My Surprise This Morning!

This plant was a gift from a "friend" in New Horizon, one of the first women my age in Petén that I felt a connection with. I thought we were going to have years of friendship ahead of us, trading recipes and of our kids playing together. Just yesterday we were told of something she had been saying about us that wasn't true and was hurtful. I'm not writing her off, it is just a painful season in that part of our ministry right now.

Well she told me this plant has white flowers, but I had never seen them before. They bloomed this morning for the first time! So pretty on our back patio!

On a More Positive Note... Sort Of

Jimmy sent me pictures of the doggies so I wouldn't worry about them. I thought it looked like he had just drug Fije's corpse in the house for this one, so he took another photo of her for me!

I was planning on Jimmy taking baby stuff back with him this time, but I think most of his weight was dog bones! They were very happy to see him. Quincho is doing a great job of taking care of them. They really like him too.

My husband is so thoughtful, he even sent me pictures of all my plants. We had just repotted these Jom trees that I started from seeds. They are doing so good! By the time we purchase property, they will be ready to plant in the ground. Jimmy even weeded all my plants for me before he left!

Jimmy polyurethaned the cribs he built for me. It's water based, so it didn't smell at all. The colors in the wood pop now! I love them!!

He had to sand them one last time before he polyed them. He was moving his hand across one of the boards really quickly and the sandpaper caught on a piece of wood and pealed up a big junk of it, so when he slid his hand across it, it went into one of his knuckles... in one side and out the other... yuck! He couldn't get it out, so he called a Mennonite friend who is a nurse.

Quincho was laughing because it was so gross and Jimmy wasn't reacting very much. (He doesn't understand that the many emotions of Jimmy all look exactly the same on the outside!) Quincho also doesn't understand that you have to hold the camera still to get a good shot!

Benj was very helpful. He got the splinter/tree limb out and bandaged up the wound. Jimmy was proud of his pool of blood! This is part of the piece of wood. Benj had to remove it in pieces.

Coffee Plantation in Huehuetenango

Today we drove 5 hours to a coffee plantation. Coffee from Huehue is famous all over the world and happens to be my dad’s favorite! Pastor Luis Batc took us up to a plantation that is owned by one of the families in his church.

4 hours of our trip there and back were on a dirt road. We had to use Jimmy’s 4 wheel drive pickup that only has an extended cab... it wasn’t the most comfortable trip, but very worth it!

When you enter Huehue you have to get your vehicle checked for fruits or veggies and then fumigated if needed. This is to protect all of the coffee plantations.

This is my parents with the owners and pastor Luis standing on coffee beans that are drying.

Walking through the fields of coffee plants.

It starts off as berries.

Somehow my parents tasted some of the berries without us knowing. We have convinced them that they have caught all kinds of things from them. Now we can take them to eat wherever and if they get sick we will just blame it on the berries!

This is Jimmy laughing at them for eating the berries!

The owner hires 50 workers for 3 months to harvest the coffee. They pick the berries by hand and it takes about 4 hours to fill one of these bags and they are paid 5 dollars a bag. It is a good job because their housing is provided.

The berries are separated from the beans and sifted by this machine.

The berry shells are saved and used for fertilizer.

The beans are separated by quality and laid on top of cement to dry for 5 days (if the sun is good).

The owner was so kind, he sent us home with 3 baby coffee plants. My dad said that now he owns his own coffee farm... at least until he flies home!

Since my dad roasts his own coffee, the owner gave him 25 pounds of green coffee beans. That is over $125 worth of green coffee beans in the States!

They shook hands, I just snapped the picture too soon.

These are some of the workers’ kids.

Afterwards we ate dinner at Las Vegas, a restaurant in Huehue.

On the way home my dad and Jimmy decided they would ride in the truck bed rather than in the back of the cab. My dad said he felt like a redneck! It was so cold that my dad borrowed my mom’s coat. About 45 minutes into it they hollered for me to pull over to let them inside.

We had a wonderful day!