Mission Trip says Good Bye or Xik Kue

Friday is always a most special day.   The teachers and students in each village want to thank us and we feel so indebted to the gifts of sharing and growing from our experience.

 

Meals at lunch prepared by the teachers were shared in each village.  The traditional lunch of a Mayan village is CALDA, a broth and herb soup with a meat (chicken or gibnut).  This new experience warmed our hearts as well as added new flavors to our palates.

 

In San Lucas the principal and teacher traveled to the next village last night to get a village chicken for our meal. He would settle for nothing but a village chicken for his guests.

 

 The El Caldo or mayor of the village in Corazon invited all of our volunteers for CALDA and tortillas.  Our construction crew left the house by 6am (yeah VERN!) and traveled the 2.5 hours into Corazon today to make book shelves for the library that they helped build last year.  It was amazing to witness the successes of the day, especially because the building project was not even on our original plan! The middle grade teacher, Martin was so passionate about the shelves and so confident in our teenage volunteers' skills that he left them in charge of class to help the construction workers. Bobby and Matt worked well with the children and then enjoyed the children's performance of singing Happy Birthday to Bobby.

 

Bobby turned 18 years old today!  There is no one that could ever compare their birthday celebration to the love that was truly felt through the songs that were sung to him. He has it on video on his phone. 

 

Otaxha is such a distant village that our friends have not yet returned for us to hear about their day's adventures.

 

 

Each village met with the local artisans to check out their crafts, hand woven bracelets and purses.  Carvings of  wooden bowls, forks and spoons, cups or even Mayan writings; Baskets woven from plant strands into beautiful baskets and purses are wonderfully intricate. Several people were presented with gifts from the locals who were especially touched by our visit.  The most humbling gift came from Santiago-keyboard player at Mass-who presented Father Don with a hand carved wooden tear shaped bowl made from Hoobio wood with an inscription about his love of our mission and connection with his village.  He asks that it be used for the Body of Christ.   We are all looking forward to celebrating Mass on the beach in Placencia this weekend with this precious gift.

 

 

I can not wait to add photos to this blog site--- but that will come with a high speed connection. I know it will end with a photo of one of our vans where the children wrote with their fingers on the dirt of the van door:

                                                           THANK YOU SIRS