fotos

So here are some fotos...

Here we are right before our salsa lessons.

This is on my birthday after our game of Football. (still pale)

Me and Sara after boogy boarding.
Here I am on the boat over to the beach. (getting darker!!)

Back at the Campus

WOW...what a great weekend! I dont have my pictures ready to put on yet, but I promise I will soon. This weekend was spent with two missionary couples from Canada who live here in Guatemala. They live in a really poor and excluded area which is a very unapealing place to do missions. Heres the run down of our weekend:

Thursday: Wake up at 5, get in van and drive 2 hours to San Juan (a small village in the southern hills of Guatemala)
-We then has some "fun time" of shoveling sand and just moving it around, then we gatherd brush and put it in pills to burn.
-Then what we thought was a "short walk" turned into a hike that was 5 miles long down mountain sides and through rivers to two small schools to deliver school bags to 50 kids.
Friday: Early wake up to another hike, but this time with 100 pound rebar to carry in groups od three. We walked for 1.5 hours with this rebar on our shoulders...ouch!!
-We then started to tear down a house that a family of 8 had been living in. The "house" was a mud bricked house with 3 of the walls caving in.
Saturday: It was our job over friday and saturday to tear down the whole house. Every brick had to be taken off the walls seperately and placed in a nice pile. Then we had to collect large rocks from the area to make the new foundation. We also had to walk down to the river and fill bags and buckets full of sand and then get them into the truck to haul them up to the house.

To say the least the job was hard, and many of us got sick. It was a great experiece though. Al, one of the missionaries had so many great words to speak to us, and I will totally miss his talks, he is a great man of God. Well that about sums up the week end....I will tell you the good parts later... ie. Surfing in the Pacific!!!!! (till next time)

next 2 weeks

Hola mi amigos!! Well just wanted to let you all know that I wont be in contact for the next 2 weeks, we are gone on missions trips and living in Guatemalan homes. I will write a long e-mail when I get back to update you all...talk to you then...have a great rest of January...by b-day is tomorrow by the way! :) cya

Team Pictures

Under the arch in Antigua Square. I've seen this some where before...Us girls...arents we soooo cute.

Tara, Bryna, Nikki, Sara, David, Karla, Rachel, Kyle, Ange, Me, Amanda (Top row)
Melody and Liz (bottom row)

Ok, i know you are all getting bored of pictures of everyone eles on the team and not me...but I am taking the picture...so I'm there OK!.. Well here we are waiting for the chicken bus in the morning outside our little community of San Pedro el Alto. It is so nice, we have our own guard to keep us safe...and he is soo nice! :)

ok, this is one of the coolest places in Anitgua (aside from all the ruins)...well this is a section of the local market. The maya people that live in the hills surrowing antigua come down into town to sell the goods they have made. The markets has so much stuff it is impossible to list all of it but here is a taste: Purses, jewlery, clothes, blankets, decorations...and the list goes on....It is the coolest place to interact with the maya people and also meet people from all around the world. This is a view of the indoor market, there is also a large section of outdoor market aswell. (all together the market is 3 blocks wide and 5 blocks long!!!)

hey, I'm in this one!! woo hoo!! Well the thing I love the most about Antigua is that most of the ruins and resorted buildings are open to the public. All it takes to find these places is taking an afternoon to walk around. We found this place on Wednesday we just walked into this large courtyard to take a picture of ruins and we found this door into this open building. It consisted of two large courtyard with fountains surrowned by a two store house. The house was recently resorted to its original look and it now a public art gallery and museum. It was AMAZING!!!

Sweet..well here are two more views of the place..like I said it is big!! and FREEE!! and dont walk on the grass...thats what the walk ways are for!

K, well here is a shot of one of the ruins. This kinds shows you how big they are. There is so much history here it is amazing! My fav thing about all these places, is that every statue is headless. During the spanish conquest warriors would break of the saints heads to signify the invasion of the city....or somthing like that...lol

Cool well that is it for now...time for bed...yea I go to bed early now!

more pics...

Here are some more pics o' fun

This is our eating area/class room/patio. The path to the left is the path down to the girls area of the campus/compound. It sweet that we have our own area, this way sun tanning becomes a lot easyer
(no boys allowed!!)

Listed left to right, Nikki (B.C.) Tara (B.C.) Sara (Ont.) Liz (WA) Rachel (N.C.) Here we are on the chicken bus (public bus) heading to spanish class in Antigua. The bus is pretty empty at this moment, but trust me..having your own personal space in this country is not an option.
Karla, David (one of two boys) Nikki and Amanda. Here we are chillin' in the volcano village of Santa Maria. We helped a school get ready for their first day (school starts on monday).

Now dont think this is lava. This is the sun set yesterday. Fuego (one of three volcanos we are surrounded by) is active. I didnt know that active means it blows out ash and lava every three minutes, crazy eh. This day wasnt that bad...some times there is way more coming out. At night some times we can see lava shooting out (but only in the dark).

day o' fun

Today was so exciting. We started the day with Spanish school and had that for 4 hours. We then had to get back to the campus on our own the "chicken bus" the public transit. Then we sun tanned for about 2 hours had lunch and headed back to the city for salsa dance lessons (soooo fun!!!) I am soaking in anything I can of this culture, I love it sooo much.

So today I learnt two new things...A little more spanish and a lot more salsa !!!

Numero Dos

I'm too tired to type lots, so here are some pics..

This is a shot I took while walking through our village. In the distance is Fuego (fire) Volcano, the volcano our college is named after.

Time to relax. Sara and David hanging out in the living room.

and yes i do miss you all...as you see it would be impossible for me to forget you all (this is right above my bed).

Number One

Well my first post in Guateamala. So i found it fitting to put up my first picture i took. This is just one of the streets in Anitgua, nothing special, but thats what makes it cool. This city is so cool, everything about it is amazing, and so cultural. So easy to say I LOVE THIS PLACE!

LEAVE TOMORROW!

(i wrote this before i left but posted it now)
I've dreamed of this day for months...yet it feels no different then yesterday, or the day before that. At first I felt bad for not getting emotional, but there is no need. My heart has been on its way to Guatemala the past 3 months and now my body is ready to go. This is my calling for the next 6 months and I know it is where God wants me. A year ago I would have been celebrating to be leaving this place..but thats all different now. You guys made surrey home for me. Which is weird cause I've lived here for 15 years but didnt feel home untill I met all of you. I knew this was home the day I was sad to leave it. But I will be back. And you'll be hearing me rant on here for the next 6 months. So enjoy the next 6 months of my ramblings and experiences. I hope they are just has fun to read about. Thanx again for all the love. And fairwell...the next post will be written from Guatemala.

3 days

Happy New Year!!! Well now that the new year is upon us and all the holidays are over with I am free to enjoy these next few days. Tonight is going to the big tear jerker, as it is my last church service at Victory for the next 6 months. I am so attached to it, and the people there. VCC has become so much of what my life has been these past 2 years and leaving it for so long it going to be hard. Tonight will be the goodbye to those I will not see tomorrow at the final dinner. Goodbye to PJ and all the great leaders at Victory who have guilded me through lots these past years. Goodbye to the worship band, I'm gonna miss the worship so much. Goodbye to the whole family at VCC. Victory is my home away from home, you can ask my mom. So saying goodbye to it is going to be hard.
Tonight goodbye to VCC
Tomorrow goodbye to all of my friends....

Its gonna be a tearfull next two days.