Greetings from Dolores, Peten! Its been a week since my last post! I realized that I haven't been as faithful to post blogs as I was last month. I'll try to do beter :) Its hot; its muddy; I've got mosquito bites; and the power goes out often...but I'm loving it here!
I'm thankful for the wonderful opportunities I've had already and the ones yet to come! Last week was a unique and somewhat unusual opportunity. A family from Santa Rita, the Macz family, was going to the city of Sayaxche to exhume their son's body. You may have read about this on Jimmy and Shelley's blog. Jimmy had asked permission for us to come along. So, we packed in Jimmy's Micro, all 34 of us, and rode to Sayaxche, about a 40 minute ride. During the time when they actually dug the body up, it was such a hard time for the family. I won't go into too many details, and honestly I probably don't know all the details. But, the death had been unknown to the family for a few months. So, you could imagine that this was a pretty hard experience for them. The body was exhumed and the family prepared to return to Santa Rita for a proper burial and service. After the legal documents were handled, we headed back to Santa Rita. There, we joined the family for a memorial service. The service and message was delivered by a Catholic priest. The sad part is the fact that the majority of the family is unsaved and they really don't have any hope. Jimmy and Shelley have grown very close to the members of this family and have shared the Gospel with them many times. Please pray that God will continue to open doors for them. After the service, we walked with the family to the cemetery where they were to bury the body. The family did not make the trip for fear of "bad luck." According to their superstition, it is bad luck for the family to be there when the body is buried. How sad it is to see the spiritual blindness of these people. I'm thankful for the experience to be there as this was a very eye-opening and learning experience as well as an opportunity to meet many of the people of Santa Rita.
I've really enjoyed the time to spend with Jimmy and get to know him better. We've had many opportunities already as we ride around to run errands or just sit and talk to get to know each other. We've had several of those "missions/ministry discussions" that a missions intern like me is always on the lookout for. I'm grateful for the talks we've had and the chance to learn from his experience. Jimmy and Shelley are very down-to-earth and I always enjoy just having fun and joking around with them. I know youguys will probably read this so---Thanks a bunch! I think you're great!
For now, I'm staying busy working on my lessons for the Bible Study and Kekchi pastor's training. I look forward to reporting more about what's going on later! God bless!
Jay
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