Our First Week!

Hello Everyone!

We have now lived in San Juan del Obispo, Guatemala for just over a week!! Yeah!!It has been a long week but it has been so good.  First things first, here are the pictures that we promised last week of our house! 

This is where Jess washes our clothes and where we brush our teeth (the red concrete thingy is full of water!!) The bathroom is to the left of that wall.

This is the amazing view from our window/doorway!!

These are the steps to our house from the front door which is down below (the garage is down there too)

This is our street - the picture is taken from our balcony.

This is the cute sign our family made for us - 

it is on the wall in our room!!

This is our room!! 

This is looking from our bedroom door to the kitchen (it is the door you can see - their bedrooms are too the left of it). The area in between is our 'living area' i suppose - and where we hang the clothes... and yes - all the family and neighbors see our clothes as the dry.... i know because i saw them from our friends roof....oh yeah!!

Jess standing on our balcony

Adam standing in front of our bedroom door

Adam working with Domi. They are sorting nisperos which are little orange fruits that are very tart - they grow and sell them.

Jess’s new cultural experience for this week is hand washing clothes:  It became a great way for me to learn Spanish and bond with our family as they taught me this simple task but WOW – I had no idea it was so much work!! I will tell you two things! One, I will never wear jeans again – Second, I will never try and wash all our dirty clothes in one setting….pretty sure I couldn’t push myself up out of bed the next morning!! Aurelia told me that I need to do a few every day that way it isn’t so hard and it doesn’t take as long (since I was washing clothes for about 2 hours)!!!

 

By washing, I mean that I was rolling soap on them and then scrubbing them on a concrete slab….dumping water on them – scrubbing some more….rinsing, squishing and wringing…I am sure you can now understand why I will not be wearing jeans anymore…the fabric is so thick and stiff and well it is just un-fun to wash!!! J

 

Adam’s cultural experience for this week was harvesting black beans:  I spent the whole day pulling up bean plants that were attached to corn stalks…after pulling them up we placed them in piles on top of a clear sheet of plastic.  Once they were pilled up we cut down some small trees (about 4 inches in diameter and 7 foot long) and we proceeded to beat the tar out of the bean plants (with the trees). We did this for several hours until the bean pods broke open and the beans popped out…at the end of the day we had harvested about 5 gallons worth of beans….it was definitely way to much work for that amount of beans!!

 

Class is going very well, we both really like our teachers.  We all go to class at a school from 8-12. But we have individual teachers that we sit with at different tables for the entire time, so it is one-on-one.  We do get a 30-minute break in the middle so that is good.  My teacher doesn’t really know much English so it is just talking in Spanish for 4 hours straight!! By the end of it my brain is definitely smoking J But slowly but surely I think I am learning. It is so hard to gage progress but hopefully I am making some! Adam has just been chatting with his teacher and going over random grammatical rules etc. We are hoping they will give him a test so that he won’t have to really go to class and can maybe work in a mechanic shop that is across the street from us, but we aren’t sure. One interesting thing is that his teacher is Agnostic but has asked Adam to do a Bible study with him, so for the first 30 min of class everyday Adam is teaching him about the Bible! It is really amazing. 

 

God has definitely placed us right where we need to be, it is truly a miracle - and even though I have already woke up not wanting to go to class it keeps me going knowing that the Lord has us here for a purpose and that He is already working in the hearts of the people around us.

 

Prayer Requests:

˜   Just for Jess as she is trying to learn/understand/speak Spanish. Living with a family is amazing but being unable to communicate with them is hard. She has been carrying around her Spanish dictionary with her everywhere!! At least everyone is gracious and patient!

˜   For our family as we live with them everyday - that we will be good examples. Adam went and helped them sort fruit and harvest beans and Jess has been able to play some games with the girls and help with dishes, just pray for opportunities to help them and to share life with them.

˜   It is really cold at night, two of the girls have been sick this week – please just pray that we will be healthy so we can learn quickly! 

One last story before we say goodbye J Our family has been so great too us, Aurelia the mother absolutely loves Adam. So when he learned of a ‘typical Guatemala’ drink called Atol, she wanted to make it for him.  It is very sweet of her – but unfortunately that means we BOTH have to drink it….pretty sure that it was ground up corn, milk and sugar…and it was steaming hot. Oh and it was thick as pudding….OH and guess what there are tons and tons of different kinds and she is making them all. Oh yeah, so yesterday we had plantations blended in water…also hot (that one was rough) and today we had one with rice and milk….kinda like drinking hot tapioca…. 

Thanks for all of your prayers and support! We love you guys and we will get some good pics of Jess washing clothes for next week and hopefully of our family!

Love,

Adam and Jess