Manuel from Tabacal as well as many of the people from Tabacal are originally from a village named Lacama in Chichicastenango. I had been there once before to preach the opening sermon to a newly united church there under the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. This church is now more than 500 Mayan people! they have found land that they are purchasing and are meeting there without any building, just out in the sun. The CMA of Guatemala asked me to work with them in the design and construction of a new building. They anticipate that once the building is there, the attendance may swell to 1000-2000 people in the next year so the structure will remain primarily without walls so that if more people come than can fit in the building, they can still meet.
When I was asked to come and visit the church in Chichi I was unaware of what was going on, I only knew they were having a conference of some sort. I was amazed at the welcome we received. When Marco Antonio (
Friend from church and on the board of CMA of Guatemala) and I came there were about 600 people there (the previous day they had about 1200-1500). They welcomed us up and we both said a few words. We then convened for lunch and get to the business of the new church. We ate in a small adobe home in places of honor with the deputy mayor of the department of Chichi.When we left we had scheduled for me to come back the following week to survey the property. This next visit required bringing the whole family. The people of Lacama and Tabacal have wanted my family to visit Lacama so they can know them.
That next week, on Valentines Day, I returned with my family and Jonathan to help me with the survey. We met Manuel at the school and all the kids came out to greet us. The crowd just kept growing and growing. The principle of the school had prepared for our visit and brought us to each of the classrooms for us to say a word to them. The classes all either made a craft for us or sang songs for us or even made us some ceviche to eat. This all was very humbling that we would be considered like celebrities. we ate lunch at Manuel's home and then Jonathan and I set out to survey while Heather met wth the women and the kids played with the village children.
The survey went very smoothly except the battery, which had
been charging in the car, now did ot work. So again I slipped into MacGuyver mode and we constructed a battery out of some extra AAA batteries we had brought for the data recorder. Once the equipment was working we were able to take the survey in less than 1.5 hours. When surveying, the most important thing to do is to have two defined points so that you can always return later, align yourself to the previous survey and then do whatever else you need. We had one defined point and
took all the survey points. I decided that we needed to define a second point quickly just in case of something went wrong. We shot a second defined point and the very next point, the equipment stopped working. We had all the information we needed but thank God that we were able to get the second defined point!see more photos
