Angry Meeting # ... I Lost Count

We sent out our prayer letter for February Monday. I shared about our water story. It seems we have lots of water stories these days, but this one was about the institute. I'm posting it here with more details because it is definitely one I want to remember, one I need to remember.

Eventually we want to dig a well on the pastors institute property/farm. $20,000 has been given and set aside for this. Unfortunately for the depth that we need, we only know of one reasonably priced company that can dig this well. We have been on the waiting list for over a year. They have several government jobs currently that pay above going rate ($65,000), hence we are at the bottom of the list. Yes, there are missions organizations that dig wells, but the ones we have contacted either don't have the right equipment or are more expensive than secular companies. As a temporary solution Jimmy met with the village next door (our current church plant) over and over again to eventually get permission and a contract signed to be able to hook up to their well. The contract says that they cannot turnoff our water for any reason other than us not paying our bill. Not that we thought there would be any future problems;)

{The day there was running water at the farm was an exciting day}

  Jimmy has been having problems at the farm with people stealing watermelons and fish... like ALL of the watermelons and ALL of the fish. During the night someone would sneak on the property, crack open watermelons to see if they were ripe, then they would take all the good ones. The students were raising hundreds of white fish and Tilapia in ponds, EVERY SINGLE one was stolen.

{One of the ponds}

The property is 180 acres mainly of virgin jungle. The wood from that jungle is used to build student houses, bookshelves, tables, etc for the farm. We realize people need firewood. Jimmy had told that village (just that next-door village) that anyone who wanted firewood, needed to check in first and they could take as much "firewood" as they could carry. Well, huge trees are being chopped down without permission. Large Mahogany logs are being removed. One guy even drove a truck onto the property.

   On one occasion a student called and said that he had caught someone stealing wood and that when he asked him to leave, he cursed him and refused. Jimmy called the police to have them remove him. He was a teenage brother of one of the girls that comes to our church. Jimmy didn't want him to be taken to the capital and put in jail with gang members, so he didn't end up pressing charges, he just had him escorted home. The police even had the mom sign a piece of paper that said he was not injured during the incident... which funny enough didn't prevent all the made up stories afterwards. 

Just having the teen escorted home ended up upsetting some of the villagers. They do not believe that they are under Guatemalan law so this made them angry. Mob rule is the law in their eyes. They themselves have been having just as many problems with villagers stealing from them, so they called a meeting about it. One of our students happened to be there at the time, he said that he was just paying the water bill for the month. Somehow during this meeting, rather than identify the thieves, they turned the attention on Jimmy for getting the police involved in that specific instance. They held our student and wouldn't let him leave. There were around a thousand angry people in that meeting. They had the student call Jimmy and say that they weren't going to let him go until Jimmy came to the meeting. Well, Jimmy originally had not been invited to the meeting and had warned the students to stay away. Now, certainly Jimmy wasn't going to show up in the middle of a thousand angry villagers who live by mob rule. Jimmy told the student not to stress and that come noon, all the villagers would get hungry and go home. And it happened just like. About 2 hours later everyone got hungry and that ended up trumping their anger, so they let the student go so that they could go home and eat. Before that though, even with many of our church people speaking out against the decision, some of the outspoken angry ones went and turned off the water to the farm. Jimmy kept going and turning it back on, but then someone behind him would turn it right back off.

During that meeting the town instituted a curfew. Anyone on the street after 9PM gets shot, no questions asked. This scared many of our church members. In this culture, when the sun goes down, it's time for church to start, so by the time you have your service and people walk home, it is after 9. People were afraid to walk anywhere after dark, no matter what time. Even finishing earlier, this has hurt our church attendance and our youth group. It is slowly coming back, but honestly, I would be afraid to walk around after dark now too with that in place.

{The farm with the village beginning on the left}

It stayed like this for about a week until Jimmy could get a meeting scheduled with the town leaders. I was really worried about this meeting. I know that this institute is something that God put in Jimmy's heart to do. I know that God has protected this institute in many ways in the past when people tried to go against it. (I shared a specific story in one of our email updates and there are more I wish I could tell, just because it brings God glory.) Still, I was really worried about Jimmy stepping into a mess like that. The student who had been in the other meeting had been getting death threats... he was scared. Jimmy kept telling me about stories in Acts and how God is with him and will do the speaking and that God is the only one who can work in the hearts of the leaders. That is what Jimmy believed God was going to do- work in the hearts of the leaders.

It was a Monday evening. As Jimmy waited at the meeting place people who could barely walk because they were so drunk started showing up. So I guess Monday night is a horrible time to have a meeting, although it wasn't our choosing. On top of that the meeting had been moved so many times, that by the time it actually happened, none of the students were around to go with Jimmy to translate everything into Kekchi. There were villagers spouting off made up stories about Jimmy and the farm. Jimmy felt completely abandoned, in the pitch dark of night, arguing with a bunch of angry drunks in his third language. It looked for a while like it was going to end in the farm's favor, Jimmy had explained everything that had happened and cleared up many false rumors, but then at the last second someone who wasn't even a leader got up and shouted that they "must" turn the water off permanently. Everyone was over it by that time, so that was the conclusion.

Where was God? How can you have a farm and families living on that farm without water? We were so sad. We went to sleep Monday night feeling alone and defeated.

    Then early the next morning an unknown number kept calling Jimmy. Finally Jimmy answered the phone. It was the mayor of the village. He told Jimmy that he was not able to sleep all night long. All of these Bible verses kept coming to his head. (He does not profess to be a Christian nor does he attend any church). “The Bible says that if someone asks for water, you have to give it to him.” He said that he was turning the water back on. He called all the town leaders who were at the store buying the plug for the pipe and told them that too. Amazingly, these guys who a few hours earlier had been slurring their angry hate towards Jimmy, all of a sudden agreed and decided they shouldn't turn off our water. They got in trouble for this, but have stuck to it.  

I want to get this story down to help remind myself that what is in the book of Acts is true. If God has a job for you to do, He will make it happen. He controls the hearts of leaders, even those who do not profess Him. All of this just brings Him glory.

I have more to share later about how we are learning to live by their cultural rules. We are going to implement some new things before we restock the fish ponds for sure! Praying we can all live in peace.   

A Little Helpful Dose

This past month we went over 2 weeks without the city turning on the water to our neighborhood. The transformer blew up that runs the pump connected to the well for this area. The town normally turns the water on twice a day for a couple hours. Everyone around here uses an outdoor sink with a cistern in the center that probably holds about 15 gallons. They usually just leave the facet on all the time and if water overflows it isn't a big deal since it is outside, but that way they never miss an opportunity to fill up their cistern when the water comes on. (This cultural trait of always leaving faucets on has flooded things in our life more than once, haha!) If someone has a little more money they have an additional barrel that they keep full for incidences like this one!

Our neighborhood looked like the photo above for awhile. After about a week, the town started hiring a water truck to come around and fill up everyone's buckets about ever other day or so. People kept their front yards lined with every empty bucket they could find. The one above even put their wheel barrel out there.

 

 We have a spare cistern (110 gal), that is 1/6 of the size of the one attached to our house. In our world a spare cistern gets used a lot! Plus we had a 55 gal barrel. The first week Jimmy was driving to a well and filling up this spare cistern in the back of his truck when we would run low. Just to put it in perspective, the average family of 4 in the States uses almost 400 gallons of water a day. Jimmy was sharing this water with our neighbors too because they don't have pickups to go get water, let alone a large cistern to put it in. Are you seeing how hard it is to complain in this country?! Once you leave your gate, you look around and can't really say anything. Even silent I feel kind of like a spoiled brat for getting frustrated. Petén is like an instant cure for the grumbles, just go outside and let reality slap you around a little bit.

{Jimmy would pump the water from outside into our house cistern.}

So Jimmy was burning hours on this water situation, hours that he did not have because it was going on the same time as the new students were arriving and classes were starting. One Saturday he made several trips right in a row so that I could catch up on laundry. See... I am spoiled. 

The power company would have immediately been able to come and fix the problem, but the town was several months behind paying the power bill. Then to fix the problem they would have to purchase a new transformer plus wire. Once I heard that, I figured it would be months until we had water again. How were they going to get that money?

Then one day Jimmy got a call asking if he would help pay for the new transformer and wire. We have been paying our bill, but we didn't want to set a precedent that we would pay to fix problems, so Jimmy said "no". So then I REALLY thought this situation was hopeless.

And then the day after the phone call, SURPRISE the water came back on. I have no idea how, but I am SUPER thankful that we have water again. Each time I do laundry I remember just how thankful I am! Water makes me smile just looking at it coming out of the tap. 

Poor Silas. I had been on him about flushing the potty for that last several months and he was getting really good about it, until this water situation. Each time he would flush we would all yell, "NOOOO!" So here we go again, from scratch!

The Curse of the Big Goat

 We have a billy goat at the farm that is hilarious. He has a very mischievous personality. The other day during my class he kept going into the room next door and eating the corn that the students had spread out to dry. Henry would get up in class and go shew him away, but he would just go back as soon as he left. Henry eventually got busy doing his work and tired of shewing him, so the goat got mad. He stopped eating corn and walked into our classroom, like "where are you, can't you see I'm eating your corn?!" That dumb goat probably doesn't even like corn.

This goat's little Mrs. had twins and ever since she started producing milk Jimmy has kept him away from her since the male goat makes the milk taste bad and Jimmy wants to use the milk for the kids at the farm. No wonder he is so naughty. Poor lonely goat.

The other day a lady came to the farm asking for some hair from this goat. Her kid had gotten sick soon after coming to the farm with her to buy eggs. She had done what many people do here, she had taken her sick, feverish son to a Mayan witch (there are a bunch of witches in the village next to the farm). He said that our goat gave him the evil eye while he was at the farm. (Totally believable with this goat!) Now they needed some of his hair to remove the curse. (Not as believable.) Jimmy told the students to give her the hair, but then later go to her house to pray for her son and witness to them. This family has never been to our church. Many live in fear here of evil spirits. Please pray for this new church plant in the village of Zapotal, that it will bring the Good News of a loving God to so many who are bound by fear. 3 more people from the village accepted Christ this past Sunday.

A Love Story

Today Jimmy traveled with one of the students back to the capital of his area, 3 hours away. He was going home to get married. Here you usually have 2 ceremonies, a legal one and a church one. Today was the legal one and he asked Jimmy to be a witness. 

P is the oldest of the students, he is 27. All of the students came single and boy do they talk about getting married a lot. They are constantly talking to Jimmy about how much money they should save first, should they get married before they graduate, does he think they will ever find a wife, will they be able to support a wife, what is important when looking for a wife. They probably talk about that more than anything else. They know it is a big deal. If you are called to do something, the wrong mate can keep you from fulfilling that purpose.

{P in the blue dress shirt next to his wife in the peach along with their families}

P knew that. He hasn't talked to any girls since he has been at the institute. P had a girl picked out over a year before he came. He chose to get settled first at the institute and save up his money so that he could provide a good home for her. He is so tight. He won't spend as much as one centavo because he is saving it all for his life with his wife.

He chose the house farthest away from the other students, haha! He has been fixing it up. When the students came to the institute they were all given mattresses (not like a mattress you would picture, but a little more rustic). They are not fancy, but evidently they were better than what they were used to. P said that it took a while for his back to get used to it. He was commenting today that they usually just put fabric over the string they weave through the bed frame. He was thinking about making that available to his wife so that she wouldn't be uncomfortable. (That is what some of us gringos don't get. We think that if anyone is presented with "gringo" options or easier, more comfortable options in our minds, that they would obviously choose them. But, many times they don't because those options aren't familiar and in that way they are actually uncomfortable to them.)

When P went to go ask his wife's parents' permission to marry her they thought he was going to just take her to shack up with her then. Sadly that is accepted and more common here than marriage even among Christians. Maybe the thought of paying for 2 weddings is overwhelming. The legal cost is about $40 and the church wedding is about $700 for a bare bone version of what is expected. Well P said for testimony sake, he had no desire to do that. He wants a marriage that God will bless.

{The legal ceremony with the Mayor}

He also told her parents that he wanted to marry her not just because she is pretty, but because she is a faithful worker in the work of God. He was telling Jimmy all about her as they traveled today. He said that he initially saw her in church, she teaches the kids. He noticed that she never missed. Their home church has started a mission that is a 2 hour walk away on foot, one way. She goes every single time to serve there. Well he found what he wanted, a wife that he could share his life with, one that would help him in his calling.

And did I say that he said goodbye to her today in his village. In P's eyes they are not really married until they get married before God a month from now on the 28th. So he returned to the farm alone today, but very happy! Poor guy, he has a lot of teasing to put up with from all of us for the next 27 days... the other students started ribbing him as soon as he got out of the truck! 

I'm so thankful that God provided a good godly wife for P. I pray that He will do the same for the other students and that they will be wise enough to realize it. Prov. 18:22!

Not At All What I Pictured

Out of the 4 students at the farm, Ro has the most education. H has the same amount Ro did at his age, but he is younger. Knowing that going in, I probably had the least amount of mercy and the highest expectations for him in my class. He did really well, but I kind of expected it or assumed he really didn't have to try as hard as the others. Maybe I missed an opportunity to celebrate with him on his achievements. His confidence led me to assume lots of things. I pictured his house, his family, his life story...

Well, this past week his family came to visit him. When they arrived, they were so excited to see their son, that they couldn't even speak for the tears. They are very supportive of their son being at the institute. While Ro was in class, his mom and sister went right to cleaning his house and doing his laundry. Moms are the same all over the world! They were here only a couple days, but I was able to learn so much more about Ro.

Neither one of Ro's parents can read. That in and of itself is a very large barrier to overcome. We learn so much as children being read to by our parents, things that lay the foundation for all of our future learning. Illiterate parents tend to either not place as high of a value on higher education, or don't know how to make it available to their kids. How would they provide the support system they need to succeed. How would illiterate parents go about helping their kids with their schoolwork? Illiterate people learn in different ways. They file things away in their minds differently, thus recalling them differently when it is time to relate to something new in order to learn more. I have no idea how Ro got to where he is at other than the sheer determination of his parents. 

Education in Guatemala is free, other than basic school supplies until you finish an equivalent to (in years) Jr High. That is where kids usually get lost. Either they don't see the value to pay to continue their education, they live in such rural areas that there aren't jobs for their parents to get to be able to pay for higher education, or they aren't counseled to choose the right school where there will be a job for them afterwards where they live. 

[Here in Sr High you choose your general field like we would do in college. In our area for $40 a month you can be a teacher, nurse or accountant. Only those three schools are offered. Then if you want to do something else you go to college with that as your foundation- so an accountant would go on to study business or law.]

It is the fathers whose sole income is their corn fields, rather than having an outside stable job that have the hardest time. Again, the ruralness of where people live limits their opportunities to have jobs. Ro's dad works at a palm plantation. That means he travels from his rural home to work in a larger town. He provided the means for Ro to get a higher education and then rallied behind him!

I didn't realize Ro's background before. I pictured him as a privileged city boy (because he is educated) and that wasn't the case at all! With the help of his father he removed obstacles that usually take more than one generation to overcome. I was humbled to see his real story. Because of what his father sacrificed his son will be a very well prepared pastor one day, influencing the next generation for Christ! 

CUTE ITEM OF THE DAY: Sparky's girlfriend gave birth to 8 piglets this past week at the institute farm! Our herd is growing!

Power Troubles

So some group decided that they could go around in different poorer neighborhoods in Guatemala and get people all riled up about how much they are paying for power. They give them numbers about how rich people pay less than the poor people for power. (Actually in our specific case we pay 33% MORE per Kw than our low-consumption neighbors)

Different parts of Guatemala do pay different rates. It depends on how close you are to whatever power plant you are using. We are 500km away… at the very end of a long extension cord. We pay more and our power is out very often for long periods of time, but living somewhere rural was our decision, so we pay the rates. Our water and rent is cheaper (when we paid rent). Prices fluctuate inside a country based on your location, like anywhere else in the world.  

The more illiterate a society is, the easier it is to manipulate them. They just have to believe whatever they are told. This group told them that they are being persecuted because they are poor. "Politicians in Guatemala City are paying less than you hard working poor people." They told them that they could pay this group $4 a month and they would attach their house lines directly to the pole, bypassing the meter and giving them unlimited power. So they are stealing all of their power from the electric company, but they are calling it a protest because they are being taken advantage of since they are poor. Whenever the power company comes out and cuts their lines, someone from this group hooks it right back up that same day… so they say. Of course the power company can't keep up.

The power company is reporting that 2 million people are stealing power. Those part of the revolt claim the number to be more like 6 million, almost 50% of the households in Guatemala. Either number is too many for them to arrest or put in prison. (Not that any laws are actually enforced here anyway.) 

This affects those who are paying for their power because a whole lot more households are hooking up to the grid and all those who were hooked up before are using as much power as they want… power that they would never have been able to pay for otherwise. So, if you are at the end of an extension cord, there is hardly any power left because it is way overloaded. Our water pump keeps overheating.

 

It burned up our first pump a couple weeks ago and melted some of our pipes. Our new pump just turns itself off when it gets overheated which is turning out to be every couple minutes when the water is running! There are other things that just won't work because there isn't enough power to run them. (Like the air conditioner unit in our guest bedroom and we have guests with us right now.) On top of that the power company is turning off entire cities and even counties for weeks at a time to punish the people stealing power, but those who are paying for power lose theirs too, so everybody suffers.

Anyway we keep losing power too. It has been over a hundred degrees each day and trying to sleep without a fan is pretty miserable for my children. They are exhausted and their necks and scalps are covered in itchy heat rashes. Trying to run the generator to keep your food from spoiling is expensive anytime, but when it is becoming longterm like this, it is not sustainable. Think about the businesses around here who don't have a generator and wouldn't be able to afford the gas to run it anyway. It is just all sad. Sad for everyone. These people who are stealing power don't realize it, but this is not going to end well for them either.

Who knows when or how this will end. The government wants to nationalize the power grid here, so this might all just be a big political move. Things always work better when the government runs them, right? Jimmy reported our power issues to the power company, but when they come look at it, they will probably see that we are the only ones in our neighborhood that are paying for our power and will cut the whole line. Yippie! 

Tamales: A Tutorial

Just kidding, I am a tamale making novice for sure! We had a very special service this past Sunday. Our church was celebrating a couple things which I will share in another post, but for a celebration of course you need party food! Tamales are the ultimate party food. So here is how you make them. I tried to take lots of photos with my phone while we worked.

Sweet Rebeca lives down the street from our church building. This woman is full of grace (she's one of my favorites). She offered to let us prep and cook the tamales at her house. Several other ladies volunteered to be there at 8:00 to help as well. Well it's not like people sit around watching the clock in this country and beyond that most are dependent on public transportation. There are a lot more variables to deal with when it comes to getting somewhere on time here! For the first several hours it was just Rebecca, Wendy her teenage daughter, Marta another kind mother in our church who only speaks Kekchi, two other teens from our church and I working on them. I thought we had plenty of help, but Rebeca seemed a little concerned at first. Our goal at the beginning of the day was 120 tamales. We knocked out 160 by 1:30 like it was nothing! I think it was the quality of the workers, haha! 

First it's rainy season, so it's hard to find dry firewood. I have experience buying propane, not firewood, so in my defense I would like to say that I knew what was going to happen beforehand, so I specifically asked M, one of the teenage girls to go with me. If some gringa shows up somewhere looking to buy something that she obviously knows nothing about she is more than likely going to get ripped off! Finding dry firewood seems foolproof, but nothing is. So M helped me find 100 pieces of "good" firewood for sale. 

 Sure enough we got back and some bad pieces had been mixed in and who got made fun of? Me! I will always be a gringa. The wood on the right is not good for firewood. It doesn't burn, it just smokes real bad. Now I know!

Our first task was making the red sauce. Probably no one makes tamales the exact same way. We have eaten all kinds of tamales all over Guatemala. Rebeca's recipe though had a wonderful flavor (Jimmy went home after church and had 3 more!)

 Rebeca had already been roasting guajillo chilies on her stove when we arrived. She also toasted some sesame seeds.

 You know the chilies are ready if when you pick them up and shake them you can hear the seeds rattling around inside. Then you tear off the stem and dump the seeds out saving the chili.

Then we cut up onions, green peppers, red tomatoes and little green tomatoes that they call miltomates. 

 We also cut up red bell peppers into thin slices. Rebeca meant for these to be thrown on top before we wrapped up the tamale, but someone dumped those into the red sauce... not me!

Rebeca put all of these ingredients a little at a time into her blender. From what I have seen, a blender is the one kitchen appliance that is pretty common here. People have those before refrigerators or gas stoves. Then she started it all to boil on her wood burning stove.

 She also added chicken bullion, achiote paste, 

pepitoria (pumpkin seed) powder that she dissolved in water first,

 

 and saborizante. I didn't realize this until recently when I saw a brand of it that had the English under it, but in English that is MSG. 

The red sauce boiled for quite a while, long enough for us to take the corn to be milled. Rebeca and Marta are so nice to me. They do not treat me like a gringa. When they were trying to decided which mill to use they showed me some masa (corn dough) and asked me what I thought about the texture. 

Here is something I thought was funny. 

Rebeca and I were struggling holding either side of the heavy tub of corn (not in this photo obviously), but Marta just grabs the whole tub after it had been milled to take back to the truck like it was nothing. Kekchi women are strong!  

It cost about 10Q I think to mill this amount. They turn a generator on so you are paying for the gasoline. People have small hand crank grinders in their house, but to do this amount would have taken forever. The bucket on top has water in it that they pour over the corn. 

It was about 50 pounds of masa. We made 160 tamales with it and probably had over half of it left.

Hugo (Rebeca's grandson) went and bought 17 chicken halves that morning. 

I said that we needed at least 7 pieces out of each half to end up with enough meat. I thought they were going to be disappointed. They thought the pieces were really large and then our church people that night were going on and on about how much meat was in their tamales and how that was so special. (Living in this country makes me so thankful for the amount of meat that our family gets to eat. I think about that a lot now as I sit down at meals and I'm grateful!)

They kept acting like they wanted me to cut the chicken. I would have been hacking at the chicken for the rest of the day. So Marta picks up a machete and takes care of it. (That was the first cutting board I had seen all day too. It was borrowed from a neighbor.) One whack and she was through the bone. Spending time in the kitchen with these women has given me even more respect for them. Cooking in Petén is a physical workout!

They put some of the saborizante on the chicken meat too. Now it was time to start preparing the dough.

Rebeca separated some of the masa into the largest pot she had. We filled it with water and then started smushing it with our hands to get all the lumps out.

Then we put it on a fire outside and stirred and stirred.

And stirred and stirred some more. Lots of salt was added to this.

 Marta brought some Mashan leaves from her garden.

 You usually hear about banana leaves being used to make tamales, but I think these kind of leaves are better. They wrap up much prettier. Here is the same kind of plant on our porch:

They are about 4 feet tall. I think they are really pretty. 

I didn't help with this part, but I did take pictures! Wendy and M washed all of the leaves in the pila. I've talked about this several times before, but that sink is a household staple here. The middle chamber is like a cistern and the drains on either side are for laundry and dishes. You stand next to it and dump water over your head to take a bath. 

We did eventually run out of the mashan leaves since we made so many extra tamales. We got some banana leaves from Rebeca's yard to finish the rest. They run them over a fire like she is doing below to strengthen the leaves. You can see the color changing to a more vivid green.

Here is all of our fixin's ready for assembly:

This is about the time more ladies started showing up. They cut the leaves to prepare them. 

 

Basically you need one entire leaf and then one or two halves more to go on top to keep the leaves from splitting once you fold it all up. 

First you put a spoonful of boiled dough, then your raw meat, and then a little bit of chile sauce.  We were going to drop some red bell pepper slices on top, but they had already been mixed in to the sauce and sank to the bottom of the pot. It is common to add olives as well, but we didn't.

Then you pull it together length wise and roll it like you would a brown lunch sack. Then you turn it upside down and fold it on either end popping the stem going through the leaf which kind of holds the tamales closed.

 Our first tamales:

 Marta lined the same huge pot we used to cook the dough with leaves and then gently placed the tamales inside. Then she added water and covered the top with more leaves to help steam them.

It takes a little under and hour to steam them. 

I really enjoyed sharing this time with these ladies. They were so kind and patient to teach me their craft! I smelled like a bon fire when I got home. I took a shower before church to wash the smoke out of my hair. Those ladies are such hard workers in less than ideal conditions and they don't even think anything of it... and I still get frustrated when the power goes out at my house while I'm cooking supper. I took a lot away from my time with them!