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May 11, 2005

Dear Friends:

Well, we arrived safely in Guatemala after a rather interesting trip. First, we weathered torrential rains, strong wind and even hail to get to the Omaha airport to catch our plane. Kudos to Bob Freese for keeping the van on the road and getting us to the airport. We had to run, but were all on board when the plane took off (the one time I wished a plane would run late, and it was on time.) 

We had an interesting flight to Guatemala.  A woman in the seat in front of some of the group passed out and became unresponsive.  We almost had to make an extra stop in New Orleans to get her off the plane, but a doctor on the plane helped her and felt she could make it home to Guatemala City.  Lots of excitement.  Tony, one of our group, got up to get help after the woman's daughter seemed unsure about what to do.  He gets the days "humanitarian award".  He had also helped the two women stow their bags when we boarded the plane.

 

Speaking of our group... We have a rather diverse group in this delegation. Tony is the son of a Missouri Synod Lutheran Pastor. He grew up in South Dakota, but his father is Palestinian, born in Nazareth, and has family in Israel. He just graduated with his MBA. Corey is Native America, and a freshman at USD. Her father, Jay, is anglo, and runs a youth program on one of the area reservations. Elesha is part African-American and a freshman at USD. Adam is one of our "regulars" at the Luther Center and plans to go to seminary when he finishes at USD. Religiously, the group is fairly diverse too. Adam, Tony and I are Lutherans. Corey and her father practice Native American spirituality and I'm not exactly sure where Elesha is. They are a great, interesting and fairly engaging group!

Tonight we are staying at the Sister Parish Center in Zone 1 (downtown) Guatemala City. Sister Parish is a program which links congregations in North America with Mayan communities in Guatemala. Our Sister Parish is in the community of El Bongo - a small, subsistence level farming community in Eastern Gautemala. We'll be heading there day after tomorrow.

Today, we mostly settled in and did some orientation. We were carrying suitcases for Sharing the Dream and Ruth, from Sharing the Dream, picked them up earlier tonight. It was quite an effort to get the six huge suitcases and Ruth into a small taxi, but we did it!

Tomorrow, we will begin exploring Guatemala City, visiting with folks who will teach us about the political, economic and social situation here. Right now, it's time to sleep (I haven't been in bed since Tuesday morning).

Peace,
Pastor Mike Girlinghouse

"The human mind plans the way, but the LORD directs the steps" --Proverbs 16:9

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