront. Everyone had great food and several ordered hamburgers and French fries, since they had a craving. I ordered soup and a salad. I thought I was going to have a light dinner, but boy was I mistaken. The salad was on a large dinner plate and was piled about three inches high with everything from eggs, to cheese and everything else you could think of. My soup was in what I would consider to be a serving bowl rather than a soup bowl. I ordered the shrimp soup. I forgot that in Central America, seafood is served as is. My shrimp still had the heads on, so it took me a little longer to peel and eat than I had planned. After dinner, we all returned to our rooms and turned in for the night. Unfortunately, Craig is still having problems with the hiccups. It’s keeping him up at night and he is totally drained from hiccupping all day. This has been going on for over three days now.
This morning we all had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and then packed our bags for the next leg of the journey – Chichicastenango. This was about an hour and a half drive from Panajachel. When we arrived, our first task was to locate the Methodist Church and find out what time they had services. We walked by the church twice before we were able to see the front door behind one of the vendor’s tents in the marketplace. When we entered the church, they were having Sunday School. Michael asked what time they were having worship and they told us that the service would be tonight at 7:00p.m. We asked if we could join them for Sunday School. It was a small group comprised mainly of elderly women and a couple of men. They welcomed us so we stayed for the lesson. The teacher was not teaching in Spanish, but rather in Chiche (not sure of the spelling). A few of the words were similar, so we could still get some idea of what the lesson was about. After about thrity minutes, the youth and children came into the sanctuary from their classes and all of the classes shared their memory verses of the day and sang a song. The minister had been with the youth class. He called on me to share a few words with the congregation, so I explained who we were, why we were there and brought them greetings from the Methodist churches in Virginia. Then, we (the pastors) sang for them – “How Great Thou Art”. Birthdays were then acknowledged and we sang happy birthday to each one that had a birthday. The time closed with a benediction. We were able to talk with the pastor for a few minutes and found out that this church was founded in 1919 and was the first Methodist Church in Guatemala. The founding pastor was a missionary that began a medical clinic and then began offering worship. The clinic ceased when the pastor died. There are now approximately 84 Methodist Churches in Guatemala and 12 of those are in Chichicastenango.
After we left the church, it was time to shop! There are not any shoppers in our group. We shopped for approximately 50 minutes and then met up for lunch at a restaurant located on the second floor of a building near the entrance to the market. Once again great food! I ordered soup and salad again, but this time made sure to ask about the size of the soup bowl and the salad. The group decided that no one was really interested in doing any more shopping, so we got in the van and drove back to Antigua. We got in to Antigua around 4:00 and had the driver drop us off at Parque Central. Folks headed off into different directions, but I stayed in the park to listen to a live concert. A band featuring an acoustic guitar, bass guitar, mandolin, several different pan flutes and a drum were performing. They really were quite good. I could have listened to them a lot longer, but we were to meet the bus to take us home at 5:00. Rosa Maria had dinner for Michael and I around 7:00. Guess what – soup! I love the soup here in Guatemala. We also had a small piece of beef (by small I mean ¼ inch thick and 1inch by 2 inches in size) and corn on the cob. After dinner, Michael, Rosa Maria and I had a lively discussion on techniques for learning a second language. I was definitely ready to retreat to my room and begin communicating in a different form and language.
Tomorrow begins a new adventure. I hope that I am up to the challenge of a new week. I wrote to Juan de Dios Peña tonight to check on our experience in El Salvador, and fortunately received a rapid response that everything is ready. Now I just need to be sure I am!