Keep It Clean. June 9, 2017.
First off, if you haven't read Alaina's most recent article on medical missions, you ought to do that.
Second off, a month ago, we had a quick graduation-church-family-wedding visit to America. We were reluctant to come back to some things in Guatemala, and gung-ho to hit the ground running with others.
The 411: One thing about America is that when you have a glass in your hand, you can stick it under the faucet, fill it with water, and drink it down without a second thought. Unless, of course, you happen to be in Flint, MI.
Wait, so you're saying that's not what happens in the capital city of Guatemala which is home to 4 million people, all of whom have bodies that rely on water to survive? Right. In most places in the capital there's water that comes out of the faucet, for us, 6 days a week (goes off without warning some days), but it's not clean. It's "improved," or "semi-sanitary." So if you're poor and you don't have time or money to get anything better, you drink the from the "chorro" (spigot). You and your kids get sick with parasites or bacteria from time to time but that's just life. The rivers (water sources) that flow through the ravines in the city were clean, pristine places for drinking and swimming with friends 30 years ago, and now they're foamy messes with trash, laundry, waste, and more flowing in and around it.
So what do you drink? For the normal city dweller, when you're not drinking bottles of Coca-Cola, you can buy a water-cooler sized bottle of purified water for $1-$2, and the change-out of these containers makes a lot of money for the owners of Agua Salvavidas. As for us, we got an "Eco-filtro" at the beginning of our stay, which means that for a one-time investment, we could just pour bad water in and get good water out for 2 years without replacing the clay filter. Not bad. But if you don't have a budget for that, that's not an option.
The 412: Remember back in August we put on a business class in Bethania, and did a bunch of planning and advertising and there was a lot of interest but then 2 people came? And we quit after 4 weeks, for obvious reasons? And then that time we did the Holy Week devotionals and started 20 minutes late always so that 3 people would come? And the "leaders in the community meeting" that, the second time we had it NO ONE showed up? Yeah, I hate doing helpful events in Bethania. The only event people have shown up for is the free "family" movie nights we did where 40 kids show up and maybe 2 or 3 moms who actually want to spend time with their kids (or maybe just don't trust them without supervision...).
The 413: You guys are very generous in many ways, and a few of you, at least, thought that helping people in Guatemala have access to clean water was a good idea. The idea was, "Hey, buy some of those dandy eco-filtros for the people and find a dandy way to give them to them."
The 414: It's often not the best thing to give things away in urban community settings. Many people don't take care of things they didn't put any stock in. Continually giving can create and/or enable an unhealthy dependency. Receiving for free, rather than earning, can take dignity away from the receiver. But that doesn't change the fact that poor people, by definition, need things, and don't have the means to access those things, even though they are the ones that need those things more than the rich people. Take, for example, water filters. You save lots of money and hassle by not having to buy water or drink bad water, but only the not-dirt-poor have access to such a novel money-saving tactic.
Instead of giving them away, we were going to have people pay a very reduced price for the donated eco-filtros (which cost $35 a piece). Sounded like a good enough idea. But I started feeling like a salesmen as I was thinking about how to put that all together, and wasn't sure the community fabric would be any stronger after the fact.
The 415: You live in Bethania, you come to 4 of the 6 classes/workshops we're giving in a two-week span, you win an eco-filtro. You give something that you have but is valuable to you (time). Your family drinks clean, free water for two years, and saves more than enough money to buy a replacement filter after two years. Excellent! The classes are all on relevant subjects that help a family and community be healthier and stronger, so it's a double-win for those that come, and a double stitch for the community fabric. And the presenters are a mixture of missionaries, folks from our church, and folks from right here in Bethania.
Class #1: How To Be Healthier In Your Home (ft. Deysi, Amie, & Alaina)
Class #2: How To Manage Money And Earn Some, Too. (ft. AJ)
Class #3: The Gospel That Transforms Everything (ft. Mario & AJ)
Class #4: How To Help Your Kid Study (ft. Claudia, Jenny, & other teachers)
Class #5: A Family Based On The Truth (ft. Susana & Elisa)
Class #6: How To Use And Care For Your Eco-Filtro (ft. Jose from Eco-Filtro)
(flyer attached)
The 416: Tuesday Afternoon: It's 10 minutes before the first teaching, and there are people already present! This never happens in Guatemala, let alone Bethania! Between the two sessions on health, 50 people came! And they took notes and were attentive, even being crowded in a 10ft x 12ft room! The nurses and dentist did awesome and gave some really helpful, contextual tips for the families present.
Most of them, plus maybe 10 new faces came for yesterday's class on money management. People are talking and connecting with us and the other presenters and with each other. Alaina was doing consults for a few kids right there in the room afterwards, I'm talking to one of the mothers about her financial situation. It's good. The funny thing is, all but 2 of the people who come are women. It's such a strange and sad thing about urban Guatemalan culture.
The 417: Could you be in prayer for this little initiative this week? Prayer for the individual families that are there, each with their own issues, their own physical needs, their own needs for God. Prayer for the community fabric to be stronger at the end of this, for there to be more trust, more care for one another, more belief and hope that good things can happen, more passion for God's kingdom. If this is something that could and should be replicated, that God would make that clear. And that the distribution of the filters would be a good and healthy thing, and not turn messy, as some distributions of good things can become. Thank you!
We're pretty happy and hopeful for all this. Thanks for making this possible, allowing us to be here through your prayers and gifts and little messages and visits and phone calls. Ya'll are so good. God is so good.
Strength in Christ,
AJ & Alaina
thewestys.weebly.com
guatemala.team.org
p.s. Things We're Into Lately
1. Activity: Saturdays at Toros Football Games! We're 3-1 with a big game against the defending champion Bulldogs this Saturday!
2. Show: Project Runway. "Make it work people!"
3. Activity: TEAM Guatemala Annual Conference. We went out to Lake Atitlan with the 7 TEAM Missionaries plus a few international TEAM staff to break down the past year and plan for the next. We love our TEAM.
4. Food: Churros! Now that mango season has passed, we go for the deep-fried dough with sugar on top. It's the closest we get to elephant ears here, only available when the fair's in town. Which stopped last week.
5. Moment: Hands-On Prayer. After sharing the message at Maple Avenue Ministries while we were home, our church family and friends surrounded us in one of the most powerful prayer moments in our lives. Thank you. We still go back to this moment and are encouraged and brought back to God.
6. Friendships: With People Who Aren't Doing So Great. Not sure what it is, but in the last month a lot of guys from the Toros, friends from church, and people in the neighborhood, are just passing through some rough times. Can't make ends meet, lost their job, quit their job, failing/quitting school, sickness that won't go away, fighting a lot in their marriage, identity crisis, shockingly bad reports from the doctor, family's at each others' necks. It's literally overwhelming to think about or pray about everything so honestly we're often helpless/numb/avoid the subject, cause each one is like intensive counseling sessions and/or divine miracle from being better. So if you could help bear the burden that would be...encouraging.
Second off, a month ago, we had a quick graduation-church-family-wedding visit to America. We were reluctant to come back to some things in Guatemala, and gung-ho to hit the ground running with others.
The 411: One thing about America is that when you have a glass in your hand, you can stick it under the faucet, fill it with water, and drink it down without a second thought. Unless, of course, you happen to be in Flint, MI.
Wait, so you're saying that's not what happens in the capital city of Guatemala which is home to 4 million people, all of whom have bodies that rely on water to survive? Right. In most places in the capital there's water that comes out of the faucet, for us, 6 days a week (goes off without warning some days), but it's not clean. It's "improved," or "semi-sanitary." So if you're poor and you don't have time or money to get anything better, you drink the from the "chorro" (spigot). You and your kids get sick with parasites or bacteria from time to time but that's just life. The rivers (water sources) that flow through the ravines in the city were clean, pristine places for drinking and swimming with friends 30 years ago, and now they're foamy messes with trash, laundry, waste, and more flowing in and around it.
So what do you drink? For the normal city dweller, when you're not drinking bottles of Coca-Cola, you can buy a water-cooler sized bottle of purified water for $1-$2, and the change-out of these containers makes a lot of money for the owners of Agua Salvavidas. As for us, we got an "Eco-filtro" at the beginning of our stay, which means that for a one-time investment, we could just pour bad water in and get good water out for 2 years without replacing the clay filter. Not bad. But if you don't have a budget for that, that's not an option.
The 412: Remember back in August we put on a business class in Bethania, and did a bunch of planning and advertising and there was a lot of interest but then 2 people came? And we quit after 4 weeks, for obvious reasons? And then that time we did the Holy Week devotionals and started 20 minutes late always so that 3 people would come? And the "leaders in the community meeting" that, the second time we had it NO ONE showed up? Yeah, I hate doing helpful events in Bethania. The only event people have shown up for is the free "family" movie nights we did where 40 kids show up and maybe 2 or 3 moms who actually want to spend time with their kids (or maybe just don't trust them without supervision...).
The 413: You guys are very generous in many ways, and a few of you, at least, thought that helping people in Guatemala have access to clean water was a good idea. The idea was, "Hey, buy some of those dandy eco-filtros for the people and find a dandy way to give them to them."
The 414: It's often not the best thing to give things away in urban community settings. Many people don't take care of things they didn't put any stock in. Continually giving can create and/or enable an unhealthy dependency. Receiving for free, rather than earning, can take dignity away from the receiver. But that doesn't change the fact that poor people, by definition, need things, and don't have the means to access those things, even though they are the ones that need those things more than the rich people. Take, for example, water filters. You save lots of money and hassle by not having to buy water or drink bad water, but only the not-dirt-poor have access to such a novel money-saving tactic.
Instead of giving them away, we were going to have people pay a very reduced price for the donated eco-filtros (which cost $35 a piece). Sounded like a good enough idea. But I started feeling like a salesmen as I was thinking about how to put that all together, and wasn't sure the community fabric would be any stronger after the fact.
The 415: You live in Bethania, you come to 4 of the 6 classes/workshops we're giving in a two-week span, you win an eco-filtro. You give something that you have but is valuable to you (time). Your family drinks clean, free water for two years, and saves more than enough money to buy a replacement filter after two years. Excellent! The classes are all on relevant subjects that help a family and community be healthier and stronger, so it's a double-win for those that come, and a double stitch for the community fabric. And the presenters are a mixture of missionaries, folks from our church, and folks from right here in Bethania.
Class #1: How To Be Healthier In Your Home (ft. Deysi, Amie, & Alaina)
Class #2: How To Manage Money And Earn Some, Too. (ft. AJ)
Class #3: The Gospel That Transforms Everything (ft. Mario & AJ)
Class #4: How To Help Your Kid Study (ft. Claudia, Jenny, & other teachers)
Class #5: A Family Based On The Truth (ft. Susana & Elisa)
Class #6: How To Use And Care For Your Eco-Filtro (ft. Jose from Eco-Filtro)
(flyer attached)
The 416: Tuesday Afternoon: It's 10 minutes before the first teaching, and there are people already present! This never happens in Guatemala, let alone Bethania! Between the two sessions on health, 50 people came! And they took notes and were attentive, even being crowded in a 10ft x 12ft room! The nurses and dentist did awesome and gave some really helpful, contextual tips for the families present.
Most of them, plus maybe 10 new faces came for yesterday's class on money management. People are talking and connecting with us and the other presenters and with each other. Alaina was doing consults for a few kids right there in the room afterwards, I'm talking to one of the mothers about her financial situation. It's good. The funny thing is, all but 2 of the people who come are women. It's such a strange and sad thing about urban Guatemalan culture.
The 417: Could you be in prayer for this little initiative this week? Prayer for the individual families that are there, each with their own issues, their own physical needs, their own needs for God. Prayer for the community fabric to be stronger at the end of this, for there to be more trust, more care for one another, more belief and hope that good things can happen, more passion for God's kingdom. If this is something that could and should be replicated, that God would make that clear. And that the distribution of the filters would be a good and healthy thing, and not turn messy, as some distributions of good things can become. Thank you!
We're pretty happy and hopeful for all this. Thanks for making this possible, allowing us to be here through your prayers and gifts and little messages and visits and phone calls. Ya'll are so good. God is so good.
Strength in Christ,
AJ & Alaina
thewestys.weebly.com
guatemala.team.org
p.s. Things We're Into Lately
1. Activity: Saturdays at Toros Football Games! We're 3-1 with a big game against the defending champion Bulldogs this Saturday!
2. Show: Project Runway. "Make it work people!"
3. Activity: TEAM Guatemala Annual Conference. We went out to Lake Atitlan with the 7 TEAM Missionaries plus a few international TEAM staff to break down the past year and plan for the next. We love our TEAM.
4. Food: Churros! Now that mango season has passed, we go for the deep-fried dough with sugar on top. It's the closest we get to elephant ears here, only available when the fair's in town. Which stopped last week.
5. Moment: Hands-On Prayer. After sharing the message at Maple Avenue Ministries while we were home, our church family and friends surrounded us in one of the most powerful prayer moments in our lives. Thank you. We still go back to this moment and are encouraged and brought back to God.
6. Friendships: With People Who Aren't Doing So Great. Not sure what it is, but in the last month a lot of guys from the Toros, friends from church, and people in the neighborhood, are just passing through some rough times. Can't make ends meet, lost their job, quit their job, failing/quitting school, sickness that won't go away, fighting a lot in their marriage, identity crisis, shockingly bad reports from the doctor, family's at each others' necks. It's literally overwhelming to think about or pray about everything so honestly we're often helpless/numb/avoid the subject, cause each one is like intensive counseling sessions and/or divine miracle from being better. So if you could help bear the burden that would be...encouraging.
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