Back in Guatemala

It's after 10:30 PM on Tuesday and I can't believe I'm riding back from the airport in Rodrigo, the little red pickup truck that has died at least fifty times in the past two years since we arrived here. Kevin is in the back with my two duffels filled with pillows, canned chicken and, among other things, Spanish books, which I keep taking back and forth with the hope that I'll actually be able to speak this crazy language one day. Julian bought Rodrigo and has diligently worked on raising him from the dead on numerous occasions. Tonight is a good night for him!!

I enter the new house in the dark, not knowing where any light switches are, or remembering where the room is that Kevin's been sleeping in the past month that he was already here. One thing I must try to remember is to never arrive in Guatemala at night, especially when you've had such an emotional couple of months as we all have had. It's one thing coming into a sunny house, looking out the windows and seeing Volcan Agua and the surrounding mountains. It's quite another looking at the dirty walls and cold, empty, echoey rooms. I can't find my jammies which are somewhere in one of the black plastic garbage bags Kevin used to empty the apartment in December. I immediately burst into tears and long for the soft furniture, warm lights and clean house and family I'd left behind just hours before. I knew where everything was and I had more than I needed. It's a beast that I have to beat back every single time I come here. The beast of comfort.

I get so used to having personal space (we are living with the seven members of Manuel's family), comfortable furniture, freedom to go where I want, being able to communicate my thoughts and feelings in my own language. I come back to Guatemala and pray that God changes my heart, yet again, to be content with where He's placed me; that His grace is sufficient and I don't need anything but that to be at peace. "Though the darkness may last for the night, His joy comes in the morning!" And it does...I wake up and see Oscar, Sandra, Julian and Ruth for the first time in two months. We read God's Word and pray together. We talk excitedly about the mission team coming in just a few weeks. We eat lunch together sitting on 5 gallon buckets. The work, the ministry has begun! It pushes everything of little or no consequence into the background, and what really matters, spreading the love of Christ, comes blazing to the front. Now I am ready.