SARAH’S VISIT TO GUATEMALA
IN NOVEMBER 2022.
By
BARBARA NELSON
“O! Big
news!!! I will be going on a mission trip to Guatemala from November 9-18,” my friend
Sarah Vaughan emailed me. Sarah lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. “I’ll be going
with a group from a Presbyterian church in North Georgia.”
Guatemala is
a republic. It is described as “a mountainous country in Central America
south-east of Mexico.” The country has a narrow coastline on the Caribbean Sea,
while the Pacific Ocean is to the south. It is bordered by Belize, El Salvador, Honduras,
and Mexico.
Guatemala is
described as “predominantly poor. 49% of
the population lives in rural areas of the country.” 55% of the people in the country are indigenous. The main ethnic
groups are the Maya, the Garifuna, the Xinca and the Ladina.
So, what was the reason why Sarah and the other folk were
going to Guatemala? She explained that plans for the trip included working with
Guatemalan women as they make items to sell, reforestation programs and interacting
with children.
On Sunday
November 6, 2022, Sarah went to commissioning service at the church
(that is a two hour drive away from where she lives in Atlanta). After the
service the group went to collect the medical supplies that each person would
take.
One of the
many things she had to do prior to starting on the trip was to write a will. She
was also very conscious of the spiritual importance of the mission. “I am
asking the Lord to use me and bless our efforts in His name.” she wrote in
an email to me on Tuesday.
“I have much
to do today before I leave tomorrow morning, including writing a will,” she added
in the message.
On Wednesday,
at 11:38 am, a message came through to me from Sarah. It said, “Just landed.”
By the end of the long, busy day, Sarah got to know her fellow participants,
learned a great deal about the protestant church in Guatemala and sampled some
of the local food. One of the things she sampled was “horchatka” a sweet
drink that, she said, “looks like soursop juice.”
Sarah settled
in at an hotel that she felt “might have been a monastery before” with a
roommate who was a “bubbly cancer survivor….named Sarah!”
On Thursday November
10, 2022, the group visited a volcano lake in the mountains of Guatemala. They started
out from a place called Panajachel to get to lunch across the lake.
“It is
chilly and windy up in the mountains in Santa Cruz,” she commented in an email
to me. Fortunately, she had taken a jacket with her. Later that day the group
went on to another city, Xela. It was an
extremely happy experience. “We were treated to dinner and music by a Marimba
band at the cultural center,” Sarah wrote. “The people had been waiting for two
hours to greet us.”
On Friday night
Sarah was shaken awake at about 10:30 p.m. Why? There was a 6.7 earthquake some
100 miles away from where she was staying. “It woke me up!” she wrote to me.
The following
day Sarah and the group visited a “Sewing school.” There they saw a display of beautiful items made by the
graduates of the school at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Jesus
Christ the True Light - IGLESIA EVANGELICA PRESBITERIANA MAM JESUS
LA LUZ VERDADERA. . ”I was honored to be asked to present certificates to
some of the graduates at the school,” she said.
The trip
down into the valley was on a “really rough road.” The group had to be split up
into 3 four-wheel drive trucks and while
awaiting everyone to return to the meeting place “the battery in (Sarah’s) bus
died.”
Inside the
bus, she said, was “freezing cold.” But they all made it safely back to the
hotel/monastery.
Over the
next few days several interesting incidents took place. Sarah presented packs of “onesies” for newborns to the midwives
who attended a conference on Friday. “One (of the onesies) was used that very night
at a delivery, and I saw the picture of the baby wearing one the next day. These
Mam women (indigenous people) are AMAZING!” she said.
On Monday,
November 14, there were protests and roadblocks all over Guatemala. Because of
the situation the group was unable to travel. They used the time to have a
brief workshop in preparation for a health fair planned for Tuesday at a location
some two hours away.
In her email
to me on Monday, November 14, 2022, Sarah mentioned that she had been appointed
“spiritual leader” of the group. She
considered it “a dubious honor and was struggling with it. Why? Because it was a mixed group of people…that
included Christians, non-Christians, catholic and non-church goers, she
explained.
The
following day was a “very happy” one for her. She travelled for about an hour
to help with a community project to weigh and measure babies and children under
5 years old. The project aims at helping to prevent/end malnutrition. The goal, she mentioned, was to attend to 100 children.
92 children came, as well as 15 mothers who were treated by the two female
doctors.
“I helped to
weigh the children and entertain them. They are adorable!” she said.
As the group
made plans for the following day they had to work along with their guides to
decide whether to leave “early…like 4 a.m.…..to go farther away from the
city to archaeological digs or scrap the schedule and leave even earlier ….3 a.m….to
return to Guatemala city.”
There was a rumor
that roadblocks were planned to begin at
6 a.m.
That plan to
leave very early would mean the group would not get stranded far away and be unable
to make their flight on Friday. “We are safe where we are now but getting stuck
in protest roadblocks is a whole different story!” Sarah wrote in an email.
On Wednesday
roadblocks started at 6 am. The group had, however, left their hotel at 3 am to
get to a place called Huehuetenango.
“We got here
at 5:45 am but nowhere is open until 7 am.” she emailed me. “Fortunately, we
found a bathroom at an open gas station and are parked and waiting in the bus
for somewhere to open for breakfast. The truckers are again blocking roads
especially in major cities in protest against high gas prices and bad roads.”
The day was
bright and sunny. The archaeological digs were 15 minutes away.
The group
had breakfast and started on yet another adventure. “A Mam (indigenous )
female professor met us at the historical site. But to Sarah’s “anger, sadness and frustration…
gave us a totally different perspective than the traditional stories that are told.”
The
ruins, the Mam said, were fake!
“They were
built by the United Fruit Company to lure tourists to a site that had been a
special site for the Mam.
“The three
main Mayan groups allowed the Conquistadors to conquer them all because of infighting
and betrayal among them. While there are authentic mounds still on site they
have not been excavated nor researched. Most of the original artifacts have
been stolen. The fake museum even has a picture of a white Tarzan in front of a
group of Mayan people.”
The
experience left Sarah “angry, sad and frustrated.”
===000===
On Thursday,
in order to avoid the roadblocks, the bus driver took an alternate route back
to Guatemala city. “What should have taken 4.5 hours took about 10 hours,
including some time to change a flat tire,” she said. They, however, “did not get
stuck in any roadblocks.”
“We head to
the airport for a 2 pm flight. The adventure is ending!” Sarah emailed me at
6:12 am.
The flight would
take three hours to reach Atlanta, USA.
At 6:22 pm that
day Sarah emailed me: “Home safe!”
She had
returned, safe and sound, after the adventure, to Atlanta, USA.
===000===
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