Our first week of Language school has been excellent. We arrived last Sunday afternoon and moved into our room. We´re staying with an Antiguan family that leaves right in the heart of the city 3 blocks from the school. They´re upper middle class by Guatemalan standards. We have our own room and bathroom. Senora Sandra cooks us three meals a day and normally at least a 2 of their 4 sons join us during the meals. Our daily schedule looks like this...
6am to 8am=wake up, shower, QTs, Breakfast
8am to 12pm=one on one spanish lessons with our teachers
1pm=lunch with our host family
2pm to 7pm=study spanish on our own, attend events at the school, (soon) volunteer with SI
7pm=dinner with our host family
8pm to 10pm=study and free time
God has blessed us because we have met several friends since we´ve been here. One family is going to run an orphanage here in Antigua and they´re studying Spanish for 6 months at our school. They´re in their late 20s and have 3 kids. We´ve gone over to their place several times to hang out and play games. They love to play Settlers of Catan!!
Learning a new language is proving to be a difficult task. Our comprehension of Spanish has already improved dramatically. If someone speaks fairly slowly or if we´re reading Spanish, we can pick up at least the main ideas. Speaking is proving to be much more difficult, but we´re learning poco a poco.
The city is very nice but there is a siginificant amount of poverty. In a few interactions Caroline and I have had with some of these people our hearts were just broken with their situations. One man is severely disabled and spends his entire day picking food out of the trash in the park. We´ve never once seen him beg for money though...It was heartbreaking to watch, but a reminder of why we´re here in the first place. We can wait to be in the DR serving people like this.
If you´d like to call us while we´re here we bought a Go phone...
The number is 011 502 53776038.
As soon as we can find a place with faster internet we´ll post some pictures
His,
Ryan and Caroline
MiBanco Esperanza from Los Higos
Monday, July 14, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Waterfalling
Caroline and I spent our last weekend in the US (for a long time) in New Hampshire. We went up with her family to go to her cousin Jeff's wedding. It was a long drive but a great time. We got to see my brother for a day in Boston and spent several days in the White mountains. One afternoon we went to the Swift River and left with quite a story to tell:
We're at a spot on the river called Upper Falls where you can sit down and let the river take you for about 200 yards. Bodysurfing is to Surfing what this was to Kayaking. It's probably a fun and peaceful ride when there aren't rainstorms earlier in the day. I decide to go for it anyway so I sit down, put my feet in front of me and go. It's slow for a while and then picks up some speed through white water. It's my first try so before it gets to the big-time rapids and 5 foot waterfall I bail out to the river bank (barely).
Emily wasn't so lucky! A few minutes after I give it a try, I convinced Caroline's 16 year old sister to do it. Her cousin Tom and I were going to wait for her before the waterfall and catch her. BAD IDEA. She starts off fine but then hits a rough patch and gets disoriented. She flies by Tom and I, and in order to catch her I let go of Tom and dive after her. Together we're streamlining right towards this waterfall. I manage to latch onto a rock about 3 feet before the edge and hold Emily with the other hand. She pulls herself onto this rock (that still has some water rushing over it) to collect herself.
At this point she apparently doesn't realize the immense danger we're in and she takes a few moments to look around at all the commotion we've caused. Meanwhile gallons of water are rushing into my face as I cling to this rock with one hand and maintain a vice grip on Emily's arm with the other. Eventually I say to her "Emily you have got to get over this rock before I lose my grip and we both fall to our death."
She finally manages to climb over the rock and jumps upstream to the outstretched arm of her cousin, who pulls her to safety. The water was going too hard for me to stand up without falling over so I just push off the rock with my feet and that gets me close enough to the side that I can grab another rock and pull myself out.
I would feel pretty heroic about the whole ordeal except that I was the reason she was in the predicament in the first place. I attached a few pictures that Caroline took as the event unfolded. Unfortunately once the situation got dangerous she stopped to help.
Our first day of Spanish training is Monday July 7th in Antigua, Guatemala. We're excited, but also scared, as we go into a new place, learn a new language...It's finally here.
Prayer Requests:
The drop wasn't as bad as the fact that we would land on that huge boulder
Emily Starts out happy
The white water throws her off her game
The water fall is about 8 feet behind us. What were we thinking?
We're at a spot on the river called Upper Falls where you can sit down and let the river take you for about 200 yards. Bodysurfing is to Surfing what this was to Kayaking. It's probably a fun and peaceful ride when there aren't rainstorms earlier in the day. I decide to go for it anyway so I sit down, put my feet in front of me and go. It's slow for a while and then picks up some speed through white water. It's my first try so before it gets to the big-time rapids and 5 foot waterfall I bail out to the river bank (barely).
Emily wasn't so lucky! A few minutes after I give it a try, I convinced Caroline's 16 year old sister to do it. Her cousin Tom and I were going to wait for her before the waterfall and catch her. BAD IDEA. She starts off fine but then hits a rough patch and gets disoriented. She flies by Tom and I, and in order to catch her I let go of Tom and dive after her. Together we're streamlining right towards this waterfall. I manage to latch onto a rock about 3 feet before the edge and hold Emily with the other hand. She pulls herself onto this rock (that still has some water rushing over it) to collect herself.
At this point she apparently doesn't realize the immense danger we're in and she takes a few moments to look around at all the commotion we've caused. Meanwhile gallons of water are rushing into my face as I cling to this rock with one hand and maintain a vice grip on Emily's arm with the other. Eventually I say to her "Emily you have got to get over this rock before I lose my grip and we both fall to our death."
She finally manages to climb over the rock and jumps upstream to the outstretched arm of her cousin, who pulls her to safety. The water was going too hard for me to stand up without falling over so I just push off the rock with my feet and that gets me close enough to the side that I can grab another rock and pull myself out.
I would feel pretty heroic about the whole ordeal except that I was the reason she was in the predicament in the first place. I attached a few pictures that Caroline took as the event unfolded. Unfortunately once the situation got dangerous she stopped to help.
Our first day of Spanish training is Monday July 7th in Antigua, Guatemala. We're excited, but also scared, as we go into a new place, learn a new language...It's finally here.
Prayer Requests:
- Traveling
- Homestay accommodations: we'll be staying with a Guatemalan family and it will probably be a big adjustment and we'll really need to be flexible
- Language-No hablamos mucho espanol.
- Peace-saying goodbye is never easy
| Total Need | Total Raised | % | Remaining Need | |
| Pre-Field Budget | $25,000 | $21,000 | 84% | $4,000 |
| Monthly Budget | $2,500 | $2292 | 92% | $208 |
The drop wasn't as bad as the fact that we would land on that huge boulder
Emily Starts out happy
The white water throws her off her game
The water fall is about 8 feet behind us. What were we thinking?
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Goodbye Harrisonburg
Top 10 things we'll miss about Harrisonburg:
Top 10 things we won't miss about Harrisonburg:
It's hard to believe but, 5 years later, it is time for us to leave this town. We have lots of great memories here and we're certainly sad to go. We'll be in Poquoson for a couple weeks and then it's Guatemala for training on July 6th. Here's an update on our finances. You'll notice our total needs have changed. We were responsible for raising $4000 to start the microfinance site and $200/month to maintain it. A US organization donated all the money to bankroll the entire project. ...God answered that prayer!
- Living within walking distance from most of our friends
- Gladdeus/Dfunk
- Large Group
- Houses with names
- Covenant Presbyterian Church
- JMU campus in the Spring
- Seeing the Blue Ridge Mountains while you drive around town
- Fall
- Dave's Taverna
- Being less than 5 minutes from 3 different parks
Top 10 things we won't miss about Harrisonburg:
- Office jobs
- The dog food smell
- Parking tickets
- No beach
- Temperatures below 20 degrees
- Walking uphill
- Driving from one side of town to the other
- The 6am train
- Moving twice a year
- being a "Townie"
It's hard to believe but, 5 years later, it is time for us to leave this town. We have lots of great memories here and we're certainly sad to go. We'll be in Poquoson for a couple weeks and then it's Guatemala for training on July 6th. Here's an update on our finances. You'll notice our total needs have changed. We were responsible for raising $4000 to start the microfinance site and $200/month to maintain it. A US organization donated all the money to bankroll the entire project. ...God answered that prayer!
| Total Need | Total Raised | % | Remaining Need | |
| Pre-Field Budget | $25,000 | $18,000 | 72% | $7,000 |
| Monthly Budget | $2,500 | $2197 | 88% | $301 |
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Timeline...
Sunday, July 6, 2008
American Airlines # 1569
Washington Dulles Intl (IAD) to Miami International (MIA)
Departure (IAD): July 6, 6:00 AM EDT (morning)
Arrival (MIA): July 6, 8:35 AM EDT (morning)
Class: Economy
Miami International (MIA) to Guatemala City La Aurora (GUA)
Departure (MIA): July 6, 12:45 PM EDT (afternoon)
Arrival (GUA): July 6, 1:25 PM CST (afternoon)
Our Timeline (some dates subject to change):
American Airlines # 1569
Washington Dulles Intl (IAD) to Miami International (MIA)
Departure (IAD): July 6, 6:00 AM EDT (morning)
Arrival (MIA): July 6, 8:35 AM EDT (morning)
Class: Economy
Miami International (MIA) to Guatemala City La Aurora (GUA)
Departure (MIA): July 6, 12:45 PM EDT (afternoon)
Arrival (GUA): July 6, 1:25 PM CST (afternoon)
Our Timeline (some dates subject to change):
- May-July 6: Raise the final 20% of our budget
- July 6-Aug 31: Language School in Antigua, Guatemala
- Sep 1-Sep 15: Spend time with friends/family in VA
- Sep 16-Oct 4: International Missionary Training in Colorado Springs, CO
- Oct 4-Oct 15: Final Preparations and saying goodbye to the USA
- Oct 16(ish): DR
| Total Need | Total Raised | % | Remaining Need | |
| Pre-Field Budget | $28,000 | $16,500 | 59% | $17,000 |
| Monthly Budget | $2,700 | $2049 | 76% | $826 |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)