God Provides

We've been in the valley for a little over a month now, and most days we are there, I think to myself that a year will not be long enough.  Oh yes, there are days that creep by (mostly the rainy ones), and I think on those days that a year will be more than plenty.  Yesterday, however, was the first time that I thought to myself that I would get on a plane immediately if someone handed me a ticket.  You see, my parents have been planning a trip to see us for almost as long as we've been here.  We've been counting down the days and making plans for a fun Halloween party while spending some time in Antigua (you who know me well know my love for a good Halloween party! ).  But our plans to see my mom and dad came to a halt on Sunday when we received a call from my dad saying my mom was sick.  Don't worry, it's just a stomach bug, but she was in bed with fever and would not be able to come.  The wind was taken out of my sails, and I, quite frankly, found it difficult to get out of bed yesterday morning.  I probably need to insert here that my sister, Mel, still came yesterday, and we are thrilled beyond measure to have her here!  She's like food for the soul, and as Ben said yesterday, she smells like our house :)!  However, Mel has been here before, but my parents have not.  We were looking forward to taking them to the river to find rocks and to the market to see all the beautiful produce...the list goes on and on.  I really just wanted to see my mom and dad.  Is it weird to still need your parents every now and then even when you are a parent yourself?  Now I need to insert that I know the trip was not possible Mom, and I am not upset at you in the very least!  I wouldn't have made the trip with the stomach bug, and I am, in fact, 30 years younger than you (always will be :)!  I think I speak for all of us, though, when I say that we are ALL dissapointed.

We made our way to the airport to pick up the Hatchells, my sister, and Brian Berry, and my spirits were lifted just to get to touch my sister and see her, as Cata says, personally.  Shortly after piling into the bus, Brian handed me an envelope FULL of birthday cards from some of my favorite people at Otter Creek.  Not only was it full of cards but also full of money for the specific purpose of pampering myself on my birthday.  As I read through the cards (while we were stopped on the road for 2 hours straight), I was overcome with gratitutde for my friends who are truly the hands and feet of God.  You see, I needed to read from Gail Srygley that what we are doing here is important and from Kelly Harlin that we are prayed for daily.  It reminded me that even on the hard days, we are here for a reason and God will not leaving us hanging out on a limb.  Not only that, but he will send us comfort when we need it.  For me, it was through the words of my friends as I sat on the bus yesterday.

Here's the great thing about our God.  He knew way back a few months ago when Kelly asked my husband what I would like for my birthday, that it would come to me a just the right time.  He provides for us in all kinds of ways; from the big ways to the small ways.  It's amazing to look into the pot of food that Cata has beautifully prepared and think that there is no way it will serve all of us as well as the 7 other people who have decided to join us.  But, supernaturally (because God is a supernatural God), we all have plenty to eat.  It's a modern-day loaves and fish story in our kitchen on a weekly basis!  He provides for us, and we hope that he is using us as His vessel to provide for the people in the valley.

It's a beautiful day in Coban today, and I am enjoying breakfast on the patio with my children, my sister and my good friend Cata.  The Lord provides...

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

I think the original line from that poem makes the assertion that even the best plans can sometimes fail. Not to overgeneralize, but in the Ulpan Valley, plans NEVER fail, but they ALWAYS change. We expected that to some extent, but we're certainly being kept on our toes pretty much all the time. There is a great deal going on right now, and with that there are many people who need to know what they need to do when. The people of the Ulpan Valley are accustomed to having meetings - in fact they seem to crave them about as badly as every place I've ever worked. The only difference is that they go into the meetings expecting to accomplish very little and socialize a lot, whereas in the corporate world there's some strange expectation that a meeting is going to actually yield something besides more meetings.

So, over the past few weeks we have gotten into the habit of meeting with team members for things like scheduling and needs and things like that. They seem to enjoy it, and it seems to do some good. The problem is that we try to schedule a week in advance, and most of the time we're lucky if plans don't change for 5 minutes at a time. Case in point - last Sunday we were back in the Valley after being gone for a 4-day weekend in Guatemala City (this was not a vacation - we needed to get some new tires for the truck and get our passports stamped for 90 more days, and maybe in a few months I'll be able to share that experience and still keep this blog "family friendly"). So on Monday morning we met with some of the folks working with us about what needed to happen last week and how in the world we were going to pull it off. Everything worked out on paper pretty nicely: Julio was to go to these villages and set up meetings for what's termed a "baseline study", Roberto was to go to these villages and do other things, construction materials for latrines in Semesche were to be ordered, assistance for the midwife training on Wednesday and Thursday and the 73 participants in it were going to happen, a small water system expansion to the Benitzul School's latrine was going be constructed, and so on. We actually had it all worked out pretty well.

So, it came as no surprise at 6:15 Tuesday morning when a 9-month pregnant woman showed up at our door needing to be rushed to the hospital in Coban. So, all the "shuttle Julio to here" and "take materials there" we had planned for the day went out the window. The trip to Coban is not particularly easy. It can take anywhere from one to two hours on difficult roads, and with all the rains we've been having, those roads are even more difficult, and meeting the occasional truck on a hill makes it even more interesting. We really don't want to become a "taxi service" for the people here, but in this case, there was really no way we could (or should) say no. The trip was straight out of a movie, complete with fog and rain and cows stuck on the road and the obligatory woman screaming in the back seat having contractions. The end of this part of the story is that 30 minutes after we got to the hospital, she had an emergency C-section, so this turned out to be a good trip to make. And while I was helping out in Coban, most of what we hoped to accomplish was actually accomplished up in the Valley.

So we went to bed Tuesday very tired and looking forward to a more normal day on Wednesday. That was a mistake. Shortly after dinner Wednesday it started to rain, which in and of itself isn't unusual, but it got harder and harder over the next couple of hours. We tried to go to bed (our house is better than a tent, but heavy rain on a tin roof can be very loud) but just kind of gave up after a while and we just laid there in the noise staring at the ceiling, which we were glad to have but ceilings should be seen and not heard. Given the recent landslides in the area, we somewhat nervously keep an eye uphill when it's raining, and sure enough, about 11:00 we heard a loud thump against the wall of our house and when we looked outside we saw that a large chunk of the hill to the side of us had slumped off. It sounds more dangerous than it actually was, but it was still a little disconcerting. After a couple more hours, the rain finally slacked off and we all slept great for a few minutes.

On Wednesday morning, I needed to get some maps to the far end of the Valley, so I started the approximate 30-minute drive to the village of Sesalche II. There were, as expected, a few smallish landslides on the way, but when I got to the river it had been above the bridge very recently (I now know that the river is prone to flash flooding). Since a large truck had just passed, I assumed it was OK for my pickup, and that turned out to be the case, but a little further up the road a secondary stream crossing was still completely over the road and I could go no further. Another day, another change in plans.  We survived.  The remainder of the week, a few other everyday things cropped up to keep us hopping, like a dead (really un-jumpable kind of dead) car battery, a smallish snake visitor, and the biweekly festival known as "the latrine cleaning" - fun for the whole family.

And the funny part of it all: we wouldn 't have changed a thing.  We got a lot done, we adapted a lot, and we learned a lot.  To cap it all off, our dear friends Jim, Danna, Zane and Emma Arnett were here to visit and to witness the mayhem.  They totally rolled with all the punches and we had a great time.  Back in June, Jim mentioned to me that they were considering coming for a visit, but he was concerned that October might be "a little too soon" and that we wouldn't be all settled in.  I told him that we'd probably never be settled in (little did I know at the time how true that was) and that by October we and the kids would be very ready to see some friends.  That might have been the best decision we made in our whole planning process.  It's wonderful to see friends who remind you of other friends and remind you of home - I anticipate heaven is a little bit like that, with possibly a few more Cheetos.  Please come for a visit.....but don't get too hung up on making really specific plans for when you're here: God is a better trip planner.

Here are our kids and the Arnett kids playing in the river.  There are lots of really pretty rocks to find here, and even some interesting pieces of pottery.  A few hours later, the water was over the tree in the background.

It's not a great picture quality-wise because there is rain on the camera lens (go figure), but it's a great picture of our kids playing with some of the local kids.  Ben is still in his "I like to dance and sing like Michael Jackson" phase, so please keep him us in your prayers.  Later, we all watched the movie "Babe" in Spanish - see the "screen" on the wall.  Something about farm animals who can talk transcends all cultures....

Just a typical day at the Ulpan II market.  It was a fun time for everyone, except for the cow who was butchered.  As many plans that we had changed for us this past week, I think the cow encountered greater changes.  And there was much rejoicing.  Moo.

EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT THE WEATHER, BUT NO ONE DOES ANYTHING ABOUT IT

That's one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes.  Many of you know that, among several other ways, I am a huge weather nerd.  When I was young, I used to beg to stay up until 10:15 so I could watch the weather, and then as I got older I would actually plan my time around things like the Weather Channel's Tropical Update, which came on at 10 'til the hour, every hour.  At one time, I could name every anchor on the Weather Channel and have considered getting tattoes of cold fronts and perhaps even awkwardly-located low pressure systems.  So, I am very excited that one of the things we will soon be installing in the Valley is a fully-functional weather station, which we will connect to the internet so that the whole world can share in the joy and excitement of knowing what the barometric pressure in Benitzul Ulpan is at any given time.

There are practical applications of this as well.  It is good to know precipitation patterns when you are doing things with water: are there times that springs might go dry, would catching rain off rooftops be sufficient, how high would a bridge need to be over the river, and so on.  Because climates in the mountains can vary from place to place (if you refer to them as "microclimates" you will make Weather Channel anchor Jim Schwartz proud), we really cannot rely on any data from semi-nearby places like Guatemala City or Coban.  So we need this, right?  It's not just a toy.  I promise.

The past couple of weeks have really been impacted by the weather in the Ulpan Valley.  As one might guess, it can often get somewhat rainy in the tropical rain forest - it kind of goes with the territory.  But sometimes it gets exceptionally rainy, and this is one of those times.  The locals refer to it as "chippy-chippy" or "mus-mus-hab" which are synonymous for rain that just goes on and on.  We have learned that all 7500 people here are qualified to work for the National Weather Service.  They all seem to just know when it will start raining and when it will stop.  In the mornings, if other people are putting their clothes out to dry, you can bet that the rain is going to hold off for most of the day, but if you don't see them out, you can expect to get pretty wet that day.  A couple of days ago, one of the men working with us on some construction projects, Manuel, told Kris and I at about 7:00 in the morning that a concrete pour was possible that morning because the rain was going to hold off until 2:00.  It started raining at 1:59.

Aside from some long camping and hiking trips I've had, it's easy to forget that we have done a really good job of insulating ourselves from the elements.  We don't really "live" in the weather - we prepare for it and tolerate it and predict it and at times just complain about it.  The flood in Nashville of May 2010 was a stark reminder that there are things in this world that we are completely powerless over.  We get reminded of that every day here.  In the past couple of days, many people in Guatemala and Mexico have died in floods and landslides.  It's not an everyday occurrence, but it is a common one.  Yesterday, we drove to Guatemala City in the rain and 30 minutes after we passed a particular spot on the highway a landslide occurred and blocked all 4 lanes of traffic.  A smaller landslide keeps recurring near our home in the Valley, and many mornings over the past couple of weeks 15-20 men slop out in the mud with picks and shovels to clear it as best they can.  But it keeps sliding.  And they keep working.

The people here are resilient to the sometimes difficult conditions.  The men work in the fields or on construction projects under tarps (or not) in downpours and the women walk for hours, often barefoot, up and down muddy mountains to the market or to obtain water.  It's just a way of life.  A few nights ago, as we tried to listen to the podcast from last week's service at Otter Creek, the rain on our metal roof was so loud that we couldn't hear it.  So we had to content ourselves with discussing some prayer items and taking communion (which consisted of hot chocolate and popcorn - close enough, right?).  To top things off, we had a somewhat-unnerving earthquake one night during a rainstorm.  But thankfully there was a huge nerd at our house who had the USGS earthquake website among his Internet Explorer favorites and within a few minutes we were able to determine that the shaking was, in fact, a 4.5 earthquake and not an entire mountainside sliding off on our heads. 

God is God when it is raining and when it is dry and when the crops grow and when they don't.  He's also God of the things we only talk about and of the things we can actually do something about.  He's God of the weather and God of water systems built and yet to be built.  It's a rainy and exciting time for us in the Ulpan Valley.

SO WHAT ARE WE DOING, ANYWAY???

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George were talking at the restaurant about nothing? OK, so maybe that was every episode. But there was one in particular where they stopped in the middle of their dangling conversation and just asked "So what are we doing, anyway?" - it was a hilarious, and kinda sad if you think about it for a while, scene. George and Jerry both came to the conclusion that they really weren't doing anything that amounted to anything for anybody and that their lives were a series of non-accomplishments (that really sounds like it should be a word). We came to Coban this weekend for some hot-shower time and some faster-internet time and to buy some groceries. Yesterday, as the boys and I were in line for Dominoes Pizza, we were stuck in line behind a herd of Mormon missionaries, and the guy in front of us was quite enthusiastic and talkative. I, on the other hand, was grumpy and tired and really didn't want to talk to someone 15 years younger than me who went by the name "Elder".

But, among the 14,326 questions he asked me in the span of "15 minutes or less" was: "so what are you doing here anyway?" We've made some pretty broad statements on this blog about what we are doing: helping people, learning a culture, etc., but it occurred to me that there is a lot that we're doing that many people might not know about. Also, I've been asked several times by several different people what SPECIFIC things are going on and are being planned - not just for our yearlong stay here but for the 10-year Project Ulpan program. So, in no particular order, here is some discussion about what specifically is going on:

• Water Supply Projects - Most of you know that through the support of www.thelivingwaterproject.us and others, three clean water projects have been completed in two different communities. There are 15 more communities to go, and each of them have a need. This is special to me - not just because there is a distinct need for clean water in the Ulpan Valley (and about half the world), but because the simple act of having a water system gives something of a communal structure to communities who desperately need them.
• Education Projects - To say that education is lacking in the Valley is like saying that Hitler was a little moody. It's a problem with the teachers, who maybe show up a couple of days a week, with the system, which provides little oversight and little funding, with the families, who provide little encouragement and help, with the children, who don't take it seriously, and with the entire lifestyle, which doesn't have a mechanism for rewarding education. It's like an elaborate modern-day serfdom, where people just learn to subsist, and there's no value to learning math or history or reading. It's sad that my kids know more about Mayan history than any of the other 5,000 kids in the Valley. We're working with the schools and the parents, and even through home-schooling our kids we're hoping to set an example. We have a goal of starting three secondary schools this fall, and if that falls short, we'll try again next year. But the main hurdle is to provide a light at the end of the tunnel that shows a benefit to education.
• Economic Development Projects - These will hopefully become that light at the end of the tunnel. The last thing we want to do is train the best and brightest from the Ulpan Valley to the point that they can leave the Valley. Some will, and that's OK, but there needs to be a means and an opportunity for the hardest-working young people to stay close to home, to be (hopefully better) teachers in the schools and to work in areas that bring some income and jobs to their friends and families. We aren't completely sure what all these will look like. There are some microcredit (Google Mohammed Yunus for some inspiration here) programs beginning in the Valley, and more to come. Maybe the future is in aquaculture or commercial organic agriculture or in ecotourism or in manufacturing clothing. Who knows? There is opportunity for all these things in the Valley. And for anyone reading this and saying "I'm in business, not a doctor or engineer or preacher, so there's no use for me in the mission field" I want to point out that a sense of business is one of the greatest needs these folks have. A business sense is by default a long-term effort, and it forces people to look further down the road than perhaps what has been customary.
• Solar Power Projects - The Ulpan Valley has internet access but no electricity. In fact, you could legitimately say that any invention from between 1500 and 2010 is not common here. The nearest electrical grid is about an hour away, and it doesn't seem likely that the system will be expanded in the next several years. People can certainly survive without electricity, but it's really hard to pump water without it or hold night classes or run machinery or anything like that in its absence. We currently have solar panels in 7 communities, and people are using them to recharge cell phones at about $0.40 a pop. In each case, the "solar committee" consists of trusted women in the community and in each case they are repaying the cost of the solar system. It's a beginning stage of economic development and empowering women and things like that. Before the year is out, I predict that the sun will be powering lights in schools and at least one water pump.
• Libraries - What good is literacy if you have nothing to read? We are starting 8 libraries in different communities this year. Anyone who has a stash of books written in Qeqchi that just aren't selling at the yard sale, let me know. Actually, if anyone wants to get together a shipping container full of children's books (and bibles and books for grown ups), then we'll get in touch with Healing Hands International and send it here, along perhaps with a few boxes of Dino-egg Oatmeal for my kids.
• Bridges - There's something spiritual about building bridges. Here, it's literally life and death. there are two rivers bisecting the Ulpan Valley, and crossing each of them is "muy peligroso". It's amazing to watch a villager loaded down with 150 pounds of wood or corn crossing a 50-foot long bridge consisting of two logs. It's also disheartening. One project coming up this spring will be headed up by a team from Lipscomb University engineering students and will replace a particularly dangerous bridge used by 4 or 5 communities. I like the fact that we are viewed as bridge builders. As I write this, I'm looking at a bridge across a flooded river here in Coban, and this bridge is not only partially submerged, but has no hand rails. There's a good chance it won't last the day, leaving a few thousand people inconveniently stranded on the other side.
• Nutrition Projects - The people in the Ulpan Valley eat almost solely corn and black beans. you see a few chickens running around, and even the occasional cow or pig, but meat is a once-a-month treat for most people here. Traditionally, the Mayans grew squash, tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, and about a million other things, but there's very little diversity left now. Through our garden, we hope to re-introduce people to not only the fact that they CAN grow these things, but that they NEED to grow these things, and they need to EAT these things (and not trade them for candy).  We hope to couple this with some soil conservation projects and some projects with Heifer International for increasing food diversity and security.
• Soil Conservation - Deforestation is a real thing here. We always learned that it was the mean old paper companies and the mean old logging companies doing all the damage, and while I'm sure that's the case in some places, that's not the case here. The tropical rain forest is being cut down by machetes one tree at a time. This is partially due to the fact that families need to boil their water to drink it (something we hope to remedy in 15 other communities). It's not because they're bad people, and certainly not because they have no respect for nature. It results from land use and from some land ownership policies that are unfair. Traditionally, where they have practiced slash-and-burn, and on 45-degree slopes, the topsoil doesn't stick around for very long - again we see the problem of not looking too far down the road, and with a high infant mortality and short life span, you can understand that mindset. We have begun terracing our garden to keep the topsoil in place, and we will be teaching others to do the same. Re-planting the rain forest is a little beyond our scope, but at a minimum we hope to help make a transition from "subsistence farming" to "sustainable farming".  Between terracing slopes, composting waste, raising red worms (we have about 600 of them in buckets now, ready for our garden, and more in our composting bin, which isn't as gross as you might think), we have lots to learn and lots to teach.
• Latrines - In this area, many homes do not have a latrine.  They simply use the bathrooom outside the house or out in the cornfield or wherever.  Needless to say, the most basic of sanitation needs are present here.  A few months ago, as a pilot project, we worked with one of the poorer communities here to construct 4 or 5 basic pit-type latrines - in the hopes that they would catch on and more could be built.  We have now constructed over 400 of them in almost every community, and there is demand for more.  The good news is that this pilot program was a success, but the bad news is that it drained the "sanitation" budget in a hurry.  No matter - it's money well spent, even though we technically flushed it down the toilet.  Maybe in a couple of years there will be a "Phase 2" of this program, where more latrines are constructed and/or different types, such as composting latrines, are constructed.  One of the nicer aspects of this program was that the people all paid a nominal amount for the materials for their latrines, and supplied the majority of the labor for constructing them.  It really gave a literal "buy-in" to the project.
• Stoves - We have been invited for meals at several homes now, and that is always touching and always interesting.  As has been the tradition for a couple of thousand years, they cook indoors on an open fire on the floor, balancing logs on three specific stones that are passed down from mother to daughter.  What happens is that the whole house is almost always completely filled with smoke, and in a place with so much fresh air, it is unfortunate and sad that so many suffer from respiratory ailments.  Many kids cough constantly, and many older people have eyesight problems resulting from this practice.  We will be building some "pilot project" stoves in the near future, first at our place and then at some neighbors' homes, that still burn wood (but less of it) but most importantly funnel the smoke out of the house.  And if we can figure it out, we hope to incorporate those same three stones into the design.  But, the technical issues consist of block and mortar and simple things like that.  The larger issues are tradition and practice.  This is a good example of the competing goals of not changing a culture but changing health.  Josh Graves, "da preacher man" at Otter Creek, talks euphemistically about being "up in someone's kitchen", where you get up close and personal with them.  In this case, we actually are in someone's kitchen, and that will make this difficult.  Telling someone how to obtain their water is one thing - telling them how to cook is another.
• Medical and Dental - We have hosted some medical and dental clinics and plan on several more.  There are some people who need treatment and attention for what might currently be ailing them, but what excites me is the deliberate plan to educate people on a regular basis on some of those preventative measures that can improve health.  For example, there are very few tooth brushes in the Ulpan Valley.  We have visited schools and distributed tooth brushes and toothpaste to the kids there and showed them how to brush their teeth (our kids are the best teachers for this).  But, unless there is programmatic follow-up, all we've done is give the kids a novel break from whatever form of school they were having that day.  This fall, a team of dentists will be preparing a formal plan for this program, and hopefully over the next decade we can phase out the "clinics" part of things because of better education and practice.
• Personal - Kris Hatchell has a good saying: "it's about the people, not the projects".  That's hard to remember sometimes, but it's very true.  As is the case with most of us, we rarely remember specific things we did with people, but we remember how those people made us feel.  We didn't come here to just visit, but visiting is perhaps the most fun and the most rewarding and the most important.  In some ways, it's like marketing - where relationships are developed over time and those relationships are the precursor to projects.  If we can't be trusted to share some tortillas and coffee with someone, it is unlikely we will be trusted on any other matters either.  If we do this anywhere close to right, when we're done, the people here will say "we did this ourselves".

So, if any of you have actually made it this far in reading, I'm sure you're thinking that we've bitten off more than we should have.  That's probably true, but that's the side I want to err on.  Bear in mind that this is a long-term project that has already directly involved over 100 people and will probably involve several hundred more volunteers over time, so most of this will ultimately be accomplished by others.  And along the way, I'm sure that God will open some other doors and point us in a direction we haven't yet considered.  He unquestionably has the ability to "fix" everything here and everywhere, but I believe he enjoys working on projects with his kids, which is something to which I can relate.  I think he wants us to try different things, and if everything we try works perfectly, then we haven't tried nearly enough things.