Day 7 - March 30/09

Our last day in TacTic was an awesome closing to a life-changing trip. Today we slept in an extra two hours and we visited several more sponsor children’s homes. It was still mind-blowing how much the families appreciated our prayers and our blessings that we gave to them. Every family opened up their home to our large group and shared a small piece of their lives with us. Every time we visited a new family, they always made us feel very loved and accepted.
Following the home visits, we toured a Catholic Cathedral named after the Mayan corn god, Shashim. At the site, there were altars in front of crosses where the Mayan religion and witchcraft are practiced daily. Less Peters explained that when the Spanish arrived in Guatemala, they conquered it by ‘converting’ the people to Catholicism. However, when the people were converted, they simply blended their current religious practices with those of the Catholics because the Guatemalans are polytheistic. We saw first-hand how the enemy has deceived and twisted the gospel to the Guatemalans. Inside the Cathedral, the paintings of verses in the Bible were inaccurate, and supported idolatry of Mary, and other saints. At the back of the Cathedral, there was a statue of a ‘Black Christ’ on a cross. By making Christ black in color, this helped convert the Mayans to Catholics because they believed their corn god, Shashim, to be black. The Black Christ in the church is therefore called the God of Shashim. As soon as we saw the images and the Black Christ, we all felt the darkness and deception inside the church.
After Shashim, we traveled to Coban to visit the main hospital there. We gave out many of the stuffed animals that were donated to children in the intensive care ward and the Pediatric ward. Our team was split up into groups and each group walked around their assigned section of each ward and prayed for every patient. The most touching experience for most of the team was visiting the Premature birth ward and holding two of the abandoned babies in the ward. We also had the opportunity to witness the first moments of one baby’s life that had just been released from the delivery room. All of us watched, awed as the nurse cleaned and dressed the newborn baby. This overwhelming happiness we felt as we held and took pictures of each baby was a good contrast from all the despair we have witnessed during home visits. We observed that not only do the Guatemalans experience extreme poverty daily, but they also rejoice during blessings such as a newborn baby.
After supper, we engaged in one of the most powerful de-briefing meetings our team has ever had. Less Peters challenged us to lay down the parts of our life that are getting in the way of living fully for God. As everyone knelt down on the ground before God, we prayed that God would give us strength to give up our faults and hidden sins and surrender ourselves to God’s plan. It is certain that we will all come back home with new perspectives on life and free from our previous shortcomings. Guatemala has changed us in ways we could never have imagined and nobody is ready to leave yet.
Karlynn

Hola family and friends!
Hope you are all doing fantastic!
Today started off with our third and final day of shoveling dirt! We worked relentlessly, knowing that the end was in sight. We literally cheered when Rocky told us to put away our tools forever! Many of us were sore, injured, tired, dirty, and sun burnt, but we were all ecstatic to put away the shovels, picks and wheelbarrows for the day!
After working, we went to Les’ house for the last time. The food was spectacular as always and we had the opportunity to buy hand woven goods from some local friends of the Peters. We said our last goodbyes to the home, the beautiful yard, and the great people.
Following lunch it was time to see all of the remaining sponsor children that we failed to meet earlier in the week. Once again, the smiles and gratitude of the children and their families blessed us incredibly. It was hard to understand how they could be SO content with SO little; then we realized that we were judging wealth by the wrong standards. If we were to judge wealth by God’s standards, we would be terribly poor compared to so many of the Guatemalan people. Their passion and uninterruptable worship showed us how wealthy they truly are, and how poor we are. Many of us are longing for God to give us his perspective rather than being blinded by our own desires and standards.
After meeting more of our sponsor kids, we drove a very short distance to the top of a hill, to visit a catholic church called Chi’ixim. This Catholic Church was a mixture of Catholicism, Mayan religions, and witchcraft all blended into one terribly confused religion. The paintings and sculptures within the cathedral were twisted and changed so that Mary was always higher than Jesus. At the front of the cathedral there was statue of Jesus, or at least what we thought was a statue of Jesus. Les told us that it wasn’t Jesus but rather the “Lord of Chi’xim”. Seeing such confusion and lies made many feel sorry for the ….
Mr. Werth is forcing me to go to bed. I will write more tomorrow.

Phil