Buena Vista

It's 7:00 A.M. and we are off to Buena Vista.  It takes about two and a half hours to get there, but the trip is breath-taking.  At present we are driving along side volcanoes Fuego, Agua, and Pacaya.  The fog that surrounded the base of the volcanoes yesterday now encircles their tops.  These mountains are covered in tropical, green vegetation except the highest ones where only rock emerges beyond the tree line.  We are heading west toward the Pacific Ocean and lower elevations...and of course, heat!  Today will likely be the hottest day by far; and this is the day we step into National Geographic.

Buena Vista is a "village" that is cut from a sugar cane field on the left and a rubber tree finca on the right. There is no running water and no electricity.  The people who live in the most basic/primitive of shanties, are wonderfully friendly, but desperately poor.  We had lots of fun seeing familiar faces and singing and teaching our lessons, playing soccer on the machete-cut field, and working on crafts with large-ish, engaged, appreciative groups.  Our lessons improved today thanks to a bit of editing last night and our many able team members and Guatemalan translators. We also may have gotten to the heart of the problem with our craft with the adults; we discovered today many of them couldn't see well enough to actually string tiny beads on a series of safety pins because of their aging eyes, just like mine,  but unlike me, they had no glasses.  Emily and I were both approached about giving up our glasses, permanently.  I was temporarily dumb-struck; all I could think about was how I could possibly explain "graduated lenses" to these deserving women living in the middle of the rain forest.  It was another lesson in humility.

We were so lucky to have the day in this place with these people. The K-6 school was interesting for Laura and I to visit, but it was also one of the day's true low moments.  It was dark, poorly equipped, in disrepair (that is an understatement), but worst of all it appeared to be completely ineffective. The photo illustrates the best the school had to offer. It is hard to illustrate it in a photo, and it was hard to get our heads around it.

A high point of the day was a meeting between Sarah Alverson on behalf of her cousin Alyssa Voiland and her  sponsored child, Wendy.  Wendy is in eighth grade and must take the bus to school on Sunday for her one day of  studies, but to get to the bus for the hour ride to school, she must walk an hour and a half on a desolate dirt road through sugar cane fields. There are increasing incidents of robbery and worse on that road and her mother tearfully explained how frightening it was to send Wendy off to school each Sunday.  We sat outside her shanty and listened to her share her torment.  It was heart-breaking to appreciate the risk Wendy ran attempting to continue her education and what it might mean for her life if she did not continue.  Another humbling lesson.

I wish I could write more tonight and do a better job of it, but I must admit we are starting to wear out just a bit, or maybe that is just me...  We continue to be healthy and feel blessed to have this opportunity to share our faith with people that daily face more challenges to their faith, than most of us will ever face in a lifetime.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I suspect we are the ones who are really being served.

Blessings, thank you, and take care.