Dedication of the house in Santa Maria de Jesus

Since I was so tired last night, I was surprised to not have slept well. I woke around 2 am but dozed on and off in bed until 5 am. I don’t think that I’ve slept well since we arrived nearly a week ago. I will be happy to be back in my own bed by the weekend.

Mary and I went downstairs to the cafeteria area at 6 am to pack lunches for today. She and I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches then Jerry put them in bags with a banana, corn chips and wafer cookies. We were back up at the room by 6:20 to do our daily language lessons and prepare to go to the house build for the dedication ceremony.

We went down to the cafeteria at 7 am for breakfast and tea. The meal is called “Chapin” which is also a term that Guatemalans call themselves. Chapin is scrambled eggs, black beans, sausage patty, homemade tortillas and sweet plantains topped with crema and cinnamon. It was a tasty and filling breakfast. While at breakfast, we chatted with a group from a church in Berea, Kentucky.

Mary preparing the interior of the house

After breakfast we loaded into the bus for the ride to Santa Maria de Jesus for the dedication ceremony of the house. We needed to make some stops before we arrived at the house. Most of us went to the Guatemala City Walmart where each of us had a list of things to buy that we didn’t already have for the family. Some bought groceries including beans, rice, flour, eggs, and oil. Others bought home furnishings like sheets and pillows for the beds or bins and tableware. Pastor Andrew and Edgar went to a music store to buy a guitar, two microphones and microphone stands for the church in Santa Maria de Jesus. Terry and his son, Peyton, bought two dozen doughnuts for a shared snack on the bus.

Wooden frame beds were assembled in each of the two bedrooms, a dining table and four chairs were set up in the living space, shelves were filled with food and a cross with the names of everyone in our crew was hung on the wall. The wood burning cook stove was set up outside under some extra roofing. The small stove is a very efficient design in which a small fire can heat three pans. The thermal mass of the stove will hold heat for a long time. The last things to be done was to give the house a good sweeping.  We were struck by a gift from the family as we were finishing.  They gave everyone on our team a cold bottle of Gatorade.  At prevailing wages in that community, the drinks cost the family over a week of wages. 

Presentation of the house keys

At noon, Pastor Andrew led everyone in singing “Dios hasado bueno”, God is Good. Andrew played the new guitar while everyone sang. Bible verses were read in English and Spanish and the keys to the house were presented to the family. The short ceremony was recorded and live streamed to Georgetown First United Methodist Church’s Facebook feed. After the presentation we gathered our things and walked down to the church where we ate our packed lunches and Pastor Andrew and Edgar attempted to hook up the guitar and microphones. After some time, all was working well and Andrew continued to play a while longer.

Outdoor cookstove

We finally boarded the bus and made our way back to the CRI compound. Traffic was a little lighter than usual, so we made good time driving the 25 miles in a little over 90 minutes. We opted to spend the afternoon relaxing in our room since everyone in the group was still very tired from the past few days. Some of us played cards, others napped or read. I worked on the journal and Mary knitted then played cards. Pastor Andrew and a few others played ping pong. Several of our team are fighting a bug or are dealing with the strange antigens triggering allergic reactions.

The bell for dinner rang at 5:30 so we went downstairs for a meal of heleche, tomato-based beef stew with beef and potatoes. We also had black beans, white rice and tortillas. Dessert was an exceptionally delicious chocolate flan cake. We had a few minutes in the room before our speaker, Fontaine, was coming to the room to give us a history of CRI.

Fontaine touched on his life growing up in difficult circumstances in Paintsville, Kentucky then entering the ministry traveling to Florida then coming to Guatemala on a mission. He and his wife, Paula, made the leap to move to Guatemala full time in 2007 and work at an orphanage. They eventually started their own orphanage, Mimi’s House, in honor of Paula’s grandmother. They have existed on donations since hosting missions from the US and other countries. Fontaine told us that over 80 churches have had missions with CRI so far this year. We enjoyed and appreciated his information.