MDUMC Construction Team...

What a blessing it was to have the team from my home church in country this week! I absolutely LOVED having them come and fully experience what I am doing down here. My parents and my uncle were part of the amazing team which puts my family who have come to visit count at 6. I keep telling them that they should all plan a huge Cragg family trip down to see me! Man what a blessing it would be to have everyone I love come down for a visit! Hint Hint!

The first weekend we played around Pana. On Sunday Adele invited the team over to her house for church in the morning. It was so beautiful having my family and the team get to experience where I worship every week. It is a completely different kind of church service than anything I've ever gone to before, and I feel blessed that they now know how I worship down here and who with. After church we grabbed some lunch in town then took a boat over to San Antonio Palopo, so the team could visit another village and see where the pottery that the lake is known for was made. The factory was actually closed since it was a Sunday, but there were a few other stores that were open which we shopped in.

Monday morning we drove up to Camanchaj to start our week of construction. My parents had spent a day at Salud y Paz in March, but it was fun to have more time to actually show off everything our organization does. This week the construction was working outside continuing the building of a new addition which when completed will expand our dental clinic. Doing that will then allow us to expand both our medical clinic and our surgery program. I have been told this will be about a 2 year process and it was fun to have my team work on it this week. Now everything I work construction with my future teams I will be able to look and remember what walls were built by my church.

On Tuesday morning we stopped at the waterfall going up the mountain to Camanchaj. It has gotten really big the past few weeks because of all the rain.

Sometimes I am still so blown away by how beautiful the lake is. Growing up in Houston I always said I wanted to live somewhere beautiful when I grew up. Mission accomplished. 

My mom got an email from my brother during the week saying that he was lonely because the rest of the family was off in another country without him and how he now understands how I feel all the time. I suggested that this be our Christmas card picture this year, but I think Parker would feel left out. :)

Archy was our driver and translator this week. I am constantly reminded of how blessed I have been to form amazing friendships. We talked again about me coming and living with his family in November to learn Spanish which I am getting really excited about. When I work with Archy we do a great job of always trying to teach each other new words. I help him with his English and he helps me with Spanish. It also always includes a lot of laughter which I always appreciate.

All week I talked about how we needed to get a team picture at the clinic, but didn't remember on the last day until we were already driving away. I then made everyone jump out of the van and run back to take a picture. Well worth it!

On Friday after working until mid afternoon we headed to Antigua. I usually don't go to Antigua with the teams, but since it was the team from my church I gladly made the exception. Friday we got to Antigua right before dinner, so we just ate and chilled at the hotel. Then Saturday morning we went to a breakfast spot which is connected to the Santo Domingo Hotel and has a great lookout over Antigua. I love the picture below. Again so blessed to have my family here!!! 

 Mommy and me. :)

 

After our delicious breakfast we drove to another scenic lookout over Antigua. It took about 20 minutes to drive to this cross which offers an amazing view of Antigua. I have heard teams talk about this for awhile, but I actually had never been there before. My brother bought the new iPhone 5 and gave me his old iPhone 4 to use down here, so I needed to go to the Tigo store in Guatemala City to get it figured out. Since Archy and I were going to be gone for a few hours to the City I was able to point out to the team from the lookout where the main plaza was and where else they needed to go see. Such a cool spot! 

Also if you are wondering no I didn't get my phone fixed. We drove for an hour to the city then sat in one Tigo store for about an hour before leaving because their system was down. Then we drove to another Tigo store and realized they couldn't help us either. Then we had to drive another hour back to Antigua all for nothing. Very annoying! I left my phone with Archy and he is going to try to get it fixed in Xela this week then bring it back to me when we works with our next team next week.

When we were at the Tigo store Archy mentioned that he had been looking for an used iPhone for cheap. He explained that a lot of people down here would love the old iPhones that so many of us have sitting in our drawers back home. I know that when I got my iPhone 4 I just threw my old iPhone 3 in a drawer and never thought about it again until I brought it down here to use. If you happen to have an old iPhone or iPod just sitting around at your house that you are never going to use again let me know. I would love to be able to bring some down for my friends down here. I'll be home for a week in October and would love to bring some back for friends.

Saturday night we went to the Santo Domingo for dinner. If you read my blog post last Spring about Ashley and I planning Parker's wedding this is the same hotel. I had never been here at night and it absolutely sealed the deal. It is hard for me to fathom not getting married at our church back home, but if I was going to do a destination wedding this would be the spot. There wasn't a wedding going one, but there was an Quinceanera going on. All of the chairs were filled and it looked exactly like a wedding only with the girl wearing a puffy blue dress instead of a puffy white one.

I've almost decided that I should just book the place now and worry about finding the perfect guy in the future! :)

Overall it was a great week of serving alongside people I love so much! The whole group was amazing! I knew most of the people coming on the trip, but it was such a beautiful week of getting to know everyone more. It was filled with laughter and love from home which I had been missing so much.

On a side note the last couple of weeks have been difficult at work. I love with all my heart working at Salud y Paz and serving alongside our mission teams when they are in country. However, like every place you work there are random challenges and difficulties that come up. I am hopeful that things will turn around and that it is going to be an amazing year serving at S y P, but I could use a little prayer if you have an extra one to send my way. Prayers for clarity, patience, and strongness (yes, I'm creating a word) would be appreciated.

I got dropped off at the airport this morning with the team because my flight to Costa Rica was suppose to be at the same time as theirs to Texas. However, they have now been gone for about 3 hours and I am still sitting here waiting for my plane. Apparently it was delayed arriving into Mexico City and won't be here until 4:45 (originally 12:22) which doesn't put me into Costa Rica until almost 7:00. I am about to walk around and see what I can spend money that I don't have to spend on. :) Maybe I'll end up with a lot of duty free stuff I don't need. Who knows. Hopefully my next blog next week will cover all the amazing adventures I had in Costa Rica with Scott and Carol Ann!!