Martina - one of the home children

Below is a child profile of Martina, our special needs child. She is a great kid and we love working with her. She does require much attention and time. We are praying that someone will adopt her or will come down and help us with her on a full time basis. May be you are the person! Feel free to contact us if you are interested in taking care of or adopting Martina. Our contact info can be found on our facebook page or our web site.
Martina Child Highlight

First Month and a 1/2 in Guatemala

It has been more than a month that we have been in Guatemala. I go about my busy day that involves teaching, cooking, cleaning, giving inexpert advice on drugs, and just being a mom and wife. We are really having a blessed time here in Santiago Atitlan, Solola, Tzanchaj, Guatemala. My biggest regret is that I do not speak the language. We live on the edge of lake Atitlan that has at least than 3 dialects along its shores.

Katherine has taken well to being here. She loves her beans and rice and thoroughly enjoys having loads of other kids to play with.

I taught the lesson the first Sunday we were here at the little kids' meeting that my parents and the kids do every week at the refuge village. My Good Samaritan story was translated into Tz'utujil from Spanish by my family's Tz'utujil friend to about 10 kids.

I am glad that we have a link to the indigenous people here through Jose, who also is the caretaker for my parents' property. The Tzutujil people are kind and polite, but keep their distance. I am not sure why it is, but they seem very wary of foreigners. Last year, social services sent a child to live here with my parents because his father beat his sister to death while drunk. The mother told everyone in the village that foreigners stole her child. The people came at night with torches and sticks and machetes to take back their child who they feared would be roasted and eaten. My family, who have been robbed at gunpoint no less than 3 times, had their guard up and thought they were in for round 4. My parents were able to clear up the misunderstanding and everyone went home. Our understanding is that people here in Santiago know we are here, but we do not know what they think of us.

My parents and sister and her husband who run the foster home have in the past been very busy with 30-40 children to care for. Because of the responsibility of the children, additional ministry to the neighborhood and area in which they live has been limited. Over the last couple years, they have been able to adopt out most of the children, the last of which was completed only last week. This has freed them up to be able to reach outside their home more than weekly visits to the refuge village.

The refuge village is the remains of a part of a little town that was covered in a mudslide during the rainy season two years ago. An extinct volcano filled with water and the side of the crater broke open under the weight. This is the same type of event that happened to the previous capitol Antigua, Guatemala, before it was relocated when a different extinct volcano, which was named "Agua" dumped loads of mud on the city 2 times. The people still live in little tarp shanties that say "European Comission" and "US AID". Many refugees have been relocated by the Guatemalan government, but several people still live many feet above their old homes covered in long dried mud.

To these people we would love to reach out more. We are not sure how to do it, especially with the language barrier. Many of the children in the refuge village do not go to school. We would like to look into opening a preschool for the beginning of the new school year in January. I do not know how that would happen. My parents already legally have a school, since they teach the children at home using a Guatemalan approved correspondence curriculum called "Hebron". This preschool would be an extension of their school. We would like to teach the children English and Spanish and also give them a foundation in knowledge of God.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

The Pool Chronicles

In the constant battle to fight childhood boredom, the adults must continue to come up with ingenious ways of keeping the children entertained during their off hours of school. The problem is that so many activities these days follow this simple formula... the excitement of activity 'X' is inversely proportional to 'Y' amount of energy expended in 'T' time. Their is a rare occasion where the 'Good Idea' factors in, which completely dispels the whole previous formula resulting in an activity that kids will continue to enjoy day after day AND tires them out by dinner.

The pool has been a great asset toward fighting childhood boredom. The issue is that pool has hardly been warm enough to tempt the kids in lately. Their has been this instinctual drive to find a way to heat the pool. The first version of the pool heater consisted of water pumping through a copper coil in a fire place. With little success we decided on marching forward with version 2... a barrel.

Barrels were and still are commonly used to store and ship contents. Many folk know them as portable fire pits. Pop a few holes toward the bottom, fill it with garbage, drop a match, and you'll be singing songs and cooking marshmallows. To us, however, we see it as a fine way to heat the pool... at least right now we do.

It is all simple really. Stick a barrel in a pool, pump air into it, and light gasoline, drenched logs. We'll let you know how this experiment turns out.




P.S.
Are PS's okay for blogs?

Guatemala Ministry - Reichard Newsletter Nov - Feb 10

Testing... simply ignore this post.

Under Construction

We are currently underway constructing some new online resources. These include a website (www.guatemalaministry.com), a facebook group (Manos de Compasion), and this blog (Gua-ministry.blogspot.com). I expect little to no people to view this post, therefore it is geared more toward testing and timestamp our progress.

Nathaniel Hurley