Our Return to the Village of Lagunetas

We have spent the past few days visiting the Ch'orti' area.  One of our main goals was to return to the village of Lagunetas to make a follow-up visit from our previous trip.  We all three got sick and had to cancel our last planned trip there.  We drove over on Thursday and planned to stay at "the pearl".  We were sad to learn once we arrived that they were completely booked.  That sent us on a wild goose chase to find another place to sleep.  It was not that there were not more options because hotels in Chiquimula are like churches in the South.  There is one on every block, haha.  The problem was deciding which one was best for us.  We did find a very clean, comfortable little place in town and spent three nights there.  I did not take many photos at all this trip (that seems to be the norm when we go there).  I did, however, take a couple photos of us one day as we were traveling though the mountains.  We stopped at a local creek and got out to enjoy a snack.  The water was cool and refreshing.  It reminded me of my childhood and going to the creek with my family. 

Each morning we ate breakfast at McDonald's.  We would eat dinner at the food court of the local mall.  Our lunch would be on the go.  Friday morning after eating breakfast we drove out to the village.  It is located a little over an hour from town (Chiquimula).  Most of the trip is on a very narrow, rocky, curvy, mountainous road.  We returned to the house we had previously visited and spoke with the lady that lives there.  She is one of the leaders in the village.  She put us in contact with another village leader and that person told us that they would meet that afternoon and decide about our coming there to talk with the village as a whole.  They asked us to return the next morning, early, and they would all meet with us.  That was a little exciting and we left there praying that the Lord would work. 

We drove through a few more areas and then returned to town. We spent the afternoon just driving around. We learned a lot more about the town and area by driving up and down the streets. 

On Saturday morning we ate an early breakfast and then headed back to the village.  We met one of the leaders at the soccer field and they rode with us to meet the others.  We received a very warm reception from them.  They seemed open and friendly towards us.  We shared with them our desire to come and teach Bible stories and they thought it would be good for the people.  They all agreed that it would be good if we could come and share our desires with the whole village and then see if anyone was interested.   

After much small talk and discussion we decided to plan on Saturday, August 27 as a return date.  We will have a meet and greet service in a local school or community center building.  That is three weeks away and we are concerned that it is a lot of time for them to change their mind and/ or forget about it.  We took several of their numbers and plan to stay in touch to remind them that we are coming. We left there very excited and encouraged.  PLEASE START PRAYING FOR THIS EVENT!  We will be spending a lot of time in prayer ourselves over the next few weeks about this and would love for you to join us. 

I cannot express enough how much Cruz helped open the door for us.  He was very friendly with all of them and would go from person to person wanting them to hold him.  That made a huge impact on the people.  When we return we will have to stay overnight in one of the buildings because it will be too late and far to travel back into town.  As of now I am planning on Cruz and I "camping out".  I might change my mind before then, but can imagine that the people will be quite disappointed if he does not come back.  I think the happiness that it will bring them will overshadow the craziness that it will cause me.  We will see.. 

Since we were so close to the Honduras border we decided that afternoon to drive there.  We did not cross over.  We just drove to the border and turned around.  It wasn't what I expected it to look like, although I was not sure what to expect.  There were several nice houses on the Guatemala side close to the border.  We also saw a lot of tourists going both directions.  We plan to make a trip there one day to visit the Copan Ruins.  They are not very far past the crossing.

a view as we neared the check point

I zoomed in on this one.  You can see the "Welcome to Honduras" sign in the background and the tuk tuk's ready to pick people up. 

This is the sign as you are leaving Guatemala.  I liked that it was in English and Spanish.

Pray, Pray, Pray!