Journey to Uspantan

Today was basically a travel day.  We left Guatemala city around 9 am, and drove a few hours into Chichicastenango, which is a vast market that reminds you of something from an Indiana Jones movie.  Thousands of people plying their wares - most of them indigenous Guatemalans.  The smell and sounds overwhelm you!  But this trip was amazing as we careened up and down mountains to get to this place.  Highways here are pretty much nonexistent - most everything is a two lane road or one lane trail.  Our driver is Shelly, Salomon and Mery´s daughter, and she did a great job of getting us here.  The scenery here is absolutely stunning:  picture grand mountains like the Sierras, but instead everything is completely green, dotted with trees, patchwork farms, and little casitas everywhere.  So while the scenery is spectacular, the journey is exhausting!  We are now here at Salomon and Mery´s house.  We will be visiting various projects in the mountains tomorrow, so we are excited about that.  Our group is doing great - having a great time, really interacting with everyone.  Our Spanish is improving by leaps and bounds!  Though I have to say, the three girls laugh at my butchered Spanglish.  But hey, as long as things get communicated, that´s the goal, right?  It will be difficult for me to upload pictures here as the internet is very sketchy.  See you tomorrow!

Wonderful work in Guatemala

Today was a very full day, and very inspiring!  First we visited Westmont Bethel Hospital here in Guatemala City.  Our hosts, the Hernandez family, have basically created this hospital out of nothing, and it is very impressive.  A four story building, which they built, this hospital has an emergency room, x-rays, ultrasounds, examination rooms, surgical rooms, post-op rooms, a nursery for newborns - in short it is a full-blown hospital that serves the poor here in Guatemala City.  About 40% of its expenses are paid for by people paying for their services here, and about 60% are paid for by donations, mainly from people and groups from the states.  A high percentage of their clients are indigenous people, who are on the lowest rung of society here, and face a lot of discrimination.  There is no health insurance here, and if you cannot pay, you simply go without medical care.  So this hospital is doing a wonderful work, and seeing 1000 patients a month!  The eldest of the Hernandez family are Salomon and Mery, who Jenni and I know, and who do a lot of fundraising with people in the States.  Their son, Danny, is one of the 5 doctors on staff at the hospital.  Their daughter, Shelly, who we are staying with, is the head administrator on the personnel side.  It is amazing how this vision has sprouted and grown over 20 years!  It is inspiring for our group to see people dedicate their lives to helping the poor, and provide an opportunity for those who have a lot in terms of resources to be able to give back.

After touring the hospital, talking with patients, and seeing a newborn baby, it was off to Antigua.  Antigua is a beautiful old colonial city surrounded by hills and volcanoes, and it has lots of language schools and tourists!  But, it is so beautiful and charming - it is easy to see why people love to come and visit!  The three girls in our group absolutely loved shopping there!  It was hard to pull them away!  They felt they could stay there for a lot longer!

For dinner, we returned to Guatemala City for dinner with Rob Cahill, who works with the indigenous Mayan people as well near a city called Coban.  Rob and his wife Tara are doing some amazing work in educating girls.  Many indigenous girls are married by 14 or 15, and then become pregnant soon after.  Rob and Tara are working with @150 young girls, teaching them life skills, and providing scholarships for their schooling.  Many girls stop going to school because of the prohibitive cost, which is around $100 a year.  Rob and Tara are also building a fruit and coffee plant, which will bring food from indigenous farmers directly to consumers here in the US and elsewhere.  They are doing awe-inspiring holistic work with the poorest of the poor by giving them opportunities educationally, economically, and socially.  Our group was so impressed by them.  They are the ones with the bird-watching program and the Cloud Forest, which we unfortunately cannot visit because the road is washed out and we simply don´t have the time to go all the way around to see their wonderful work.  Next time, the group says, we need to go there for a week!

Now we are back home in Guatemala City.  We are worn out, but full of inspiration and potentiality as we see what good-hearted people are accomplishing around the world!

Welcome to Guate!

After an all night flight we arrived in Guatemala City at 6 am this morning.  What a luscious, green landscape, with green hills and volcanoes dominating the horizon!  We met our hosts, the Hernandez family and came to their home for breakfast.  We met them over 20 years ago when Jenni and I visited them on a whim in Uspantan.  They inspired us to have a heart for the poor, but more about that later!  Then it was off to their church, a large, large Pentecostal church which felt more like America than Guatemala!  After lunch at Pizza Hut, we visited the Metropolitan Cathedral and Presidential Palace in central Guatemala City.  Like many urban cores, this area boasts impressive old buildings and a decaying neighborhood.  The central market, though, was filled with thousands shopping on their day off - Domingo.  Our hosts were nervous being there, as the area is fairly dangerous, so I kept a close eye on my charges!  After a few souveniers, it was back home for dinner and now an early bedtime.  We are all tired, and looking very much forward to visiting the hospital tomorrow.  Sorry, no pictures today.  But I´ll have some tomorrow!

Our Guatemala group!

Welcome to our Guatemela Journey!

Hello Friends,
Here is where we will be updating you on what is happening on our Guatemala trip!  Stay tuned for pics and updates!
Steve

Pics #8

Last Day, Nazareth, & Security

My last day actually started the night before with some hoops by the Sea of Galilee.  Had to take advantage of the court at the hotel!

In the morning we went to Nazareth, a predominantly Christian and Muslim city, and met first with representatives from the Mossawa Center, an advocacy group for Arab Citizens of Israel.  Yes, there are Arab Citizens of Israel, but they are a minority, deeply discriminated against.  A little information:

• 20% of all citizens of Israel are Arab.
• Arabs receive 1.4% of the Development budget of the state of Israel.
• 26% of students in Israel are Arab.
• Arabs and Jews have separate education systems where the average expenditure per student is 8000 shekels/year for Jewish students ($2352), but only 1000 shekels/year for Arab students ($294).  So obviously there is a great disparity in per pupil spending, as well as student achievement outcomes.
• These Arab students are in Israel, not in the Palestinian territories, and their families pay taxes at the same rate as Jewish Israeli citizens.
• Arab NGO's cannot celebrate the "Nachba", the event commemorating losing their homes in 1948, without losing government funding.

Then it was off to some holy sites for Christianity.  We began by going to the St. Gabriel Greek Orthodox Church, which, according to Orthodox tradition, is the place where the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would give birth to God's son.  We heard from the priest in this beautiful Orthodox church.  There is a spring in the church that has run for thousands of years and is said to help women get pregnant!

Then it was off through the narrow streets of Old Nazareth, where we came to the White Mosque.  We met with the headmaster of the mosque, Alef Yousef Fahom, and the retired former Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East for the Anglican Church, Riah Abo El-Assal.  They discussed with us the need for people of all faiths to work together, and cited their work in Nazareth as proof it can happen, and that many good works can come of such a union.  Their contention is that Nazareth avoided the violence of 1948 by presenting a united front of nonviolence to Israel's military.  This was our first meeting in a mosque.

We then walked a few more hundred feet through the old city of Nazareth to the Church of the Annunciation, which is where Catholics think the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce that she would give birth to the Christ.  This church is absolutely stunning!  Perhaps the most striking I've seen here in Israel.

Then we headed to the airport near Tel Aviv, and spent a few hours reflecting as a group in a restaurant. I think overall the trip has been fantastic, the students are a wonderful group, and we have met so many outstanding people and activists for peace.  I think I would have liked the class time to dig a little deeper into the details of peacemaking, and overall, I don't think we heard enough of the Israeli narrative for the region.  I hope Fuller Seminary stays involved in the region, and expands the trip outside of its network - I think a lot of people would be interested in this dual narrative type of trip.  But, in the main, I am so grateful to be able to experience this complicated, beautiful, and tragic part of the world.

The last thing to mention is the security at the airport.  If any of you ever head to Israel, you simply have to anticipate the most intense security screening you may ever have.  Picture the typical airport screening process you go through in the states - at the airport in Tel Aviv, you do that at least 3 times, with far more invasive searching.  First you are interviewed about your trip in Israel - if you mention anything having to do with the West Bank or Palestinians, you are automatically bumped up to another level of screening.  Then they check all your bags with one of those x-ray machines.  Since I was flagged, I got the joy of having my luggage opened and each piece of clothing inspected.  I was very afraid of a scarf I had received in Hebron from the Palestinian officials being discovered in my luggage because that would have set off another round of alarm.  But they didn't find it!  They asked me many questions about my trip.  We had talked about this process as a group and had decided simply to talk about our trip as a "Christian Holy Land" trip, so as not to raise undue suspicion.  But they found my books for the course, and were very interested in why I was studying the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  So we had a discussion about that, with me trying not to say the wrong thing.  Anyway, after that, the airport security followed us to another checkpoint, where they went through our passports again; then it was on to another piece by piece search of our carryons.  Two more checks of our ID and we were able to board the plane.  It certainly makes me appreciate the relative ease of American airport security!

On the 11 hour plane ride to New York City, I sat next to a lovely young modern orthodox woman from Israel.  After easing into the conversation by talking about music, family, Christian theology - was there a real Adam and Eve, she wanted to know, once she found out I taught theology - culture, and religion - we headed to dicier territory - politics.  She's a staunch supporter of Netanyahu, and wants the "Arabs" to have their own country.  She doesn't want to mix the two and doesn't even recognize the term "Palestinian".  The territory Israel gained in the 1967 should stay theirs on the "to the victor belong the spoils" theme.  For the second time in a few hours, I found myself unable to discuss the Palestinian narrative with an Israeli supporter.  It was simply too jarring to bring up another side of the story.  I hope that isn't a portend for my future involvement with this issue.

I am now on the plane heading west, towards the setting sun.  Salam, Shalom, and Peace be to all of you, and especially to the Middle East.