Wednesday 22 August 2012

Tuesday, August 21st, 2012 - Day 4



Today we had another day of amazing experiences. The meals continue to be fresh, authentic and delicious and for the most part, everyone is embracing all the new flavours. Our work day saw us completing the excavation of the central court of the new guest house, only to be then filled again with top soil. 

It was in the process of extracting the top soil that our cross cultural experiences continued to flourish. Encountering critters of an entirely different bent proved to be the adventure of the day. While digging out topsoil, our fearless leader Tim came face to face with a Guatemalan death Schlang (a poisonous snake) which must have measured at least two metres in length. Oh, did I say two metres, I think I meant .2 metres (20 centimeters for those of you who aren’t familiar with the metric system.) Others might have fled the scene in great distress, but Tim, demonstrating an overwhelming sense calm and self control, proved why he is the leader of this team (of course, the fact that he had already accidentally hacked the poor thing in half couldn’t have hurt.) Either way, he did us proud - too bad we can’t say that of the other guys who suddenly decided that working in “the pit” was not for them.

“The pit” continued to unveil many other creatures throughout the afternoon that all seemed to have names with “Guatemalan” and “death” in them, like the “Guatemalan death beatle”, or the Guatemalan death ring” or my personal favourite, the “Guatemalan butterfly of death” and of course it’s poisonous.

The afternoon’s DVBS with the school children was another inspiring moment for everyone as the children continued to humble us with their complete devotion during worship. Their 40 voices can put almost any 200+ member church in Vancouver to shame. We have so much to learn from these kids. In spite of their difficult environments at home, they demonstrate so much joy here at the school. When seen in the light of this perspective, we realize that we have very little if anything to complain about back home.

After dinner the team met at Les and Rita’s to hear a testimony of one of their school principals. Her name is Evelyn and she moved in with the Peters when she was 13. She gave an incredible testimony about God’s power and love in her life despite the numerous difficulties she has faced growing up. It was also a moving testimony to the work that Les and Rita have begun inTactic and the work God is accomplishing through the many faithful servants here. Then the group shared their highlights of the day and an emotion we all faced since coming here. It was a wonderful time as the Holy Spirit moved among us, enabling us to open ourselves up to the changes taking place in our hearts. We are very thankful to Les and Rita for their extreme generosity and thoughtful approach to this entire mission experience.

Peter H

3 comments:

  1. Sorry if you've been having problems viewing our posts. I think that the Guatemalan IP is somehow throwing things off.

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  2. I is great to read your post again. Yes we figured the "removed blog" had something to do with the lack of internet availability. - Laurie

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