Guatemala continued...

Hey everyone.

Time seems to be flying for us here in Guatemala. It seems like we have barely arrived, yet we have now spent 3 weeks here!

On our working days we have continued to paint the interior of the house and the balcones outside (grates covering windows and doors). We have now also begun work on the roof that we are building outside (Meaning we have taken it down and are now going to put up the new structure).

On Monday morning we went to a different campus (the medicine and pyscology one) to promote the small bible studies they do every week. We did a couple of dramas - the Sticky Chair drama and one called Study, ´Eat, Play, Sleep.... Die´. They both went down really well and we managed to attract a decent crowd to talk to afterwards (although that might also be because we are white... We had a free afternoon which was put to very good use - watching Gladiator on my Ipod :)

One of the guys in the house, Eduardo, is an architect and had to finish a project by Monday. A few of us had been helping him out by making little models and other bits and pieces. Kossy, Rachel and Luke ended up staying up all of Sunday night to help him out. Despite this they came on Monday to do the dramas, but were running solely on Coffee (Rachel was hilariously hyper). Unfortunately he didn´t manage to finish the project but got an extension and handed it in a couple of days later.

On Wednesday we managed to get away at 12 to the Uni campus and watched the final in a big auditorium. Everyone here supports Barcelona so it was quite a rowdy crowd. I was wearing my England shirt so got quite a bit of abuse after the game but it was all good. Barca were fantastic so there´s nothing to hold against them...

Friday we went to the Museam of the University which was mildly interesting. In the afternoon we continued with our English lessons, which we also did on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon was good fun - we played basketball and football with some of the guys. The girls came along to play basketball (Helen even scored a basket!!) but went back when we went to the football pitch. It was all great fun as usual but by the end of it i had screwed up my knee quite badly. That evening/night was quite painful - walking was difficult and bending hurt alot. IT´s much better now though.

Yesterday (Sunday) was incredible. For the first 2 weeks we have been going to a Church called El Camino, which is good, but very American (it even had a fair few Americans in it). This week we were invited to a different Church where we could have some participation. We practised 5 songs and a drama that we did, and I also gave my testimony (In Spanish!!!!) The Church had a proper upright piano, rather thatn a keyboard - which was amazing to play after 3ish months! The dramas and songs went really well - as did my testimony. I didnt struggle with the language or pronunciation which was amazing. After a break in the service (when they served sandwiches!!) we were asked if we wanted to do more stuff, so we sung a couple more songs, Guy did an instrumental of ´Lord i lift your name on high´on the sax and we did another couple of dramas. It was a fantastic service and I really enjoyed it (especially the piano!!).

In the afternoon we were invited to a guy called Victor Hugos house. His son plays piano at the Royal Conservatory or something similar and is basically incredible. We went to have a bit of a jam basically. Guy took his guitar and played with the Guys son (whose name i cant remember). Me and Guy then spent ages playing the piano which again was so much fun. At one point, he asked us all to come outside for a photo. He told us to stand by his Eucalyptus tree, some crouching to get everyone in. Most of the group, completely mistranslating this, thought he wanted us all in the tree and started to climb it very enthusiastically. When Helen corrected the mistranslation, there was a quick scurry for the ground (Luke basically dropped out of the tree) and we all looked rather embarrased for the photo.

Time is flying here and I cant believe we are almost halfway through this project. We have been having an amazing series of devotions studying the book of Revelation. It´s quite tricky but we have managed to have some awesome discussions about it all.

Thanks so much for all the prayers - our music man neighbour is still playing his music loud and proud at all hours so please continue to pray for him.

God Bless

Joel