Machaca Road

Yesterday....Thursday, we were invited to have lunch with a family on Machaca Road. The mother's name is Santa, I was her son's kindergarten teacher. As the Maya do, she prepared a wonderful soup called "caldo." It is a thin broth, with hot peppers and spices with chicken. It is eaten with rice and a fresh corn tortilla spoon. We visited for several hours as Adam and Leslie talked to her daughters about their schooling and what they wanted to do when they graduated from high school. Not many girls actually finish high school here, so it was good for Florita, to process this with our kids. She brought out her school folder and showed her summer school work. She is doing very well.

Next week we will go back again to have lunch at her mother's Natividad's home.

After we said good-bye, we walked down the village road so that I could find one of my other students named Rafael. His mother Manuella, is a very beautiful Mayan woman with many children. They are called "pikni" here. Manuella was coming up from washing their clothes in the stream and she is great with child again. We chuckled as I reminded her that when I left she was with baby. We had a short visit as all of the pikni ran and hid behind the thatch. Grace could hear someone say in a very quiet voice..."Hi Gracie!" She looked around to see who was calling her name, and the giggles would start. They remembered her but are so shy to come and say hello. As we started back down the road, we heard another voice call out "ADAM!" Once again we stopped and Adam joined a group of men who were working on putting a new thatch on a neighbors home. The young man remembered Adam and asked where Andrew was.

We came home and I went for my nightly visit with Noel. I was there for two hours! The time flew by as we talked deeper and deeper about eternity, CS Lewis and The Lord of the Rings. Noel is a horticulturist by education and a naturalist by identification. Our views on eternity were vastly different, yet as I talked to her about what eternity means from a biblical perspective rather than a cultural perspective, she grew very quiet and pondered out loud if these things could really be true. I explained our time now as living in the "Shadowlands" upon which she offered her perspective of CS Lewis! One of her favorite books of his is the Screwtape Letters! Can you imagine that~

I reminded her that I would be leaving in six days and she told me how very sad that made her feel. She asked me for a hug, as I hugged her, I found the courage to tell her that I believed God specifically brought me here for her. I was cautious about saying this, as I did not want to sound arrogant or condescending. She received what I said and was very serious as she asked me why I thought that. I told her that God is so loving and is always reaching out to us. I expressed to her that He loved her, wanted her to know that she is not forgotten, nor is she alone. Pray for Noel! What a precious lady.

I came back to the Lodge to find the current was off and my family at the local cafe. I searched around for a flashlight and called the cafe to tell them to GET HOME! Kevin was able to get the generator to start and the lights came back on. All of the sudden each one of us let out a collective AHHHHHHH!!! The things that crawl out in the dark is something that we really did not want to contemplate. We had to call the grounds keeper to come to the Lodge and try to get the monkey spider off the wall. It was so hilarious, six people vs one very large spider and yet we were paralyzed with fear. Chris did not kill it, he shewed it away...we all went to bed a bit more weary and hoping that our cabanas were supernaturally protected from these creatures.