Our Visit to Rosa Jamaica

Thursday evening we received a call from a pastor who was sick and needed to know if we could help him.  He lives in the village of Rosa Jamaica which is about 1.5 hours away and was coming into Sayaxche' on Friday.  David made plans to meet him at the study center in town.  He spent some time there talking with the pastor about his ailments and then prayed for him.  He was in an accident when he was fourteen and suffered a head injury. He said every year the pain gets worse.  Afterwards, they went to the pharmacy to buy him some medicine.  He had a few more errands to run while in town and when he was done we picked him up to carry him home.  He could have caught a bus but we knew he was in a lot of pain and not feeling well and we couldn't imagine him having to ride home and catch several different buses to get there feeling that way. We gladly offered to give him a ride. The trip is about thirty minutes on pavement and an hour off road.  He called his wife to tell her we were coming and when we arrived they had just killed the chicken.  We knew that meant we'd be eating lunch with them.  We didn't mind because while they were preparing it we got to spend a while talking with the pastor and his wife and getting to know his family better.  They then showed us the church.  He leads a small mission church that is seven years old.  The village has about thirty families living there and currently fifteen of them belong to the Baptist church.  This pastor, Bro. Martin, has been there a year and they have had five families join since he moved there.  He is also the President of the Pastor's Conference in Sayaxche'.   I didn't take many photos but here are a few I got-

Outside of the mission church in Rosa Jamaica.  It is a wood structure with a concrete floor.  It has a tin roof.   

Inside of the mission. 

It is very common for K'ekchi' churches to have these wooden benches.  They can be very hard to sit in for three hours at a time during Sunday services.

Me with the pastor's wife, Estela, and a few of their children.

The pastor's house has a dirt floor.  Part of the house has a tin roof and the other part a thatch roof.  It is made of wood similar to the mission building.  It is very plain and rustic.  Their beds are made of wood also.  They don't have mattresses or nice fluffy pillows like we use.  It is also common for the K'ekchi' to all sleep in one room together.  When I think about our house and wanting to fix it up it makes me sad to visit places like these and see how the locals live.  We always come home with a new appreciation for what we have.

I didn't get a picture with the pastor because he was not feeling well and I hated to ask him for a photo.  We did all enjoy a caldo and tortilla lunch together and we had another prayer for them before we left.  Please pray for Bro. Martin to get some relief from the pain he is experiencing and that the medicine will help him to feel better.

On the way home we stopped by the Baptist church in Las Pacayas, but the pastor was not home.  We will plan to visit there again another day.