10 Impactful Moments from 2016. December, 2016.
It's not too often we take time to really look back and suck the significance out of things in life, people, moments, and places that change us. So here goes. Buckle in.
1. Quiché (Kee-chay) (not the brunch food "quiche"):
When Alaina and her nursing crew rolled into Quiché, a very rural village 13hours out of the capital, they bore witness to arguably one of the most beautiful landscapes they had seen in Guatemala. When they arrived in the village, everything was made of tin and dirt, the majority of patients couldn't sign their own name, there were so little resources of any kind, and a mother who preferred to let her 12-year-old daughter continue suffering of a terrible foot infection that has haunted her for 8 years and will eventually lead to her death rather than allow her to go to a hospital. The juxtaposition of beauty and need and giving and disaster makes us feel small in the face of poverty, ingrained lifestyles, and the bigness of the world in general.
2. Learning Spanish:
I don't know if we could yet qualify ourselves as "fluent" but I guess it's all relative. We still miss a lot in conversations, come across new words all the time, and we aren't the most disciplined in "continued learning" in any sort of organized fashion. But having "graduated" from La Semilla Spanish School in May, we are so grateful to get to carry the Spanish language wherever we go for the rest of our lives. It opens up so many corners of the world. Back in Holland, we felt this huge barrier to the Hispanic community just from not knowing their mother tongue. Every now and then I come out of a meeting and realize that I made it through all by my lonesome, and didn't even have to ask about any words and so I feel good about myself and buy myself a chocobanana.
3. Finding Family in Bethania:
We've found the heart of our investment here in Bethania to be between a handful of callejones (alleys) a few blocks down from our place. We walk through the callejones and say "Buenas tardes" to all the ladies we pass and "Que tal, vos?" to all the little boys trying out old bikes or lighting firecrackers. But there's one tin house that we pass by most often, where one special family lives--5 kids and their mother; the three fathers scattered in different places with different excuses for leaving their kids and family by their lonesome. Kids so sweet and polite (usually), so happy to be loved, so hungry for adventure outside of their tiny world, so accustomed to living with so little. They've come to be like family, and some of the most precious moments for us have been in opening their world just a little to let them be a family, let them be kids. Going to the park to fly kites at the kite festival, reading the Christmas story after Christmas breakfast, shopping at the market, learning to make cookies. Oh, that they might know fully that despite their absent fathers/husbands, they are loved and treasured by God, and by us. Not to mention that the mother stomped through the neighborhood to track down the squirrelly little kid who stole my phone, and only took 15 minutes to do so.
4. Visitors Doing What Visitors Do: Visiting:
Every time we have visitors, it gives us the opportunity to "show off" the world we are living in, that they might experience a bit of the gospel amidst the goodness and ugliness that surrounds us. Thankfully, all our visitors have wanted to see/experience the places we frequent in life and ministry. It's the most special seeing my aunt taking vitals Alaina's clinic and jornadas, my neighbors playing soccer with Guatemalan friends and strangers, my dad doing back exercises with one of the Toros, sharing thanksgiving with friends from 3 different countries, and even sitting in mind-numbing midday traffic together. Visitors also give us a pretty good excuse to show off/visit for the first time the rest of Guatemala. If it weren't for visitors, who knows if we would have climbed Volcano Acatenango and seen Volcano Fuego erupting while the sun was rising? Or gone out to Lake Atitlan, or driven up to Laguna Lachua in the middle of NOWHERE, or have constructed houses with families out in Chua Cruz. It's a big encouragement, and often open our eyes more to what treasures and possibilities there are to have show what God is doing here to our friends. Also, sometimes special things come in suitcases of visitors that we happen to love. Just sayin'.
5. Defeating Diabetes:
Before leaving for whatever country we were going to go to, Alaina wanted to make sure that she did not get roped into some community education gig about hand washing and eating your vegetables. Well, one of the highlights of the year has been putting on a handful of 4-week classes on the causes, effects, and ways to manage diabetes in the light of who God has called us to be. You know, not drinking liters of coca-cola daily, doing some simple stationary movements throughout the day, and eating plates that include more than tortillas and beans. It's been so encouraging to see people so grateful for results that they achieve themselves by making changes in their own life, not just coming to a clinic to get some meds. We're talking blood sugars cut by 1/3 to 1/2, overall feeling healthier, and giving themselves a chance to live longer and better.
6. The Move:
We moved to Bethania, which a lot of Guatemalans have a pretty poor opinion of. We've had a few things to fear, a few things lost/stolen, but mostly a community that has welcomed us, wants us to experience their lives, try their tamales and (below average) ice creams, give us gifts, hugs and kisses. Not to mention the "music of the motorcycles" that nightly "puts us to sleep." But living in Bethania has just opened a lot of doors for conversation, for dropping by peoples' houses, for staying places longer, being more invested, and inviting people into our homes who don't have transportation to get anywhere out of Bethania. I have loved being neighbors with the kids from the tutoring program, seeing their faces light up going to the park, playing football, making cookies, reading a book or killing a math problem. It's the relationships, the kids and their families, that have meant the most so far.
7. Toros Not Entering the League:
In April, we had a full-day "mini-camp" with the Toros football team, with 28 players, ready to learn and smash and win the championship. In mid-June, we were looking at a "team" of 15-ish semi-committed dudes and a league that was charging too much for a team to enter said league. So, out the window goes the whole "bringing the good news of American football to Guatemala project," but tell you what, we've kept practicing some assemblance of football every now and then with a smaller group, more like "going to the park and playin' some pigskin." But what's come out of that has been the opportunity to get breakfast with Hans or lunch with Jhoel or have Rodrigo over to cook that I might have time for if we're busy practicing. I bless God for the 4-5 relationships that have come out of the Toros that I rather treasure and that God has grown some tasty fruit from. That being said...the one 6 on 6 contact game we played and won in overtime was a pretty cool moment, too.
8. The Giant (Bicycle):
Unfortunately, it's the 2nd most popular conversation I have with people under 25 here...where did you buy your bike? for how much? wow, it's huge! can I take it for a spin? why not? I won't fall off. But besides that, The Giant has allowed for Alaina to drive the car to the clinic and AJ to access all of Bethania, cruise down to breakfast in Zone 3, practice in zone 13, or a game in Villa Nueva. Also it keeps AJ's relationship with the local tire shop strong due the the frequency of glass, screws, metal and what have you that like to try and ride the bicycle as well. I couldn't imagine our life in Guatemala with kids, and I couldn't imagine our life in Guatemala without a bike.
10. TEAM Guatemala:
There's 7 missionaries in Guatemala city who are part of our organization, The Evangelical Alliance Mission. We're all in different places--church planting, seminary teaching, nursing, puppetry, community development, commited to embody the kingdom of God alongside Guatemalans. We try to colaborate and connect, rather than conquer and criticize. It's the coolest when our worlds collide; when we the puppeteers come to Sigo Vivo, when people from Bethania show up at Iglesia Reforma and vice versa. We had a pretty unique thank you dinner this December with all of our Guatemalan "co-workers," if you will...we did a chili-cookoff where the Guatemalans got to vote on their favorite (chili is a foreign dish to most all Guatemalans). But it was so cool to have 30-some Guatemalan ministers together with us to celebrate how God is working in Guatemala. In other news, just us missionaries have a dinner about once a month and the food there is always excellent...the Stoddard's bread, man, it never disappoints.
11. Sigo Vivo:
On the surface, there aren't many people in the world more different than us and those born into poverty, forgotten by their families, sniffing solvents, accustomed to receiving and just existing rather than producing and creating and saying thank you. Most every encounter with the folks at Sigo Vivo is challenging; to our selfishness, to our worldview, to our lifestyle, to our optimism. It stretches the limits of our believing that change is possible and that God is working. We loved having an evening with Jurie, visiting Milvia when she was amongst the elderly ladies, celebrating my birthday at Pollo Campero with the street kids, and seeing Alejandra and Manuel grow as people and as a couple. And then there are frustrating days with manipulating young ladies in the clinic and ungrateful people in food lines and people who just don't want to change. In other news, we love the Hernandezes, who lead Sigo Vivo, and they're a big reason why we stick with it. Also because we know that beneath the surface, we're really not that different, and we're really looking for the same types of things in life.
12. Celestino:
Some of my favorite pictures come from people wanting to try on my sunglasses (which I got for free at the Lambeau Field). Love this one. Anyway, a year ago, I just needed some apples to make an apple crisp. I couldn't understand anything he was trying to say, and what I was saying probably made little sense. A number of visits to church, a few dozen apples, exhausted passings by on my way back from the gym, a trip to the fair, dinners in the house and studies in Genesis have gone down in the last year. I'm still figuring him out, but either way, a few weeks ago he started asking about what communion and baptism and what they mean (against the framework of what other Guatemalan churches have taken them to mean/require). He really wants to take that next step in faith, whatever it is. One of my better 50+ year-old friends, and evidence that God doesn't care what years in life someone is "most likely" to accept God. God just does things how he wants, OK?
13. An Unexpected Return:
In June, we spent a week back in Michigan to see Alaina's grandmother (she's still going, but still with a good amount of pain). It was a beautiful week, living in the slowness of the woods, limited by location. But even so, the sunsets and storms, softball and soulful songs, socials and soils made for a beautiful week of reminding us of the good things of home. Thanks God, for that week.
14. A Sweet Wife:
I gotta take one more space to say how awesome it is being married and going through all this together. Alaina is so sacrificial and helpful. She struggles and sees things that I can't. She craves time for just us. She went all-out for my birthday. She makes our cement box look like a home. She helps cook and wash and sweep. She makes cards with the kids and reads with them. She tells me she's proud of me. She can be down when I'm up, and up when I'm distant, and she can be grouchy especially without sleep or food or coffee, but there's no one else I'd rather be with. I also broke her nose this year, and she didn't leave me. So that's a plus.
Thankful for a brilliant 2016, and hopeful for a 2017 full of wonder. Thanks for walking with us all along the watchtower. Even when I promise to keep it to 10 and I write 14 impactful moments. You're a real friend if you made it this far.
Do you know God loves you? A whole lot, from the heart. Grasp that.
-AJ & Alaina
thewestys.weebly.com
guatemala.team.org
Psalm 147:1-5
1 John 1:9
1. Quiché (Kee-chay) (not the brunch food "quiche"):
When Alaina and her nursing crew rolled into Quiché, a very rural village 13hours out of the capital, they bore witness to arguably one of the most beautiful landscapes they had seen in Guatemala. When they arrived in the village, everything was made of tin and dirt, the majority of patients couldn't sign their own name, there were so little resources of any kind, and a mother who preferred to let her 12-year-old daughter continue suffering of a terrible foot infection that has haunted her for 8 years and will eventually lead to her death rather than allow her to go to a hospital. The juxtaposition of beauty and need and giving and disaster makes us feel small in the face of poverty, ingrained lifestyles, and the bigness of the world in general.
2. Learning Spanish:
I don't know if we could yet qualify ourselves as "fluent" but I guess it's all relative. We still miss a lot in conversations, come across new words all the time, and we aren't the most disciplined in "continued learning" in any sort of organized fashion. But having "graduated" from La Semilla Spanish School in May, we are so grateful to get to carry the Spanish language wherever we go for the rest of our lives. It opens up so many corners of the world. Back in Holland, we felt this huge barrier to the Hispanic community just from not knowing their mother tongue. Every now and then I come out of a meeting and realize that I made it through all by my lonesome, and didn't even have to ask about any words and so I feel good about myself and buy myself a chocobanana.
3. Finding Family in Bethania:
We've found the heart of our investment here in Bethania to be between a handful of callejones (alleys) a few blocks down from our place. We walk through the callejones and say "Buenas tardes" to all the ladies we pass and "Que tal, vos?" to all the little boys trying out old bikes or lighting firecrackers. But there's one tin house that we pass by most often, where one special family lives--5 kids and their mother; the three fathers scattered in different places with different excuses for leaving their kids and family by their lonesome. Kids so sweet and polite (usually), so happy to be loved, so hungry for adventure outside of their tiny world, so accustomed to living with so little. They've come to be like family, and some of the most precious moments for us have been in opening their world just a little to let them be a family, let them be kids. Going to the park to fly kites at the kite festival, reading the Christmas story after Christmas breakfast, shopping at the market, learning to make cookies. Oh, that they might know fully that despite their absent fathers/husbands, they are loved and treasured by God, and by us. Not to mention that the mother stomped through the neighborhood to track down the squirrelly little kid who stole my phone, and only took 15 minutes to do so.
4. Visitors Doing What Visitors Do: Visiting:
Every time we have visitors, it gives us the opportunity to "show off" the world we are living in, that they might experience a bit of the gospel amidst the goodness and ugliness that surrounds us. Thankfully, all our visitors have wanted to see/experience the places we frequent in life and ministry. It's the most special seeing my aunt taking vitals Alaina's clinic and jornadas, my neighbors playing soccer with Guatemalan friends and strangers, my dad doing back exercises with one of the Toros, sharing thanksgiving with friends from 3 different countries, and even sitting in mind-numbing midday traffic together. Visitors also give us a pretty good excuse to show off/visit for the first time the rest of Guatemala. If it weren't for visitors, who knows if we would have climbed Volcano Acatenango and seen Volcano Fuego erupting while the sun was rising? Or gone out to Lake Atitlan, or driven up to Laguna Lachua in the middle of NOWHERE, or have constructed houses with families out in Chua Cruz. It's a big encouragement, and often open our eyes more to what treasures and possibilities there are to have show what God is doing here to our friends. Also, sometimes special things come in suitcases of visitors that we happen to love. Just sayin'.
5. Defeating Diabetes:
Before leaving for whatever country we were going to go to, Alaina wanted to make sure that she did not get roped into some community education gig about hand washing and eating your vegetables. Well, one of the highlights of the year has been putting on a handful of 4-week classes on the causes, effects, and ways to manage diabetes in the light of who God has called us to be. You know, not drinking liters of coca-cola daily, doing some simple stationary movements throughout the day, and eating plates that include more than tortillas and beans. It's been so encouraging to see people so grateful for results that they achieve themselves by making changes in their own life, not just coming to a clinic to get some meds. We're talking blood sugars cut by 1/3 to 1/2, overall feeling healthier, and giving themselves a chance to live longer and better.
6. The Move:
We moved to Bethania, which a lot of Guatemalans have a pretty poor opinion of. We've had a few things to fear, a few things lost/stolen, but mostly a community that has welcomed us, wants us to experience their lives, try their tamales and (below average) ice creams, give us gifts, hugs and kisses. Not to mention the "music of the motorcycles" that nightly "puts us to sleep." But living in Bethania has just opened a lot of doors for conversation, for dropping by peoples' houses, for staying places longer, being more invested, and inviting people into our homes who don't have transportation to get anywhere out of Bethania. I have loved being neighbors with the kids from the tutoring program, seeing their faces light up going to the park, playing football, making cookies, reading a book or killing a math problem. It's the relationships, the kids and their families, that have meant the most so far.
7. Toros Not Entering the League:
In April, we had a full-day "mini-camp" with the Toros football team, with 28 players, ready to learn and smash and win the championship. In mid-June, we were looking at a "team" of 15-ish semi-committed dudes and a league that was charging too much for a team to enter said league. So, out the window goes the whole "bringing the good news of American football to Guatemala project," but tell you what, we've kept practicing some assemblance of football every now and then with a smaller group, more like "going to the park and playin' some pigskin." But what's come out of that has been the opportunity to get breakfast with Hans or lunch with Jhoel or have Rodrigo over to cook that I might have time for if we're busy practicing. I bless God for the 4-5 relationships that have come out of the Toros that I rather treasure and that God has grown some tasty fruit from. That being said...the one 6 on 6 contact game we played and won in overtime was a pretty cool moment, too.
8. The Giant (Bicycle):
Unfortunately, it's the 2nd most popular conversation I have with people under 25 here...where did you buy your bike? for how much? wow, it's huge! can I take it for a spin? why not? I won't fall off. But besides that, The Giant has allowed for Alaina to drive the car to the clinic and AJ to access all of Bethania, cruise down to breakfast in Zone 3, practice in zone 13, or a game in Villa Nueva. Also it keeps AJ's relationship with the local tire shop strong due the the frequency of glass, screws, metal and what have you that like to try and ride the bicycle as well. I couldn't imagine our life in Guatemala with kids, and I couldn't imagine our life in Guatemala without a bike.
10. TEAM Guatemala:
There's 7 missionaries in Guatemala city who are part of our organization, The Evangelical Alliance Mission. We're all in different places--church planting, seminary teaching, nursing, puppetry, community development, commited to embody the kingdom of God alongside Guatemalans. We try to colaborate and connect, rather than conquer and criticize. It's the coolest when our worlds collide; when we the puppeteers come to Sigo Vivo, when people from Bethania show up at Iglesia Reforma and vice versa. We had a pretty unique thank you dinner this December with all of our Guatemalan "co-workers," if you will...we did a chili-cookoff where the Guatemalans got to vote on their favorite (chili is a foreign dish to most all Guatemalans). But it was so cool to have 30-some Guatemalan ministers together with us to celebrate how God is working in Guatemala. In other news, just us missionaries have a dinner about once a month and the food there is always excellent...the Stoddard's bread, man, it never disappoints.
11. Sigo Vivo:
On the surface, there aren't many people in the world more different than us and those born into poverty, forgotten by their families, sniffing solvents, accustomed to receiving and just existing rather than producing and creating and saying thank you. Most every encounter with the folks at Sigo Vivo is challenging; to our selfishness, to our worldview, to our lifestyle, to our optimism. It stretches the limits of our believing that change is possible and that God is working. We loved having an evening with Jurie, visiting Milvia when she was amongst the elderly ladies, celebrating my birthday at Pollo Campero with the street kids, and seeing Alejandra and Manuel grow as people and as a couple. And then there are frustrating days with manipulating young ladies in the clinic and ungrateful people in food lines and people who just don't want to change. In other news, we love the Hernandezes, who lead Sigo Vivo, and they're a big reason why we stick with it. Also because we know that beneath the surface, we're really not that different, and we're really looking for the same types of things in life.
12. Celestino:
Some of my favorite pictures come from people wanting to try on my sunglasses (which I got for free at the Lambeau Field). Love this one. Anyway, a year ago, I just needed some apples to make an apple crisp. I couldn't understand anything he was trying to say, and what I was saying probably made little sense. A number of visits to church, a few dozen apples, exhausted passings by on my way back from the gym, a trip to the fair, dinners in the house and studies in Genesis have gone down in the last year. I'm still figuring him out, but either way, a few weeks ago he started asking about what communion and baptism and what they mean (against the framework of what other Guatemalan churches have taken them to mean/require). He really wants to take that next step in faith, whatever it is. One of my better 50+ year-old friends, and evidence that God doesn't care what years in life someone is "most likely" to accept God. God just does things how he wants, OK?
13. An Unexpected Return:
In June, we spent a week back in Michigan to see Alaina's grandmother (she's still going, but still with a good amount of pain). It was a beautiful week, living in the slowness of the woods, limited by location. But even so, the sunsets and storms, softball and soulful songs, socials and soils made for a beautiful week of reminding us of the good things of home. Thanks God, for that week.
14. A Sweet Wife:
I gotta take one more space to say how awesome it is being married and going through all this together. Alaina is so sacrificial and helpful. She struggles and sees things that I can't. She craves time for just us. She went all-out for my birthday. She makes our cement box look like a home. She helps cook and wash and sweep. She makes cards with the kids and reads with them. She tells me she's proud of me. She can be down when I'm up, and up when I'm distant, and she can be grouchy especially without sleep or food or coffee, but there's no one else I'd rather be with. I also broke her nose this year, and she didn't leave me. So that's a plus.
Thankful for a brilliant 2016, and hopeful for a 2017 full of wonder. Thanks for walking with us all along the watchtower. Even when I promise to keep it to 10 and I write 14 impactful moments. You're a real friend if you made it this far.
Do you know God loves you? A whole lot, from the heart. Grasp that.
-AJ & Alaina
thewestys.weebly.com
guatemala.team.org
Psalm 147:1-5
1 John 1:9