The morning started again with Mass. Today we celebrate the feast of St. Anthony of Padua. Fr. Mark’s goal was to make the sisters laugh and his homily did just that – he talked about how St. Anthony is known for finding lost things, like keys, wallets, and water bottles (all things the teens have lost this week that the sisters have helped us find – especially the keys)! They all giggled, so I’d say mission accomplished! He went on to talk about how in reality the greatest thing that St. Anthony can help us find is ourselves. He talked about how sometimes we feel like we have lost God, but in reality God cannot be lost and instead it is us who are lost but that He will always find us and bring us back into his loving embrace.

After Mass we had breakfast, which consisted of cereal, black beans, eggs, tortillas and a chocolate pancake topped with peaches that had been soaked in a sweet syrup, they were delicious! After breakfast we loaded up the bus and made our way back to Parramos to our tiny home in order to finish that up. All that we had left to do today was put the roof on, and it was mainly Nerry (our mason) and Adreen (the father) doing the work, but we tried to be as useful as we could. We carried the sheet metal from the front gate back to the new house and helped get them up onto the roof for the men to screw into place. The family will take care of putting doors and windows in on their own. After we finished the house we gave the family the clothing donations we put together for them and they gave us some cookies!

After we finished our house we walked back to the bus and had to wait about 30-45 minutes for the rest of the groups to finish up. We then drove back to the convent. A lot of us were wanting to pop into a grocery store to buy some snacks so we walked up the street (up a massive hill) in order to go shopping. I grabbed some queso chips and chocolate bon bons. When we got back from the store we had about 30 minutes until lunch so we just relaxed for a while. Lunch today was barbecue ribs, rice pilaf, salad and watermelon.

After lunch we gathered more food donation bags and split up into 6 groups again to do more home visits to the elderly and sick. This time we stayed in San Andres Itzapa so we just walked to our houses from the convent and had a tuk tuk follow behind us to carry the food bags. Today’s visits seemed more joyful if that makes sense. Tuesday was so hard and we had a lot of really sad circumstances and sick people. But the people today, while old, all had such a joy about them that it made the visits a bit easier. I was extremely proud of the three boys in our group, normally the minister (this time one of the sisters) would say the prayer for the family at the end, but today the sister with us had lost her voice so the boys stepped up and all three took a turn at leading the prayer for the family. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember all of the names of the people we met today (we have met so many people these last few days that some of the names are starting to run together)! I do recall a couple though:

The first family we visited was a husband and wife, Abel and Victoria. They had 12 children but six have passed away, four of those six were all in the last year. She was still very much grieving that loss, but was so grateful that we came to visit her.

The second family was a great grandma, her daughter, granddaughter and three great grand children. I don’t remember her name, but she had four children. We gave the little children some toy cars that we brought with us and they LOVED them!

The third family was actually the mother of Nerry, our mason. She too had 12 children and was so joyful. She laughed so much and was so happy to have us in her home, she gave all of us orange soda and crackers.

The fourth family was a great grandmother (I think her name was Magdalena? It definitely started with an M but I can’t recall what it was exactly.) She had four children (three biological and one that she had adopted) and she has twin great grandsons who are three years old and they were the cutest things ever – Anderson and Alex. The boys got a picture with the woman and the twins.

The last family took us to the home of Nerry where he lives with his family and his wife’s brother (Jorge) and his wife. Jorge went blind about 10 years ago but he and his wife were the sweetest couple ever. We asked them what they do for work and they told us that they sell goods in the city center. Jorge carries all of the heavy baskets and his wife guides him. He said “she is the light for my eyes” and though he can’t see, he looked toward her with such affection, it was beautiful to witness.

After our visits we stopped for ice cream as we made our way back to the convent. We were the first group back so I took advantage of there not being many people here and took a shower in hopes of having hot water (it worked!). We then had a couple hours of free time before dinner. I spent some time reading and working on this post 😬. Earlier in the day, Tony (one of our interpreters) was telling the boys that he could bring his barber to the convent and they could all get their haircut. They decided to take him up on that, so during the free time the barber came and several of the boys got their haircut! Some of the chaperones were all talking and I love the way that the program we are working finds creative ways to help other people in their community (beyond just the families we serve in the building projects or home visits). For example last year one of the interpreters brought his friend on the last day who sells machetes and several of the teens bought them. This time Tony brought in his barber and several boys paid to have their haircut by him. It just goes back to what I was saying a few days ago how the people who help run this mission truly have a vision to make their town and their country a better place for everyone!

We left the convent around 6:30pm to head to a restaurant about 20 minutes away called Pollo Campero – it is kind of like the Guatemalan version of KFC. Since we are such a large group we pre-ordered our food so that it was ready when we arrived and we could immediately start eating. The chicken was delicious. We then walked two stores down to an ice cream shop – I was so full I couldn’t eat another bite, but a bunch of the teens got ice cream. We then got back on the bus and headed back to the convent. It’s about 10pm here and I’m planning to go to bed as soon as I post these because I am exhausted and we have another long day of work ahead of us tomorrow!

Buenas noches!