Our Return to the States (August 16, 2009)

Greetings from America; we have officially crossed the border and are on the plane right now to Philadelphia. It’s Andrew Liu and Christine Wei. Today was a very sad and depressing day because of all of the goodbyes we had to say. The morning started out with final packing with one hour of sleep. The other guys passed out though right away last night, so they were wide awake. After cleaning and packing, we had a few visitations from dear friends from our trip. Pastor Rafael and Mama Rosa came to say their goodbyes. It was very emotional, especially for Andrew, their “son.” Pastor Luis also stopped by one last time to see our team off. Lydia spent some time with the little girl she had grown close to over the last two weeks.

 
 

Following many, many, many hugs, we all made our way to Casa Esperanza to say goodbye to the children. They had made us all cool bracelets, personal cards, and balloons. We took many pictures to keep the memories alive. It was very hard to leave them and after many “adios’s” we had to go to the airport.

 
 
 
 

Our van pulled out of the Fe Viva home base. Justin and Sindy, Bible School students, drove us to the airport, and almost everyone passed out in the car on the two hour trip as much as we wanted to catch the scenery of Guatemala one last time. Matthew showed us briefly the emotions giong on inside all of us.

 
 
 

Arriving at the airport, we had to say our goodbyes to them and Matt James Blacklock, our loving host at Fe Viva. (He was headed on his way to his three kids and wife Kerry in Canada.) After a successful check-in, Andrew, Christine, Lucas, PD, Lydia, and Michael had lunch at Pollo Compero, while Jimmy, Andrew Ho, and Matt had lunch at good old McDonald's. Following this fatty lunch, we headed to pay our airport tax and get to our gate to board our plane to Atlanta.

 
 
 

The plane ride to Atlanta was pretty uneventful- people slept, ate, talked, played cards, and wrote in journals. There was also much reminiscing about the trip and the coming transition we were going to make in America. At Atlanta, we had Nathan’s Hot Dogs and some overpriced Starbucks coffee. Tracy and Christine had some overpriced sandwiches as well. And that brings us to now- on the plane heading towards home sweet home Philadelphia. We have missed you all very, very much these past two weeks. But we kind of would have liked to stay in Guatemala a little longer. Guatemala has been a really great place to minister to and share God’s glory to and there’s so much we wish that we could still do.

 
 
 

For the past two weeks, we have done and seen a lot of things that have changed out lives forever. We hope we can share these experiences, but you have to come and see for yourself. Even though we are so fortunate in America, we have to continually remind ourselves that is still so much more work to be done in God’s name. This trip has opened our eyes to how the world is a place in need of God’s blessings. The lives and places that we have been blessed to have been to are only the tip of the iceberg. We alone cannot change people and places but God can. We thank you for the support through your prayers and we ask that you can continue to pray for the people in Guatemala and our church because in many ways our church needs to change more than the churches in Guatemala. This trip was a great reminder of how once everything that is of the world is stripped away, God really reveals powerful things to people. We have come to appreciate a lot more of what we have. The people in Guatemala are thankful for what they have been blessed with and with what little they have they are still able to give some of it to the Lord with love. We are about to land and we will see you in about an hour.
With much love, Christine and Andrew.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Medicine Good For The Soul

Our Friday morning started with us running out of the blocks as Medical Clinic Day was upon us. Most of us stumbled out of our beds around 7 or 7:30 in the morning, but families would already begin arriving to Fe Viva’s gate by 8:00 in order to get numbers for the 8:30am start time.

 

We had done some preparations the night before, but it was the morning that was crucial for all the set-up and last minute details that had to be done at the site itself to get ready for our first patient. Our team members met together to go over the game plan and to pray before we headed over to the other side. We barely had time for breakfast as half the team went to eat while the other half continued to set up and later a switch of personnel occurred 20 minutes later.

 
 
 

The team was divided into four stations: 1) health screening, 2) pharmacy, 3) prayer, and 4) clothing/donation distribution. Lydia and I worked in the clinic itself (it’s important to have a female team member present when seeing all these families), while Big Andrew trained up Michael outside with the pharmacy. Andrew manned the table last year when we did the medical clinic at the elementary school.

 
 

Lucas and Jimmy took up the prayer station as the clinic began. Tracy, Christine and Andrew Ho manned the clothing, setting up a system where they wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the needy families. Matthew was in charge of taking pictures throughout the morning and participate when he can. Aside from Lydia and myself within the clinic, team members were free to shift from station to station to get a variety of experiences. Pastor Luis would join us later within the clinic to help us translate.

 
 

The medical clinic has always been a tremendously rewarding, albeit greatly exhausting, portion of our yearly trip to Guatemala. It’s rewarding to see our team members function together as a whole unit, each working in our various areas to minister holistically to the poor and needy. It also presents our team members with a face-to-face look at human nature as people become impolite and impatient, pushy and rude as they sort through the clothing, and even at times unappreciative of the items that are being distributed. It’s an occasion for our team members to further understand the concept of grace as we live it out and put it into practice despite us feeling tired and short-tempered ourselves. The work we do is ultimately not simply for meeting the needs of the people in front of us or making them temporarily happy for the moment, but it is a work that we do for the glory of God and for the furtherance of his truth to be made known in the hearts and minds of those we touch. There’s so many people, and we have our own limits, so it’s a learning experience that we can only do so much in the time that we have, even though we want to help and see everyone. This is also an important lesson for my team to learn, that there’s no quick and fast solution to poverty and that we need to wrestle with how we live our lives cognizant of the reality that, as Jesus himself said, “you will always have the poor among you.” We learn that we serve as God’s hands, feet and voice in caring for “the least of these.” (Matt 25:45).

 
 
 

Even though we were supposed to stop at 12 noon, we decided to run the clinic for another hour and a half after lunch to see a few more families that we could. Families were brought in one at a time, but a family could easily consist of 5-6 people, each wanting to be seen for headaches, flu-like symptoms, loss of appetite, aches and pains, and whatever else they had. The teens, having seen how many of these families lived and worked, could understand why these symptoms were so prevalent in many of these people. One heart-wrenching story was that I saw the family of a pastor’s son, who was recently shot and killed during a carjacking just days before the clinic, leaving behind a wife and two beautiful daughters. Lydia’s holding the youngest daughter, just months old, in the picture below. Our hearts went out to the mother and her children, but through her tears, she remained steadfast in her faith and in the Lord’s goodness. Her testimony greatly touched us. Ultimately, even though we worked as fast as we could, we couldn’t see everyone, but for those we did see, for those we could help, we knew the Lord was using us to the utmost for his glory.

 
 

Lucas and Jimmy went on a side trip in the afternoon together with Cindy, Melissa and Nelson. They went to visit one of the sponsor families and deliver some supplies to them as well as to take some pictures of their home to see what needed to be fixed. The experience was a moving one for them as they entered into the home and saw first-hand their living conditions and talked with the children before the mother came home.

 
 

The entire team rested for an hour or two before going to our evening event, one that we had been looking forward our whole trip. Tonight, Pastor Rafael and his wife, Mama Rosa, had invited the entire team over for dinner at their farm home. For Big Andrew, he was coming home to his Guatemalan father and mother. In past years, the meal at their home was among the best we had in Guatemala and that night would be no different.

We piled into the van and Matt drove us over the bumpy dirt roads for a good 35 minutes in order to get to the farm. Once we arrived, we saw a number of Pastor Rafael’s church members gathered together and a wide variety of animals that the team members immediately gravitated towards once we got off the van.

 
 

While we weren’t going to lead a church service this evening (it was primarily a time of food and fellowship), Pastor Rafael wanted us to pray together with his church members. This was a gathering of his core leaders and they had just completed a term studying about prayer and were now preparing to go out into their community to evangelize so they wanted us to pray for them as they begin their efforts. We gathered around their leaders and laid hands on them as we prayed. It was humbling to see the faith and desire of these men and women to see the Lord work through them. Once we were done, they in turn gathered around us to pray for us, our work and our church.

 
 

After the prayers, we said our farewells with the church members as they all went back home for their own dinners. As for us, Pastor Rafael gave us a tour around his home before leading us to the dining table all prepared for us.

 
 
 

Mama Rosa and her daughters had cooked up a storm – everything fresh and skillfully prepared: beefsteak with salsa, potato salad, sweet corn tamale, refried beans and rice. A tamarind drink and sweetened black Guatemalan coffee accompanied the meal. Nelson and I modeled some hats, and Pastor Rafael’s granddaughter joined in with the festivities.

 
 

Following the dinner, we relaxed together, sitting around and enjoying the sunset, playing with the cat, or whatever other distraction we found ourselves participating in. Once the sun had set, we gathered together one last time and heard stories of how Pastor Rafael and his wife met for the first time, how he courted her and finally married her so many years ago. With a final prayer, the team boarded back on the van and headed home, waving goodbye to our Guatemalan family as we drove off. After a long first half of the day, it was a joy to spend time with good family, good food and good friends, as our team members had become during the course of these two weeks.

 
 
 
 

Many Flavors and Many Blessings

From Pastor Dan. Wednesday morning started off with seeing the faces of familiar friends again. Pastor Rafael came in early to see us during breakfast in order to prepare for the prison bible school visit on Friday. He entertained us with some music on the guitar (at our request) while we ate.

 

A little later Adam came to us to let me know that there was an old friend outside the gate asking to see the team. Orlando, who previously worked at Fe Viva a few years ago, whom Brother Tsai had grown close to, was outside the gates with his wife and children. Hearing from Carol that we had come back to Guatemala, he took a detour in today’s events for his family in order to swing by Fe Viva to see us again. While Orlando was working at Fe Viva as a groundskeeper, he had enrolled himself in the Bible school led by Pastor Luis with the support of a former member of our team. He completed his studies and then felt the Lord’s call for him to leave Fe Viva and enter into ministry. Today he is the pastor of a church in a neighboring town and is enjoying the challenge of leading his congregation and reaching out into the local community. He wanted to come with his family in order to give us an update of how he was and to share his story with us. We had a time of prayer for him, his family and his ministry, and he and his wife in turn prayed for us and our church, before they left for the other events they had in store for the morning.

 

This morning we would be going door to door with the bible college students in Cacahuito. We had gone to this church last year and so it was an opportunity to connect again with the pastor and to help his ministry by evangelizing his community surrounding the church. Pastor Francisco and his wife would also be inviting our group over for dinner on Thursday before having church service with his members. Our group was divided into teams and paired up with students from Fe Viva’s bible school. Lydia, Matthew and I were in one group along with Bible school students Cindy and Anna. Pastor Francisco and Pastor Luis also traveled together with us to form a high-powered team to go door to door.

 
 

My group went to one home that morning, but it was definitely a visit that God had prepared for us. This was the home of a former church member who had not attended church for a long time. He was a crab fisherman and he would capture fresh water crabs in the nearby river to sell in the market and in the city. There had been some falling out with his relationship with the church and with Christ, and he instead directed his time towards his work and other pursuits – church no longer being a priority for him. He lived with his wife and sons and other family members. The women in the family (his wife, sister-in-law and daughter-in-law and grandkids) all attended church but none of the men did. He had two sons, the eldest looking barely old enough to get married though he was, and both were not Christians. When we sat down to talk with him, we learned briefly about his personal history and in the process he gave us a net of crabs as a gift to the group for our visit.

 

After hearing his story our team members recognized that he was making up a lot of excuses to run away from God and from the church. One excuse after another was given: his work was busy and he didn’t have the time, he needed to take care of things with his family before he could go back to church, there were problems in his relationship with some people at the church, and so on and so forth. One team member shared later how feelings of annoyance arose after a while seeing that the man was so obviously trying to escape dealing with his own problems and was so actively and plainly running away from God and the truth of his life. I started off the group with talking to the man, challenging him of the priorities that he had set for himself since leaving the church and how he wasn’t going to find the answers he was looking for on his own strength. Cindy followed up with talking about his role as the head of the household and how he was blaming the situation around him instead of facing them as a man of God. His example and his faith were an example to his family, especially to his sons, and he was avoiding that responsibility. Pastor Luis followed, talking further with the man about his choices and his relationship with his Lord, and how today was the day that God had chosen for him to have this encounter and to be called back to Christ’s embrace. It was not a mistake that this was the day that this mixed group of Chinese and Guatemalans would come to his house and sit with him. Lydia also had the opportunity to powerfully share her testimony with the man and it touched all our hearts. The Spirit was superintending in bringing this moment together and knocking on this man’s heart to return.

 

When we came together to pray, the man’s eldest son was the first to stand up and come forward. He wanted to accept Christ as his Lord and Savior. Seeing that brought the father to tears and he also stepped forward to rededicate his life to Jesus. He wanted to seek God’s forgiveness and also the forgiveness of the members of the church. The family gathered closer around the dad and son, and the man’s younger son now came forward. “I also want to accept,” he said in Spanish. It was such a blessed morning as within the span of a few moments, a father and his two sons all came to the Lord. We enjoyed the time of prayer as we gave our praises to our Heavenly Father.

The other teams came back together at the church and we shared stories of our trips. Other groups also had people accept Christ, so it was a very fruitful morning for us all.

 
 

For lunch this day, we were invited by Brother Victor to go over to his Chinese restaurant to eat a meal together, our annual tradition. He greeted us with a smile and cold sodas which were welcome as his restaurant was brutally hot. He went in and cooked chicken stir fry and deep fried shrimp and other great things. As with previous years, his excitement and joy in having us over was infectious.

 
 

We had an “in-the-town” afternoon as our team members had a chance to check email at the internet café and then go into town to go on a shopping adventure. They had to go into the local market and buy what they thought would most help out the needy families in San Antonio (a local neighboring town that the Bible college students were ministering to) with 200 Q. Matt Blacklock would be the judge as to who bought the best items that would benefit the families the most. When the task was completed, we stopped by for ice cream before returning back to base.

  
 
 

Nelson was there and he had purchased two iguanas for the team to try. He showed them to us to the delight (and horror) of the team members. After he dispatched them, he saved them for the next day for a special treat.

 
 

In the evening, we went to a new church in Chiquimulilla called the Church of the New Jerusalem that was led by the butcher woman in the market. It was held in her front yard and when the service started the entire garage area was filled with people. It was a festive and fun time together of worship and singing. Michael gave his testimony powerfully that evening and the skit was received very well. My message was on being salt and light (appropriate with our butcher friend in the congregation) and how salt flavors and creates a thirst in us. In the same way, as we associate with others, we’re supposed to create a thirst in others to know more of Christ. Our prayer time again was a moving one as we stood together as brothers and sisters before our Lord.

 
 
 
 
 

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