Pueblo Nuevo - Day 2

Day 2 in Pueblo Nuevo was interesting, to say the least. We arrived at Marco and Leddy's home that morning to begin preparing food for the children's program that afternoon. The men spent time with Marco, who is a carpenter and a pastor, showing him a few short cuts to make his work easier. Amanda, Bobbi and I spent time with Leddy, getting things ready to make a type of Guatemalan chicken stew. Even the guys got into the cooking thing and Danny and Joe were the ones that took the job that none of us really wanted....cutting up a very warm, raw chicken. Enough said.

After the food was ready, we all sat down to eat lunch (out of the pot of stew we all helped prepare). I ate only rice as did most of us. A couple of us ate rice with a little of the gravy and Danny? Well, Danny decided to be brave and ate it all...3 servings of it, in fact. No wonder he spent the rest of the trip a little miserable. ;)

Here is where I am going to lay every thing out for everyone to read. It may not be the "smart" thing to do...to give so many details, but I know that there are people reading that are preparing to start an organization similar to AAB and I want to be totally honest here because what we experience and what I feel is REAL and I am not about to hide it to make all of this sound easy and perfect. Remember the post that some people have described as being "desperate"? That post began brewing in my mind on Tuesday afternoon. After we ate, we spent more time with Marco and Leddy before driving a few minutes to Pueblo Nuevo to start the day's program. Before we got to Pueblo Nuevo, I was feeling uneasy about everything....about Pueblo Nuevo, about the people we are working with in the village, about the area in general, about even being in Guatemala. I began questioning every thing that we were doing and I actually found myself wanting to leave the country. I doubted that we would ever be able to help this village or these children and wondered why I ever thought that we could. Village stability and sustainability? Impossible. Ever being fully trusted or ever able to fully trust? Not gonna happen. What was I thinking?

Then the children arrived. They had a Bible lesson (which is incredibly hard to follow in Spanish, but that's OK) and then had craft time.

Because this was an assessing trip, we did not go with the intention of doing any thing more than distributing some supplies and getting to know the people we would be working closely with. Before we can get into any serious, long-term projects, we have to gain the trust of the people living in Pueblo Nuevo by returning again and again and doing small band-aid projects. Only through this will they begin to trust us enough (because believe me...some of them definitely do not trust us and do not want us there) to actually begin big projects which require their trusting us and us trusting them. So we played with the children which was all that we could really do after meetings and touring, listening and learning. Cassie, Bobbi's daughter, taught Jake, Amanda's son, how to do origami, which they both taught to the children. Through the language barrier both of these kids did an awesome job teaching the children how to make origami stars. None of us (the adults) know how to do this, so it was strictly up to them to teach the craft. Those children that did not want to do origami drew pictures and colored and we saw quickly that there is a great deal of talent among these children. Danny was a hit at his coloring table and became a favorite among the children because he was filling requests of drawings that they could color.

After craft time we served them dinner. We were all struck by how quickly the children ate their food. It was then that we realized how truly hungry they are, but not until the next day would it really sink in. After dinner, we all walked to a field (in the rain) while the guys played soccer with them.

Throughout it all my mind was still spinning. Something wasn't right. It all felt very wrong to me. Back at Casa Bella I expressed my concerns to a couple of people and listened to the concerns that they had. No mission trip will ever be perfect. No program will ever perfect. Because people aren't perfect. I spent a while that night going back and forth over the things that were bothering me and praying for guidance because I felt like I was falling off the path I was supposed to be walking. Were we really supposed to be working there...in Pueblo Nuevo? Was there somewhere else He wanted us to be? How could I go from knowing one day, without a doubt, that we were exactly where we were supposed to be to thinking that maybe we weren't? Or were all of these questions being brought on by the evil that tries to stop every thing good? I felt horrible for the things I was thinking. Our answers were made clear the next day.

Warning...picture overload. Sorry, I went a little crazy. :)