feliz compleanos fiesta

So we just have had a good weekend were we got to relax a little bit after a pretty sweet week of vbs’ing with a million little kids. We made a lot of little friends and its awesome to meet them on the street because they just come running and give you the biggest hugs. One of the coolest things happened on Sunday though. We got invited to attend a church service at around 6ish, but it was really a birthday party too at the same time and it was at this ladies house. Her name was Virginia. So we got to experience this birthday party church service and let me tell you how it went. First we are walking down the road to this house and we can hear the music playing, and I just figured it was just some loud stereo of something, but the music is getting louder and we still aren’t there yet. It was an old school Guatemalan band playing with accordion and piano and big drum beat, so we walk through the door/gate, and we are still outside, except there is make-shift roof made out of tarps and a couple light bulbs strung up. And the music is LOUD. Not even kidding, the area were the chairs were set up under the tarp was about maybe 30 feet by 20 feet and they have about 8, 50 inch speakers stacked at the front just pounding. We sit down near the front but you can barely talk, so we moved further back, but it doesn’t make much of a difference. Then the service starts, and it’s all in Spanish, but basically person after person come up and say something or start praying, and down here when someone starts praying, everyone starts praying out loud and some crying and its kind of sounds like a bit of mourning time. But as weird as it was for me, I had a cool realization about that. In Canada, we don’t really know what its like for our primary needs not to be met. We have to ask God to show us how we need him, and we have to ask Him to help us to rely on him. We have all that we need to live, so we have to turn elsewhere to realize our need for God. But some people down here are crying when they pray because they are so grateful because their kids have enough food for the day, or they are crying because they’re asking God to healing because they can’t afford medicine and God is the only way, they have full out reliance because it’s about their primary needs like food, shelter, clothing, and health. It’s just that much more real. Its cool to see. Anyways this service is going on and on, and its been about 3 hours of people getting up and talking and singing, and oh man, they must have had the ol mic on full blast, because this one lady was just like belting it out, and the kids that came and sat on me were plugging their ears. I could barely hear the drums in this place. And the girls had they Sunday dresses on of course so now that the service has hit 3 and a half hours, their legs are freezing and they are wrapped up in some blankets and ears are getting pierced but the music and tamales are supposed to be coming soon so we are getting hungry... it was awesome. It was sweet to be there and experience it, its funny because when something is so bad, it tends to be a really good time and it’s just the way it is. So to top it all off, we are eating our tamales, (corn mush with a hunk of meat and tomato sauce all boiled in a banana leaf) inside the house,(we kind of get special treatment sometimes because of our weak Canadian immune systems) and finishing the delicious tea, our Virginia comments on how she isn’t feeling that well, and she is kinda turning a little pale. So we took outside and yup down she goes, big faint. Josh was helping her outside so he was able to just sit her down and she eventually walked it off and away we went. Just the weirdest night. The last two days we have been working here at the retreat center doing jobs and cleaning up. The girls have taken the bathrooms by storm and painted them nice. Me and Josh were hacking up the backyard with machetes pruning and tending to the yard. Buck and Steve put some sweet finishing touches on some tables that were a little weak and needed some strengthening. On Monday night we got to go play futbol with some guys we met at this church we went to on Sunday morning. They asked to come play so why not. Who cares if they are Guatemalan and have played soccer their whole lives. It was still pretty cool. They have some small soccer fields in Xela with roofs on them. Poor Stace wasn’t feeling so well after tamale night and made sure there was a bathroom close by. But it was just a day and she pretty A OK now. Thank you for all your prayers and please continue to pray for our health and strengthening as there seems to be bugs just jumping around. And pray that God will continue to give a desire and motivation to work hard and to give our best and do some crappy jobs when we don’t really feel like it. Thanks again! Dios te bendiga.