Church in Tabacal

We had a team from Sierra Bible in Reno Nevada come down to build a church in Tabacal. The church is the first "permanant structure" because it is made of concrete and steel instead of bamboo, cornstalks, wood planks and pieces of corrugated tin.

I especially enjoyed the team because my parents were able to come down with the team. We stayed in Antigua and rented an entire hotel in a perfect location 100 yards from the central park. Half of the team was scheduled to do a VBS in the neighboring town of Zapote (read here) the other half was my construction crew for the church.

First off I told them that the reason for them comming was not to build a church, which got some confused looks. They had come down to love the people of Tabacal and show them that they are equals, not inferiors who need a handout. We needed to show that we didn't provide the money for the church and now not trust the men of Tabacal to build it correctly. We jsut wanted to share their burden and help carry the load. To do this we needed to be sure that we focused on what we are doing. First we are here to glorify God by loving people by serving them by building a church and it would make no sence to violate a primary goal in order to fulfil a secondary goal, meaning, getting impatient if things go slow, being impersonal with the people of Tabacal... Many things. We got a primary example of this which I will explain later.

Oue first day was spent in the most dangerous zone in the city, Zone 18, at the campus of the Nazarene denomination central offices. In their "shop" they build prefab churches, LOTS of them. In their 2 years of running they have built more than 200 churches. We had paid for the materials but not for labor. In order to help the ministry, repay the labor, and be more invested in the actual structure we spent a day cutting rebar, bending webs for trusses and welding. Everyone worked hard and at the end of the day we loaded all the pieces needed for our new church into the trailer and set back across the city for Antigua. The plan was to keep the trailer in the parking overnight and bring it to Tabacal the next morning. Three guys from the factory (Mouricio, Jaime, and Fili) joined us for a couple days to show us exactly how to put it together.

When we reached Antigua we found out that the trailer will not fit between the concrete posts in the street designed to keep the busses off the cobblestone streets of Antigua. It was dark and we needed to get in. By God's grace (and by going the wrong way down a few one way roads) we were able to make it to the parking area. The roads in Antigua are small and narrow. I took the truck (Ford F250) with the trailer down an alley where we rode with two wheels on the curb, inches from the wall on one side and parked cars on the other. There was no backing out of this one! We came to a place we couldn't get through so we knocked on a door to get a lady to move her car so we could pass. Getting the trailer there was just the beginning. Now the trailer would only fit by a couple inches in the gate of the parking and we had to detach it and push it up by hand and then we attached a tow rope to the back of the trailer and also to my van which was parked inside. The van pulled and the guys guided and finally the trailer was in place. Getting it out of the parking as well as out of town was much easier than getting it in.

Tabacal has very steep and rutted roads so we parked below and carried all the pieces up by hand. Americans with the natives together. Once all was in place the construction started. The men of Tabacal had already leveled an area and dug the holes needed for the footings. The structure went up quickly but before we could get the concrete in the footings it rained like it only can in Guatemala. all our holes were filled with water and we spent a good amount of time just getting it out.
We got the footings poured and called it a day.

The second day was a time of putting on the roof. Our three guys from the factory decided to just do it themselves to save time which left the rest of the team standing around. At first I was a bit frustrated thinking to myself, "these guys didn't come down here to just sit, they need to let them work" and before I finished my thought, I was reminded of all the men of Tabacal standing around in their usual place at the bottom of the ladder. The guys from the factory were in charge with the Americans next and finally the grunts were the men of Tabacal. I called the team aside and told them what was going on and that there was a change in plans. Manuel (the chief of Tabacal) would be in charge and he would tell us what to do. The men of Tabacal would help the factory workers while we did grunt work. This got back to the whole point of coming down. I told Manuel that he was in charge of the guys building and asked him what he would like us to do also because he was our boss, we came to serve him. The road was in terrible shape after the rains but he said that was the responsibility of the people of the town but there was more earthwork to be done for the church and the steep bank needed to be filled in so a car could get to the church to park. So...we dug! All these men came down...to dig. It was an AWSOME testimony. It was this simple act of humbling ourselves to do the grunt work of digging while the men of Tabacal were able to do the technical work of the roof and direct the construction that really communicated our message. After then the demeanor of Manuel and the men changed. We were not the oppressors taking a pity trip to "the other side of the tracks" but rather equals who just wanted to share a loving, helping hand.

We finished the digging with the help of 82 year old Jose and 11 year old Julio. When I had mentioned to Craig Foster that we were going to dig he made the joking comment, "I didn't come here to work so hard like an 11 year old boy!" These two both put us to shame. The people of Tabacal were more than capable of doing the construction better and faster than we ever could but that was not our goal and I am so glad that our goal was understood and accomplished.

The comrodery was further established when, at the end of the day I went to turn the truck around and got it stuck in the mud. We pulled, pushed, put down planks and corn stalks... We had called for Heather to come get us and were just getting ready to abandon the truck there when I decided to give it one more college try. Slowly but surely we backed it all the way down the mountain.

Once the church was cleared of all the boulders we had a small first service there with prayer in three languages and blessings to go around. A couple things that Manuel said will stick with me. He mentioned that when they stand before God to account for how they used this church and the ministry done in the building they will call the men from Sierra Bible over to share in the blessing because they will always be remembered and be a part of all the ministry in Tabacal. He also mentioned that he wished he could give something in return but they don't have anything to give. Thank you just is not suffucient.

After some sightseeing I believe the team went home genuinely changed. I pray that their view of life has moved toward loving the poor and looking to see how Christs love can be displayed and understood.

The needs of Tabacal are slowly going down as the community gets on its feet. The footwork has been laid to minister to their spiritual needs. This is where I am starting to hand things off to the local ministries. I am glad that we all were able to serve and answer the call in obedience.