Greetings from Guatemala: We've been to no-man's land-

Friday, February 13, 2009

We've been to no-man's land-

A few updates about our trip-

1. It was 13 1/2 hours ONE WAY!

2. We did go to Naranjo but found out a few things there-

a. it's not a village, it's a town

b. the village we actually visited was on the other side of Naranjo, 6 more hours to be exact!

c. it was only our 1/2 way stop

We left Coban around 6:45 Tuesday morning. We drove just north of Chisec and picked up missionary Bro. Domingo. We headed through Sayaxche', crossed the ferry, and on towards La Libertad. We picked up a local pastor, Bro. Manuel, in La Caoba and headed on to Naranjo. After traveling for 7 hours we thought we had arrived at our destination. It was there, in Naranjo, that Bro. Domingo suggested that we fill up the car. David asked why because we had made it to Naranjo and the two brothers looked at each other and finally said, we have 5 more hours to go!!(it turned out to be 6 hours and 15 minutes) We almost died. The good thing is that we had been on pavement so far the whole time. We crossed another ferry in Narnajo and then the road changed to gravel. Two hours later we turned off of that road onto a man-made trail that went through the jungle. We rode on that trail for another 4 hours. We did not arrive in the village (Sacrificio) until 8:15 that night. We were waaayyyy past tired. :( We know now why they named the village Sacrificio- Sacrifice! It's a huge sacrifice just to get there.

Here's a map showing our travels-

Coban, Chisec, Sayaxche, La Libertad, Naranjo, Sacrificio

Once we arrived we were greeted with a very warm welcome. They fed us dinner- scrambled eggs, beans, and tortillas. We were then shown where we would be sleeping and got to bed around 10:00 that night. We slept in one of their houses. When we walked to it, we noticed that there were no walls. They put up some plastic for us (at 10:00 at night) to block the wind and give us a little privacy. Here are some photos of where we slept-

Kitchen stove

Another kitchen view

Looking up at the thatched roof

There are currently 137 families living in this village. Seven are now Baptist believers. We had a service with them on Wednesday morning. They have started meeting in a home for Bible study. They have plans to build a building to worship in. We went to a piece of land that they are desiring to buy to build a church on. We had prayer on-site.

The land they are wanting to buy. They have saved 1/2 of the cost already!

At one point David got our map out so he and the brothers could see just where in the world we were!!! We were only 8 kilometers from the Mexico line. We were soo close that the people in the village didn't even use Quetzales (Guatemalan money), they used Pesos (Mexican money). We thought that was funny! I spent a lot of the afternoon playing with the children. I read them several Bible stories and we colored fish. I always enjoy spending time with the kids!

That night we held a service at one of the believers homes and showed the movie- "The Passion of the Christ". We were able to witness several become believers that night! It was awesome and really made the trip worthwhile!We got to bed around 11:00 on Wednesday and had to get up at 4:00 on Thursday morning to start the journey home. There was not much sleep on this trip! One of the ladies packed us some food to eat along the way. We stopped and ate breakfast on the side of the road. They sent us xut and a gallon jug of their chocolate drink. We joked that our breakfast looked like poptarts. Or at least that's what we told ourselves they were when you eat tortillas stuffed with black beans at that time of the morning!! We drove all day and stopped very little. We made it home around 5:30. We were VERY tired, hungry, wanting to shower, and to get in the bed. It was the hardest and longest trip we had made thus far but a fun and enjoyable one. We are not so sure we are ready to go back to "Naranjo" but if opportunity opens, I am sure we'd do it again.