Journal #1

Sunday, August 06, 2006

I have never really written down my daily activities before but I have begun a new chapter in my life which is unlike any I have done before. Shelly and I decided last September to move to Honduras to begin mission work. The day has finally arrived that we start that journey. I sit in my bed typing what has occurred the last two days.

As I type, I hear the sounds of a foreign language in the background which I barely pick up on. Tomorrow we start language school here in Antigua, Guatemala. We found our school today while walking around entertaining ourselves. Saturday was a hard day as we said good-bye to our families for the first time ever knowing that it would be a while before we saw them again face to face. It will be 9 weeks total. We made it through security with Tristan and everything and I knew that we were on our way. Everything went smooth with the flights which you never know for sure now-a-days. We landed in Guatemala to exit the plane and be stuck in a hallway waiting customs which was getting hotter and hotter by the minute. Once up to the counter, the man stamped our passports and off we were. Not once did he say anything about Tristan. All that paperwork. Nothing. Not even a word. Only in America do you have to get all this paperwork done and in a third world country they do not even check it. Did I mention, not a word was said about Tristan?

We found our luggage extremely fast (since we had been waiting in line forever it had time to circle the belt several times) and we were on our way out the door to find a man who was suppose to be carrying a sign with our names on it. We started exiting to a mob of people who were only separated enough to let one skinny person by. We had 4 rather large suitcases we had to roll through. The next thing I knew was that Shelly had dropped one of the suitcases because she could not fit through the space. A luggage carrier picked it up for her and rolled it through the mob while she did the same with another. I did the same with another man and rolled one myself. We made it to the curb. Shelly looked to her right and saw the man who was to pick us up. He was so happy to see us which made me feel better about the situation. There were tons of people crowded around and he was our rescue out of there.

Luckily, he did bring a mini-van because our luggage would not have fit in a car. He knew what he was doing. He knew he was picking up Americans. We drove about an hour to Antigua from Guatemala City to the surprise that some of the countryside looked like Tegucigalpa but much more commercialized. There was Sears, Papa Johns, a nicer McDonald’s than in the States, and to my left – Hooters. What in the world?

Our driver dropped us off at our house. I kept saying to myself on the way to the house, “God will take care of us!” I knew He would provide what we needed as far as living conditions. And that He did. We are staying with a lady named Maria who has a nice home for Guatemala standards. We have a private upstairs room with a bathroom attached. We are by ourselves up here while she sleeps downstairs along with the kitchen, den and dining room. She has a mentally challenged daughter and several married children. Her husband died in February of cancer. She shared some of her struggles with us at dinner. We picked up bits and pieces of our conversation.

When we first arrived, she gave us a set of keys – one for our room and one for the gate. We were free to come and go as we chose. She said that breakfast was at 7:15 am, lunch at 1 pm and supper at 7:30 pm. We got all our stuff out of the suitcases and put them away as best as possible. Our bed consists of two twin beds pushed together. We do have an electric heater attached to the shower head for warm water. You have to hold your tongue just right in order to get warm water out of it though. The weather is so much better than TN. The highs are in the 70s. What a change! We do not have A/C because there is no real need for it. We have 3 open windows which allow the breeze to enter our room. We do have electricity. Tile floors and concrete walls. All in all, it is a nice room. About the size of a typical master bedroom at home.

We could not wait for supper to be over and sleep to begin. For our first Guatemalan meal, Maria fixed us broccoli and asparagus soup, ham and cheese rolls and refried black beans. We were exhausted physically and emotionally. We were tucked away for the night at 8:15 pm. We did not wake up officially until 12:00 noon Sunday. It was much needed. I feel so much better now physically. I am still exhausted emotionally but we are both dealing with it one step at a time. I saw that for the first time when we did find an Internet Café which makes international calls to talk to our parents. As soon as I heard my mom’s voice, I got choked up. I almost could not talk. It was so good to just hear them. Something I have taken for granted before. The sound of their voices and the visual images of what they looked like and where they were in their house as they talked to me never even entered my mind before when I talked to them on the phone. It did this time and it meant so much. We had a good conversation.

After Shelly and I woke up finally, we decided to get something to eat. Maria does not fix food for us on Sundays. It is her day off. We are on our own. That is good for us because it will force us to get out and mingle with the natives and talk their language. All of us (which includes Tristan) headed out to see what was out there. We found a Campero’s down the road which is like Kentucky Fried Chicken but Central American style. I had a chicken sandwich and Shelly had chicken nuggets. Not the greatest but it satisfied our hunger. We walked around a festival they were having (Antigua’s version of the Williamson County Fair) and saw many booths with everything known to mankind.

We do not have a TV in our room. I can not believe I am admitting this, but that is good. It opens my mind to new things like typing a journal and reading more. I was on the hunt though for a plug adaptor for my laptop. I can play DVDs on it but we only have 2 prong plugs in our room and my laptop plug in is 3 prong. See my dilemma. We talked to 2 booths which had electronics (in our best Spanish and sign language) and came up with nothing. That was until we finally found the grocery store. To our surprise, this place is the State’s version of Super Wal-Mart. We were in heaven. The first thing we ran across was a wall of electronic stuff and guess what – WE FOUND THE ADAPTOR. You know the ones that take a 3 prong plug and turn it into a 2 prong one. I actually did a dance in the middle of the aisle. Shelly was so embarrassed. At that point, I knew we were going to make it. We had a problem placed before us and we found a way to fix it. We were successful. We solved our first problem.

Only in a third world country do you go through every aisle at the super grocery store and act surprised at what you see next. To be able to recognize things that were in there is something I cannot explain unless you go through it yourself. I felt so silly giggling and laughing and yelling at the next product we saw and could not believe they had. We bought a few things which were essential to us at the moment – squirt water bottles for brushing teeth, a plastic Tupperware container for Tristan’s food (his food in his bowl was full of ants this morning) and the ADAPTOR. What great purchases!

We made our way back to our room and guess what we did first (it was 4:00 pm) – we plugged in the new adaptor and watched Cheaper by the Dozen 2 on my laptop as we lay in bed. Watching a movie is something I have taken for granted before, but it was one of the greatest things to me today. Just to be able to do something that you have been able to do before in your normal routine in life meant so much. You have to experience it to understand.

Shelly and I had our own worship/Bible study after that for an hour. The longest we have ever done that together. It was really good for us. We both prayed and cried and really asked God for the strength we need to get through all the emotions and challenges. It is just us out here. God is with us and will take care of us. He did so today.

We left in search for dinner and found a good little Italian restaurant up 2 blocks and over 2 blocks. That is the only way you find things around – how many blocks is it up and over. We shared spaghetti with tomato sauce and each had a chocolate ice cream bar for dessert. Tristan is in heaven because not only can he walk anywhere and everywhere, he finally gets to go into the restaurant with us. He sat calmly in Shelly’s lap the whole time in the restaurant. Only in a third world country. We made our way back to our house after dark and that is where I am now.

I have typed for 59 minutes now about my life. That is a new record for me. God must be working in me. He has some new plans for my life and taking time to read, think and type must be part of the new plans. I have actually enjoyed doing all of those today. Shows me how much TV gets in the way of finding what is really important. I look forward to tomorrow and starting school. We did find it today and it is very close by. We will start bright and early at 8 am. Breakfast at 7:15. I plan on getting up at 6. I will write again tomorrow. Adios.

Chad