A Trip to Zacapa

September is rapidly ending, and I realized that I hadn't posted a blog update in over a month! A lot has happened! I'll briefly summarize what we've been doing.

Last Wednesday the 18^th, we had a Guatemalan Fair at school. Basically it was like the school carnivals that I remember from Glenwood Elementary. There were booths where you could do different things. It was a fundraiser for student council to host our annual Spiritual Emphasis Week in the Spring. One of the games you could play was finding 5 M&Ms in a plate of whipped cream. Nikki and I played, but I don’t think we ever won. The game was free for us teachers, but the students had to pay Q5 (64 cents of the dollar) to play each game. The whipped cream wasn’t very tasty because it was literally whipped heavy cream without sugar. But it was fun!

After playing the "find the m&ms game

 Another part of the carnival was that anyone could put money into a pot. Once the amount reached a certain level, a teacher would get a whipped cream pie in the face. I think Nikki was worth Q500 (about $90). So she got “pied!” Her student seems to like it too much!

A week ago Friday, September 13 – Monday, September 16, Nikki, our friend Rafael, and I traveled to Zacapa where Nikki and I met in 2010 with Liberty University. We had a long weekend without school on Monday because of Guatemala’s Independence Day, so we decided to visit the other side of the country! It was a great trip because it was a long enough time to see our friends, but not too much time to suffer in the heat of Zacapa! We left on Friday after school and traveled to Guatemala City.

The map is a little misleading, but from Xela to Guatemala City it's about 3-4 hours. From Guatemala City to Zacapa, it's about 2 1/2 hours (all of this depending on traffic in Guatemala City).

We tried to use my phone as a GPS to get directions through Guatemala City, but as you can tell from the picture below, after the directions tell us to pass "Cumpleaños" ("birthday"), it told us basically to go in a circle on highway 9. Needless to say, we found our own way. And with the gas prices like they are here (divide that number by 7.8), we couldn't afford to do circles! 

Antigua, Guatemala is on the way to Guatemala City from Xela. Because of that, we offered to take a friend of ours to Antigua on our way to Guatemala City on Friday night. We accidentally took a correct, but much much longer, turn to get to Antigua, and we passed through this town called "Pastores." This town had cowboy boots GALORE! As you can see from the sign, apparently they specialize in making cowboy boots. So, whenever y'all want to come visit and pick up a pair of Guatemalan cowboy boots, I know exactly where to go! 

Friday night in Guatemala City, before going to sleep, we took the opportunity of eating at TGI Fridays. It was a much needed North American meal that consisted of hamburgers, fries, and coke, finished with some chocolate ice cream. Yum! 

On Friday night we stayed at the Liberty House of the Shalom Baptist Church. I took a look around to see how the place was doing, since I had stayed there before with Emmanuel's mission team. I found a couple gems that have been touting our presence for over 2 years now! This picture is mostly for my fellow team members, especially the ones who remember the "Quetzal bird!" It lives on in the Liberty House! 

We arrived in "Llano Verde" ("Green Plain") around 12:00pm on Saturday. It was nice and hot! We took advantage of the local "cucos" (frozen "ice cream" in a bag) to cool us off. Cucos are basically milk, sugar, and flavor (we chose coffee), then they are frozen in bags and you just chew off a corner of the bag and chill out! Very refreshing. 

 We got to see some of our friends as well. This is our friend Susie who lives in Llano Verde. She taught Nikki and I how to make tortillas and she taught Nikki how to work in the bakery. She's recovering from a big fall that she had about 9 months ago.

Ice cream. Always wanting something cold! As you can tell, either the heat or the cold is affecting our faces. Not good. 

We spent a lot of time relaxing in the hammocks. It was great! 

Nikki with her "sister" Elizabeth at the house where Nikki stayed in Llano Largo ("Long Plain")

We went to the river to swim on Sunday. It felt amazing in the hot air! The water was very refreshing. 

We took the opportunity to eat at Applebees on the way back to Xela on Monday! It was great! We got the cowboy burger, three cheese chicken penne, and buffalo wings, and shared it all! It was a good occasion.

 It rained really hard on the way back to Xela. We even had to pull over on the side of the road because I couldn't see to drive! But we made it safely.

These chickens had a rough ride. This was slightly disturbing.

Yesterday, I spent the day with my friend Luis from Totonicapan. He and I have known each other for 4 years now! He's 13 years old and doesn't have a father and his older brothers don't live at home anymore, so he wanted to visit Xela and spend some time with me, so that's what we did yesterday! I showed him where the soccer team plays, we toured the central park of Xela, and then went to see the movie Airplanes! It was a great day and I was blessed to spend some time with him, pouring into him.

Apparently 13 year old Guatemalan boys like to play those racing arcade games, too!

Please be praying for Luis. I have been praying for him that he will know the Lord Jesus as his Lord and Savior. 

On Friday in my 8th grade English class, I let my students make baked s'mores for our bake sale that we had after school. They had a lot of fun! 

They LOVE the s'mores! Happy to share an American tradition with them! 

That's all I have for now! Thanks for reading so long (or maybe you just looked at the pictures, which is okay, too)! Happy Sunday! 

Devin