So this is why we have travel insurance...

Hola from the hospital!

A funny thing happened to me this week - I begun to have pains in my abdomen on Tuesday evening and thought it was simply a case of food poisoning or something else mundane. Well, by Thursday afternoon, I was in excruciating pain and in the Emergency Room at Willowbrook Methodist Hospital. Now, keep in mind that my wife had been telling me to go to the doctor since Tuesday evening, but alas, I was not smart enough to agree with her.

So here I am Friday evening after finally going into the hospital yesterday for an emergency appendectomy. Since I won't post the picture of my appendix in this blog post, I will just provide you a link to Wikipedia for your own reading pleasure. Needless to say, I was very fortunate to have access to such good care as my appendix was very close to rupturing.

Now why is this newsworthy to the blog? Well, I thought to myself yesterday how fortunate I am that this occurred now and not right before the trip to Guatemala or in Guatemala for that matter. Yet, our mission team is very fortunate in that we have a really good travel insurance policy in the event that these unforeseen events occur. Our good friends at SOS went through the time and effort to arrange a travel insurance policy for their team and ours.

Obviously, we hope to never need this insurance, but it is there to make sure that we have the best care accessible whether that means staying in Guatemala or flying back to the U.S. for a procedure. That sure is peace of mind to me.

By the way, the picture below is members of last year's Prince of Peace mission delegation along with the Fr. Diego Agapito Santiago. (He's the man with the red shirt, glasses and long hair.) Members of the POPCC delegation for 2006 were Tony Stewart, Miguel Alvizures, Philomela Jamiro, Lily Villarreal, Elaine White, and myself.

Now, on a completely separate, but somewhat related note: I am often reminded in unexpected ways of how blessed I am to be part of the Prince of Peace Catholic Community. Recently, when Elaine and I lost our twins at the end of her first trimester, we received some many loving words, notes and cards of care, compassion and concern. This was also the case when we lost our daughter a few years ago as she was stillborn.

And today, I had the pleasure of receiving Holy Communion from Barbara Crum as she is a volunteer with the parish's Pastoral Care. While my wife registered me as being Catholic, I did not expect that someone from the parish would come by to share their love of Christ and pray with us. I feel so very touched and fortunate. Thus, thank you to all who are involved in Pastoral Care, including Deacon Al Prescott who leads this gargantuan effort. May God continue to bless you for the work that you do as you have blessed so many people in your work.

When in Guatemala, watch out for crazy gringos!

This will be a relatively, brief post this evening as I am trying out a new thing by posting a video on YouTube and then embedding the video below.

Wow - look Ma, no hands!!! It's one of those moments. ;)

So here's the goofy setup, since you will probably be scratching your head wondering why I found this relevant enough to be my first video posted online.

Since we are such happy, go-lucky missionaries in the morning and afternoons in Guatemala and being that the weather is often so beautiful, we often like to pull back the windows on our van to let in the fresh breeze. Well, the go-lucky part of us always like to wave at the people that we see from the road with an "Hola" in the morning and an "Adios" in the afternoon.

Remarkably, the people wave back and reply likewise. I'm sure that they all think we're big goobers, but it's part of the fun.

In any case, since we have been doing this for so long and the indigenous people know that we are in the aldeas (communities), they always get ready with a wave and an "Adios" as we depart for the day on the road. The three girls walking along in this video were expecting the same thing as I passed by. They just didn't realize that I was the last of the gringos that day. Instead that instinctively gave a wave and an "Adios" to their friend who happened to be bicycling along behind us.

I suppose that he was for a moment, an honorary crazy gringo!

To see more videos as they get loaded, check out my YouTube page.

Also, feel free to add a comment here on the blog or on the YouTube page to express your concern with my sanity!

Missioning to me

In July 2003, my wife and I made our first trip to Guatemala as part of the Sending Out Servants (SOS) mission program. This mission group is the origination and guide to the mission work that we are doing now as part of a parish-based mission program at Prince of Peace Catholic Community in Houston. Many of the reasons we love this experience so greatly (perhaps I am even addicted?!?) is because of how much groundwork SOS has trail blazed for us.

As part of the evolution of the mission program, the missionary teams preceding us were wise to heed the interests and desires of the local community and its needs. For example, as missionaries, we do not run down to Guatemala to tell the people there how to live. In fact, we go to be one with the people and to learn as much or more than what we may teach. This principal led the mission effort directly to one of our core programs today - youth faith formation in the Chicabracan Primero school.

By the time that my wife and I came along in 2003, the mission teams had been teaching on a regular basis for a few years in the school after being invited by the leaders of the rural community (Chicabracan Primero) to teach and share there. This school covers K through 6th grade and is funded by the government. Yet, the parents actually run the school. In the picture above, we had just concluded our farewell gathering with the teachers, parents and the mission team from the 2006 trip.

This meeting is always very emotional because of how much honest love between the community and our team exists already. If you ask any team member, it's very hard to leave after being there for only a handful of days.

In particular, one such farewell is something that I will always cherish and, as I understand, it happened to be the first one that the teachers coordinated. This impromptu celebration was coordinated unbeknownst to our team. Toward the end of recess on our last day, the team members were invited into one of the classrooms where there was a beautiful (and tasty!) cake and hot spiced tea-like drink. The room was decorated with all of the work that the team members and the teacher using this classroom had done during the week. (To have the cake, all of the teachers donated some money and the principal had to drive an hour and half round trip to go to the bakery in town.)

As the celebration began, one of our team members was designated as the translator for the non-Spanish-speaking tea members. Tony is such a great guy - some would describe him as big teddy bear because he sure looks ferocious, but when you get to know him, he's just a warm-hearted gentleman. As the festivities began and the cake and tea were being distributed, one-by-one the teachers at the school began to speak to us and Tony worked diligently through his translation responsibilities.

After awhile, one of the teachers stepped forward to tell her story of how much joy she had with the team members coming year after year to assist her in teaching the children the beauty of God's story. She expressed deep gratitude to us for leaving our families and homes and jobs to spend one week with her community... to be one together in Christ. Now, I can't say what was exactly was being expressed at the very moment, but I do know that the words flowing forth must have had an immense grace to them because Tony had to suddenly stop with the translations. He was so moved by the emotion of the moment and her words that for those of us who could not understand, we could feel the magnitude of the moment. We could see through him and through the teacher how important it was and still is to travel on mission to be one with people of other cultures.

Or perhaps, we travelled all the way to Chicabracan, leaving our families and homes and jobs for another reason.

Perhaps it was for them to mission to us.

Amongst my friends

In the time ahead, I plan to share various pictures, videos and sounds from my travels abroad while specifically highlighting the communities and friends that we visit in Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala.

The above picture is my beautiful wife with her goofy husband before Mass. ;)

And no, she did not make me write this!

In the photo are children that we work with in the local, parent-run school, which is based in the rural area known as Chicabracan Primero. We took this photo on a typically beautiful Wednesday afternoon outside of the San Pedro oratorio. It always amazes me to see how much joy the children and adults exhibit to us considering all of the violence these communities have experienced over the recent decades.

Even the little boy in red to the left of the picture knows well enough to goof around with the ol' rabbit ears almost being held behind someone's head in the photo. This must be a universal thing for kids. Ha!