Christmas 2007

Whew! The last few days have been packed. Be warned that this blog has the potential to be long :)

We arrived at the children's home Friday afternoon. The common room outside of the room that we are staying in was full of gifts. We called that room Santa's workshop for a few days. That evening we began going through the gifts all of which had been donated to the kids making sure that clothing sizes were correct and making sure that all of "the goods" were spead as evenly as possible among the kids. That meant that we had to unwrap, go through, and re wrap about 300 gifts. We finished the majority of the gift wrapping Sunday evening. Also during that time Staci made 4 pans of brownies, 20+ dozen cookies, 5 cakes and a pumpkin pie (all of which are mostly consummed now). Lee washed a 40 pound box of apples and mounds of grapes (that were nearly the size of plums) on Sunday preparing for Monday night's events.

The evening of Christmas Eve is the "big event" in Guatemala. After supper the kids watched the movie "The Nativity" and at 9 o'clock everyone gathered for a short Christmas service. Groups of the girls had choregraphed dances, a few played various instruments and sang, we sang Christmas Carol's, Lee sang a solo, and Wendy had an extra flute so the two of us played together. Kendon read Luke's account of the Christmas story and then read our of 1 Corinthians. After that, we all took communion together. When the short service was over we ate snackes including apples and grapes (a Christmas must here), cookies, cake, ham, cheeses, and crackers. We drank "hot punch" which is a bunch of fruit juices with spices that was hot. By the point the little guys could hardly wait for their gifts. After cleaning up all of the "food mess" packages were handed out and opened. It was so fun to watch Eliseo, Javier, and Juan David open their gifts. For all three of them this was not only their first Christmas here, but their first Christmas to receive gifts.

The presents were opened and taken to their rooms just before midnight. Everyone, including the littlest ones were handed a bag of various firecrackers and their own set of matches. At midnight the whole country seemed as though it blew up. Imagine the best fireworks show you have ever seen - and then imagine that happening on every city block. It was amazing - for a solid 20 minutes it looked and sounded much like a war zone. The kids played with their firecrackers until 1 when they were sent to bed. After that we moved their stockings to the dining hall, as well as, their "group gifts" like soccer balls, puzzles so it would be ready for Christmas morning.

On Christmas morning, Kendon made his famous oatmeal pancakes, and they were excellent. Before we ate the kids got to see what was in their stocking and look at their group gifts. They were also surprised with a new puppy - a 6 week of Huskey who were offically have a name after the vote at dinner tonight. Kara's parents are here visiting for Christmas. Their church sent all of the "stocking stuffers" for the kids. There wasn't a square centimeter left empty in any stocking. In fact, they brought so much stuff that the two of them packed their clothes for the week in one carry on bag! After breakfast all gringos took a much needed recovery nap.

For lunch, there were traditional Guatemalan tamales, bread and cake.

Last night Kara and Daniel invited us to have Christmas dinner with them and Kara's parents. Not only did they bring all of that stuff for the kids, they managed to pack a whole ham in their carry on bag (that stayed frozen the whole trip), a cheese tray, sweet potatoes, Christmasy plates, napkins, and a few table decorations - it was pretty incredible. We feasted on ham, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, bread, and a pumpkin pie - yummy!!

It was alot of work to pull of a Christmas for 47 kiddos - and a great blessing to see those 47 kids be blessed. It was incredible to see how the Lord provided Christmas gifts for these guys. They all kept saying "we've never had this many gifts".

Here are a few pics for the past few day:



This is what gifts for 47 kids looks like!



This Javier opening up Christmas gifts for the first time.



Eliseo is on his bed with all of his gifts in a big bag - he was so excited about them that he wanted to sleep with them last night.



Juan David is checking out some new shoes.



Angie isn't generally afraid of much, but wasn't about to hold a roman candle - so she gave it to Lee.



This is the newest addition to the NLCH family.

Buena Noche!!

Oh man, it's now 1:28 a.m. We're headed to bed in mere moments. We will futher explain the Christmas tradicions here, but thought we'd send a Merry Christmas to you all as we head to bed after the grand festivities of the night here. We have never seen so many fireworks in our lives. Watching the kids receive and open their packages was so fun. It was especially wonderful to watch Javier, Eliseo, and Juan David receive and open packages as it was their first Christmas.

Javier (who is 8, I think) wins the best quote award for the night. I helped him take his gifts to his room. When we got there he said, "Staci, this was my first Christmas ever. It was the best one yet."

So...Merry Christmas. We hope that you are having special time with your families wherever you are.

Lee & Staci

Each day at school we have a 30 minute break from 10 - 10:30. There's always coffee and hot tea, as well as, various breads for snacking. Today we were sitting on the first level of the school talking with a few others students when were heard a strange noise. It sounded like the normal fireworks - except didn't stop as it generally does after a few seconds. In fact, it got louder. Arturo, the school director, came out of his office because of the strange sounds. He passed by us and said that he thought the store that sells fireworks was on fire. So all of the students and teachers proceeded to go up on the roof where we watched a whole store of fireworks go up.

Just to help you compare - this isn't like a fireworks stand at home. It covered the area of maybe 3 houses, American. Also, the structure isn't like a store we would think of the states. Lee says it was of lesser quality than most barns he's seen. Mostly made of wood 2x4s and corrigated iron for a roof, it was basically a facility that would keep rain out. We have no idea what started the fire - with no fire hydrants they had to wait for their version of tanker trucks to come and put the fire out.

We talk about the fireworks alot. Mostly because it's completely new for us. In our world, fireworks were for the 4th of July and New Years, and they generally look nice. Here it's every day - and all about noise.

We walked by the site tonight - we saw where someone's business was - and their livelihood gone. There's really nothing like insurance down here that would cover a loss like that.

Our teachers say that nothing like that has happened in Antigua before. Evidently last year, a similiar incident happened in the capital city.

3 school days are remaining before we leave Antigua for the children's home. We are very much looking forward to this break! As far as language school goes, we are still learning the subjunctive - which is really difficult! We'd try to explain exactly what the subjunctive is, but there really is no equivalent in the english language.

As for the past couple of weeks, we attended language school and took a small excursion to the beach. After a 2.5 hour bus ride which also included a 1.5 minute ferry ride we arrived to the pacific coast. It was a bit akward to enjoy 90 plus degree weather in December!! It was really nice to have an afternoon outside of our regular surroundings. The black sand beaches were decently vacant of people and a bit to warm to walk on barefooted. On the bus ride home that evening our bus driver kept looking out of the driver's side window - he then told us that we should look up the mountain where we saw a huge eruption thanks to volcano Fuego. It was much like red fireworks - and was really neat watch the lava change from bright red to black as it cooled while running down the side.

Other than that - it's been pretty routine. We are very much looking forward to being at the children's home and helping with the gobs of things that must be done for Christmas and New Years.

Here are a few pics from our little trip:





We made plans to not get in the water, as we were only there for a few hours. We didn't want to have to take extra clothes and such. This picture is Lee "not getting in the water".

How to celebrate a random Wednesday....

Wednesday, December 12th is indeed a day to celebrate. Why you ask? We have no idea, but the marching band that began at 5:30am sure thought that today was a fabulous day. Today was such a great day that cotton candy was for sale in the park - and there were firecrackers that were blown up (loud ones, not pretty ones) every 15 minutes as opposed to every 30.

In the afternoon there was a parade - and yes, another marching band.

It is 9:35 now and we can hear a marching across town that is destined to come our way.

In all actuality, today there was some sort of celebration concerning the virgin of Guadelupe. We truly do know much about this celebration except that many marching bands are a definite need for the day. Also, all the little kids dressed up like adults in traditional mayan clothing. The little boys had painted on mustaches, it was pretty cute.

We'll post more pics soon - and a blog worthy of reading, just wanted to share with you the proper way to spend a Wednesday so that you can plan appropriately for next Wednesday in your neighborhood.

For the record, we've heard 10 "bombas" the loud firecrackers while typing this short blog.

School days

We finally remembered to take our camera to school and take pictures all in the same day!

This is Lee and his current teacher, Lydia.


This is Staci with her current teacher, Harvey.


In the last blog we wrote about how teachers have found out about Lee's knowledge of biology and are bringing him bugs of all kinds.... This is the lastest specimen being inspected...



The inspection was followed by a 30 minute conversation of varous spiders and insects. Harvey has told us that he has placed cups around his house and has told his family to capture insects.

Another week...another blog

So it's been a little while since we've blogged, here's the latest update. Not too much has happened.

When we got back from our Thanksgiving break a group of journalists from Denmark were studying at our school. We knew before we left that they would be studying there for 2 weeks. We knew that meant for us the possibility of our teachers having different students. Staci was able to continue studying with her teacher, however, Lee's teacher had a Danish student so he studied with Lydia. At the end of the week Lee had the option of changing back to his original teacher - he has chose to stay with Lydia. Both of us are studying the "subjunctive" modes of spanish right now - it's difficult, but we'll get there.

A funny thing about school is that the teachers have discovered Lee's knowledge of biology. Teachers are bringing various insects, spiders, and whatever other beasts they find in their houses to school. (Not by Lee's request) They are so kind as to even give us these glorious things. So far, there have been several discussions of brown recluses and he has been gifted spiders, centipedes, and another thing called a solpugid a.k.a sun spider. It doesn't appear as though this string of gifts is going to end anytime soon. Staci's teacher has placed cups in every room of his house for easy catching.

We had a fun visit this weekend with Don Archer from Spearman, TX. He was visiting his brother who lives in Guatemala City, and was so kind to find us, and then come to Antigua for an afternoon visit. We enjoyed lunch with them, and a nice walk around the city.

Please continue to pray for us as our plates are full with being newly married, learning a new language, living in a foreign country and all of the things that come along with those elements.

Back in Antigua....

Last week was such a great week. We spent 9 days in Villa Nueva at the children's home. Our brains were thankful for the rest from school. It was so nice to see our friends and the kiddos again as well.

We helped some of the interns translate Christmas cards that the kids had made, played a little basketball, watched a couple of little ones fly kites, rode bicycles around the property with some kiddos (without brakes might I add), played some soccer, shuffled a few games of uno...and so on...it was great.

Thanks to Daniel and Kara who hauled us around the city, we signed a couple more documents to continue the visa aquiring process.

We ate a Thanksgiving feast with 22 other folks from the states, and then played dominos until 11:30pm.

Friday we spent the day away from the home with Kendon and Wendy, Daniel and Kara, and the 3 interns. We enjoyed a lunch out - who knew that Taco Bell could be excellent (with no tex-mex in sight, it's amazing) and then went bowling. We also were able to find a card reader for our camera memory card - pictures are coming, wahoo!!

We even got to see Tech beat OU and Missiouri beat Kansas.

In short - it was a great break - a good time to re-energize.

We're back in school and back up to our ears in grammar.

Please continue to pray for us as we continue to learn spanish, continue to prepare for our ministry in Villa Nueva, and continue to seek the Lord.




This is Fuego - the volcano that we often see shooting ash and smoke into air. The plume you see there is pretty normal.




Remember the day we were served Fiambre - the dish with everythng? The bowl on the right is the fiambre and the bowl in the left is a pumpkin like vegetable that was for dessert.



This is a close up of the fiambre - take note of the five different sausages - and remember this was served in a weird clear sauce and was chilled.

Thanksgiving Week

We're here at the children's home - it's good to be home - it's even better to not have to go to school tomorrow. It has been so encouraging to be here and feel like we really gained quite a bit in the past 4 weeks of school.

Friday evening we were watching a movie with the kids and experienced another tremor - Elias, on of the kids laughed that we reacted to the less that 10 second small shake.

Church was good today - people ALWAYS respond to altar calls for prayer and salvation. After church while talking to Wendy she said that in the 3 years they have been taking the kids to that specific church there has yet to be a Sunday without a salvation.

During the sermon the pastor asked those who had relatives in the states to raise their hands. Atleast 50% of them raised their hands out of a congregation of a couple thousand. It is kind of wierd that many times we seem to recieve some type of anti-American sentiment and then other times we recieve the opposite. In other words, many people down here worship the idea of the US and having a life there but at same time "no" for some people. Yes lots of people here want to go to the states legally and more often than not illegally. We hear different sides of the story down here at times too. Yes there are the people that get to the US and make money and send it home to help their families and there are those that die in route and those that never return to their families and wives but leave their old responsibilities here for new jobs and new wives in the north. That may be one of the reasons that where our childrens home is that 80% of mothers there are single. I guess that we are just still geting used to how hard life is for a lot of these folks and how they seem to have little vision and ability for betterment. I also know that at times it is difficult to paint for you the picture that we see here as we are still in the process of learning what the picture really is.

For a little funny story..... Each year the kids must make homemade Christmas cards for their sponsors. Yesterday we were helping translate the Christmas cards and we came across one that was funny enough to share with you all. It reads:
Dear Bob- Merry Christmas Bob. God bless Bob. You are very special for God and for me. You are my friend and my heart. From Sami for Bob.

We hope that you all think it's as funny as we did. It may help for you to know Sami has more personality that most - it may also help to know that he had glued beads on the bottom of the page in 3 inch letters "Bob". Bob will love that card.

Pray for us as we have the opportunity to practice our spanish while we're here this week and reconnecting with the kids.

Random Guatemalan fact for the day: The estimated migration rate for Guatemala is -2.31 per 1000 people. Which basically means that they're losing more people than they're gaining. The United States' estimated migration rate is 3.05 per 1000 people.

Mid-week Report

Today we were in class - learning various grammar rules when our desks started to shake. Guatemala is located on the pacific rim and is no stranger to earthquakes. We experienced a tremor today that lasted 10ish seconds. For both of us it was the first time to experience such a thing. If you've listened to the news you probably heard that Chili experienced a major earthquake today, the tremor that we experienced today was probably related to that earthquake.

We are very much looking foward to leaving Antigua this Friday - it is definitely time for a break from school! As we've said in previous posts, we'll be spending Thanksgiving in Villa Nueva with several other Americans there. Language school continues to be going well - from the estimation of our teachers we should finsh with all of the grammar in the next 4-6 weeks and then we will spend the rest of our time in language school reinforcing what we have learned so quickly while learing peripheral gramatic things. As for now, our brains are toasted and we cannot wait for a school/homework free week!

Random Guatemala fact for today: There are 3 notable earthquakes in past century - April 19, 1902 measured 7.5, February 4, 1976 measured 7.5, and June 13, 2007 (a earthquake off the shore of Guatemala) measured 6.7.
Today's little tremmor pales in comparasion to those mentioned above.

It's Friday!

In case you're not aware, it's Friday. We've been looking forward to this afternoon specifically for 2 weeks. The past 2 weeks we both attended class an extra 2 hours, 2 afternoons per week. We know that adding 4 hours per week doesn't sound like much, however, it took away a good amount of time to do homework, and it generated more homework. We also chose to go on an excursion with our school which took a great deal of time one afternoon.

Yesterday was the day we went on the excursion with our school. We went to a coffee farm which we had both been to in years past. There were 2 main differences this time - 1. we understood the tour guide and 2. the coffee is almost ready for harvest. In the past we have seen green plants with a green berries on them - when the coffee berries are ready like they are now, they are red. We toured the facility where they grow the plants, and where they process the crop once it's cut from the plants.

On Sunday you folks in the states got an extra hour of sleep - this now puts us in the same time zone until you "spring foward" in March/April. This has made it really nice for communicating with family and friends. This would be an appropriate time to let you all know that we use skype. Should you be a skype user, please let us know so that maybe we could set up a time to talk with you.

Please continue to pray for us in the area of language, encountering with the people here in Angtigua, and our personal walks with the Lord.

Don't be shy! We'd love to hear from you either through a comment on here or in our email inboxes.

The Fiambre, The Day of the Dead & More

Fiambre - when defined by the Jarvis' is a random mixture of edible things in a bowl that should never be served together.

Here's a list of what we could identify in the fiambre that we ate:
-radish
-parmesan cheese
-boiled egg
-lettuce
-baby corn
-pacaya (aka date palm - a veggie that looks like octopus tentacles)
-whole kernal corn
-onion
-carrot
-ham (like sandwich meat you'd get at the deli)
-black olives
-green olives
-bologna
-5 different kinds of sausage (ranging in colors from pink to black, and ranging in taste from bland to extremely spicy)
-2 different types of lima beans
-califlower
-mystery green vegetable #1
-mystery green vegetable #2
-chicken
-beets
-cabbage
-green beans
-red bell pepper
-green leaves

All together in one bowl, served chilled with a weird clear sauce.

All fiambres vary, we've heard that some have green sauces, we've heard of some having so many beets that the whole dish is pink. What we do know for certain about all fiambre is that the Jarvis' don't care for it. No worries, however, they only eat fiambre for one meal each year.

The Day of the Dead is a national holiday here - we had the day off from school and enjoyed sleeping in a bit. There are many traditions that vary from family to family, the main ones include a visit to the cemetary with fresh flowers, the eating of fiambre, and the flying of kites.

School is still going well - we have two weeks before we leave for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow Staci will begin studying with a new teacher - after our week away for Thanksgiving the plan is for us to both change again. To help make up some lost time from being sick and from the holiday this past week we have added a 2 hours a couple of afternoons this week.

As for how language school is going - we have both learned 7 verb tenses (in spanish there are 20ish different tenses all with their own set of rules) along with lots of other gramatic rules, prepositions, adjectives, pronouns, expressions....and the like. We still have quite a bit to go, but we've qot quite a bit of time as well. We often run into Europeans who are proficient in 2-5 languages and picking up spanish seems to be much easier for them. Some people in the world learn from an early age how to be proficient in lots of languages, something that us as Americans were never challenged with.

We think that's everything for now - thank you for your continued prayer and support.

Lee & Staci

October comes to an end...

In our last post we promised pictures. The good news is that we have some - the bad news is that we do not have the correct cable to link our camera and computer together - we'll be in search for a cord - keep watching for pictures.

The past week and a half have been very rutine for us - this week we added a couple of afternoons with teachers to help make up a bit of time that we missed during our "sick break". We will also study with teachers a couple of afternoons next week as we do not have school tomorrow. Being in school for 6 hours per day sure is different from just the normal 4.

Tomorrow, November 1st is "The Day of the Dead" of "The Day of the Saints" It is a federal holiday here in Guatemala. Our host family compares it to what Thanksgiving Day is like for us in the states. Their whole family is planning on gathering (there are atleast 35 grandchildren and atleast 12 greatgrandchildren in the family) it should be a great time for them. They don't eat turkey and dressing for their special day - they eat a dish called "fiambre" we're anxious to get to try it. We're told that all kinds of meats (fish, shrimp, beef, chicken, pork, and numerous sausages), vegetables, cheeses and whatever else they can think of goes into the dish. We'll be sure to take picures :) One sign that our host family recently saw advertised that their fiambre included 208 ingredients - interesting isn't it?

Thanks so much for those of you who have recently updated us on what's happening if your lives. We hope that you all received our recent mass email update. We do know that a few of you did not receive it as it bounced back to us. Please send an email to stacijarvis@gmail.com and we'll try to get the kinks worked out. If we somehow missed your email address please email me and I'll send you the email and will add you to the list for future emails.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support!

When being sick pays off!

You are all aware that we spent more time than planned in Villa Nueva - thanks for keeping up with the blog and for praying. We are back in Antigua as of this afternoon and we are well!

A group of master´s architecture students and their professor from Texas Tech accompanied a man named Scott to Villa Nueva this weekend. Scott is considering a move to Guatemala the 3 students´thesis project is his dream for what he would one day like to see in Guatemala. The students needed to do a helicopter fly over to get a better feel for the area. They had 2 extra spots on the helicopter and Scott generiously offered them to us.

Of course we took him up on his offer and yesterday morning we drove to the Guatemala airport for our helicopter ride. Because the students wanted to take good pictures, they had the back doors of the helicopter removed. Lee and I were in the first group of four. The other two were Scott, and Luis, a boy from the home who will begin studying architecture in the university this January. Luis sat up front with the pilot, and Lee, Scott and I sat in the back. Scott said that he´d been in a helicopter before so Lee and I got the window-less window seats. It was so wonderful to see where we live from such a different prospective. We saw a beatutiful lake that is right next to a squatter´s village. We saw our home - the children´s home, school, and even some of our kiddos out of the soccer field waving at us amongst a very poor area that was less than a mile from developed condominium like neighborhoods. A once in a lifetime kind of experience - we´re looking foward to watching the video footage that we took while we were up there.

Tomorrow we begin school again, and we´re excited. This time we know that we will be studying for 4 weeks and then we will return to Villa Nueva for the week of Thanksgiving.

We realize that we´ve been terrible at posting pictures - this week - we´ll post pictures this week.

Lee & Staci

What a Day!!

Let's begin with yesterday when we got to walk to the local shopping center. We went after a couple of adapters for various things here at the home and wasted a bit of time looking in various stores before eating lunch at Pizza Hut. Lee feels fine, but is supposed to be "resting" while his body makes more white blood cells and platelets. It was so good for both of us to have a good walk.

Also, last night we received warning of an impending basketball tournment that would happen today and that I (Staci) was to play in.

This morning we got up and around and showed up to the basketball game, 5 gringas were to play 5 teachers from the school that is here on the property. Jon said "don't worry, there's a 5 minute halftime between the 20 minute halves." Don't worry - I haven't run 40 minutes in who knows how long - and we had no subs!! Gledia, a home mother apparently felt sorry and offered to play for our team, thankgoodness for the one substitute player. Well, we'll just get to the end of the story. It was a terrible game, really, and the gringas lost terribly. We have another game in the morning, Lee is planning on giving a "coach speach" tonight, and maybe a little instruction...we need it!

At lunch Wendy asked if we had time this afternoon to take Ruben to buy some new shoes. Of course we had time, so we offered and then she gave us keys to a pickup. Our first Guatemalan driving experience - it went well.

Today was the day for the 5th blood test for Lee, Kendon and Wendy were swamped, so Kendon drew us a map and said "what's to be afraid of, it's only a little town of 1.2 million people" - so with our map in hand, again we were handed the pickup keys. We got there and back just fine - and even got to watch a bit of the Rutgers v. S. Florida game in McDonald's while we waited on the results.

The blood test results showed that his body is continuing to heal. The platelets have returned into the normal range. The white blood cells are still a bit low, but climbing. We anticipate no problems with returning to Antigua on Sunday.

A little sidenote - it's been our observation that the wealthier side of the culture here is much like the early to mid 1990's - we walked into an electronics store to Michael Jackson videos from the early 90's - they were still playing when we left.

It's 12:30 here at the home - and we're looking at a semi-sunny sky. It's been raining so much here lately - I suppose the rainy season is going out with a bang.

Last night Lee had yet another blood test with really positive results, though his white blood cell and platelet count are not in the normal range yet - they're doing their best to get there. The doctor asked him to return again Thursday for another blood test. Though Lee feels just fine, the doctor has told him to rest for this week. Because of his white blood cell count being low he is more susceptible to infection to a secordary illness, and with the platelets being low, the doctor is worried about cuts and bruises that platelets would generally clot up. Being subjected to rest has been hard for Lee - he's trying to fight off boredom and restlessness.

We knew when we got here we'd have to start the hoop jumping process of getting visas. After we arrived we were told that we would need offical criminal records from the state we lived in for the past 5 years. Thankfully, we have only lived in one state, however, the state of Texas doesn't just give criminal records out. So, thanks to my Dad - he has been able to make arrangements to get our records released to him if he has our fingerprints. Sending and receiving mail is quite an issue here, however, there is a small team who will be here this Friday through Monday. Hopefully those fingerprint cards will arrive in Lubbock today, they'll fly down here on Friday, we'll put our mark on them, and then send them back Monday. If the plan goes as continued, the cards will be mailed to Dad - the records will be released to him and then he can send them on to the correct people in Houston. While it may sound confusing - really, it's not - however, it is a blessing that we are here this during this time so we can not only receive the finger printing cards, but will be able to get them back to Texas in a short time. You could join us in praying that we would receive our visas quickly and that there is no other hold up in the process like getting these records has been.

Also, in November a new president will be elected to Guatemala. We'd ask you to pray for the elections themselves, and also pray that our visas would be processed before the change in leadership is put into effect in January.

Though we haven't been in school this week, we are in Guatemala, so we're using our spanish. Both of us have been able to tell an improvement, and we're both thankful that we have more school ahead of us.

Sunday Evening at the Children's Home...

Hello!

Just a little update for the evening.....

Last night Lee had another blood test done and it showed his levels begining to up! We are still here at the Children's Home for this week, waiting on Lee's white blood cell count and platlet count to come up. He is having some further reactions from the dengue - his hands and feet are red and he says it feels like he has a really bad sun burn on the palms of his hands and on his feet. He hasn't had to have medicine for a fever in a few days, which is good.

I'm just fine - over the amoeba thing.

That's all for now.

Staci & Lee

Tropical Weirdness Continues.....

Here's the "situation report"

Lee went back to the doctor today and it is confirmed that he has
dengue fever. His platelet count and white blood cell count is down.
Lee will have yet another blood test run tomorrow, not because of the
dengue - but because of what dengue has done to his blood level.
Today, though his white blood cells were low, were the same as they
were 2 days ago - his platelets were lower today then they were two
days ago.

Dengue generally takes 7-10 days to run it's course - that's great
news, as today is day 6. Today, his fever is much much better.

I was diagnosed with amoebas and an intestinal infection. Last night
I took the pills that should kill all amoebas within 24 hours - and
this morning I started taking Cipro- an antibiotic. Essentinally, the meds killed
all bacteria in me - I took a "good bacteria" pill to hopefully feel
better soon. I'm still having a lot of pain and nausea.

With that being said - we covet your prayers. We know we have asked
you all to pray for us a lot in the last week, thank you - thank you
for continuing to stand with us in this way.


We love ya'll,
Staci & Lee

Thursday Evening...

Today I (Staci) had lab work done and a diagnosis was confirmed. So, I started meds this evening and I'm told I'll feel much better tomorrow night, yea!

Lee is feeling pretty well this evening - as planned, he's going back to the doctor tomorrow.

That's about all that we know for now - more later.

Thurday Morning

Well, got up this morning and things are looking up some. both of us feel better but certainly aren't out of the woods yet. Both of still fighting symptoms and such. we're thankful to be with the Wheelers and to be taken well care of. Thanks for your continued prayers.

"Being Guato-ed"

Last summer when I (Staci) was here with the WTAMU team, Rance started calling Guatemalan's "Guatos". All in love of course - if we are gringos - they can be guatos, right?

We have continued and taken it a bit futher, "being guato-ed" Lee is in his 4th day of fever - he's "being guato-ed". We left a day early for a long weekend at the children's home - and I started throwing up - I'm "being guato-ed".

To update you on Lee's health - he was seen by a doctor this evening and a blood test was completed. He has a few low counts but everything else was either normal or negative. We have a suspected diagnosis, but nothing confirmed. The doctor asked that Lee return to the office on Friday for another blood test.

I thought I was carsick today, but threw up 2 times afterward - I'm feeling pretty well right now.

If you want to know more particulars of our illnesses (really do you?) hit us with an email.

We'll blog again tomorrow...

Update...

Yesterday we thought Lee was over the weird fever. His fever was gone last night, and he even felt like getting out to go to an internet cafe for a while. Not long after he went to bed, the fever returned.

I'm currently at the school while the administrator finds a doctor who can see Lee this morning. As soon as one is found, I'll go get Lee and we'll be off to the doctor.

When we can, we'll update the blog.

Staci

So it's been a while...

Sorry that it's been a while since we've posted - this past week was very normal, very predictable - which isn't bad.

This Thursday we will leave after class for a long weekend at New Life Children's Home. We are excited to be with the kids, for a homework free weekend, and the possibility of watching a little american football. We will return to Antigua on Sunday afternoon.

We are now learning our 5th verb tense - our brains are looking forward to a day off of classes this Friday. We are also looking forward to being able to speak with the kids - this will be a real test as to how much we have really learned thus far.

Though we're not yet in the ministry that we came to Guatemala for, we have had several ministry opportunities with people from our school - please pray that the Lord would give us wisdom as to how reach these folks.

Also, if you would pray for Lee's physical health. Last night he had a headache and began running a fever, today the fever is worse and has yet to break. His fever is consistently at or above 101. He is taking medication and if not better by tomorrow we'll go to a doctor. He only remembers one other time having a fever this bad. He took a long nap today, but tossed and turned atleast every 15 minutes. Please pray that his body would rest tonight - that it would be healed. We're thankful that Wendy (the wife of the children's home director) is a nurse - she suggested a different medication that Lee will start at 8:30 this evening.

Ok, the knock of the door for dinner just happened so we'll end here.

Be Blessed...Lee and Staci

Everyday things...

A few people have emailed asking similiar questions, so we thought we'd entertain a few of them here for you all to read.

What do we do on the weekends?
This is our third weekend in Antigua. The first weekend here was September 15th, Guatemala's Independence Day. We walked around the streets and watched parades (many parades). We also moved into our new host family's home, so we spent a bit of time unpacking and getting used to our new surroundings.

I'm not sure we've been here long enough to say that we have a normal pattern, but we do enjoy going walking on Saturdays. We spend 99% of our time within the same one square mile. It is so nice to walk for a good bit on time on Saturday. Generally we have a good bit of homework on the weekends too.

We have been to two different churches on Sunday mornings. At Iglesia del Camino the pastor who is from Florida preaches in english and it is translated into spanish. Over 90% of those in attendence were American - all here for various reasons.
At Vida y Fe the pastor who is Guatemalan preaches in spanish and the sermon is translated into ensligh. The vast majority of those in attendence at Vida y Fe are Guatemalan.

What is the food like?
We eat 3 meals per day, Monday through Saturday at our host family's home, on Sunday's we are on our own for food. (That is the package deal you get when you get a host home through the school.)
For breakfast we have had various things ranging from oatmeal to banana pancakes to bowls of chopped fruit with yogurt, honey, and granola. Always for breakfast we drink hot tea, and eat bread as well.
Lunches always include veggies and rice. We've eaten a few vegetables that we've seen before. For instance there is a veggie called wiskill (sp?) they tell us it's like a potatoe - kinda tastes like one too. Sometimes we eat something one day that is reinvented a few more times. For example, we had mashed potatoes for lunch on Tuesday - that evening we have mashed potato cakes (that we poured honey on), and for lunch the next day were mashed potatoes within a folded tortilla that was fried.
Supper is very predictable - we have black beans in various forms each evening - whole bean, puree (thick puree, thin puree), soup, sometimes with cream and sometimes without. We always have bread with our beans, and often the bread is the utinsil of which we use to eat the beans. Generally there are also plantains either boiled with cinnamon or fried with cinnamon and sugar.

On Sundays, because we're on our own, we venture out and try other things - for breakfast this morning we had oatmeal pancakes, fruit, sweetend cream and coffee - it was very good. We've eaten italian food here (it was interesting), Domino's pizza, fried chicken, and even McDonald's and Burger King - which are suprisingly good.

A difference here is that when you order something like orange juice - they go and squeeze the oranges. Same goes for things like limeade. When compraring prices, the states is more expensive.

Have your been to the Children's Home?
When we arrived in Guatemala we spent our first 5 days at NLCH. Since then we have been in Antigua. We are planning a 3 day weekend at NLCH in October. We'll go back for the week of Thanksgiving and then for a bit during the Christmas holiday's. Other than that - we're here in Angitua for about 6 months.


We are so thankful for your support. We are without a doubt aware of how you are holding us in your prayers. We are thankful for how you are supporting us financially. Please let us know how we can pray for you all as well - we truly want to stay connected with you all - either through email or by leaving comments on our blog (we have fixed our blog so that everybody regardless if you have a gmail account of not may leave messages).

Have a great Sunday - we'll blog again soon.

And the Winner is????

As we were walking home tonight we happened to see in a resturante the final minutes of Latin American Idol. Carlos, the Guatemalan won.

Thursday afternoon

Tomorrow will complete our 3rd week in language school. We are both humbled by how hard it is to really learn another language. It's almost like playing the guitar - so many people can play a few chords, but there are only a few who play very well. It's easy to say hello, or to hold short and shallow conversations, but challening to be truly conversant.

The day we flew in so did 3 other girls who are here in Guatemala with New Life Children's Home for a few months. They finish their time in language school tomorrow and will go back to Villa Nueva on Saturday.

We have met and are getting to know several people here who we're spending intentional time with. If you would like specific details, please email us at leemaroonjarvis@gmail.com or stacijarvis@gmail.com.

In other random news, the volcano erupted again this morning as school began :) It's cool to look out and see a huge plume of smoke - look again 30 minutes later and it's gone.

Carlos or Ricardo? That is the question of the day in Guatemala. The finale of Latin American Idol is tonight. Carlos is Guatemalen and is, of course, the favorite around here. It's a bit different in that American Idol in that it's as if countries are competing instead of individuals. It's the "hot topic" around here, and people are spending money like crazy voting for their beloved Carlos.

It's time for lunch, we just got the knock on the door letting us know it's ready....

Saturday morning...

Howdy folks,

Lee writing here. Saturday morning and such around here. I'm usually not a real wordy one I guess except when talking person to person so here is a short blog just so see things from my point of view. I study on the roof of the school with my teacher Edna and the other day I was studying the difference between using the spanish prepositions por and para. Edna could sense that I was reaching the point of near frustration trying to understand and put the concept to use. Thankfully breaktime was the next thing to do and before heading down stairs for coffee and bread I had time to just slow down and pray for a sec. It just hit me that if I never really get good at spanish I can still be a ministerial success by just the fact that Holy Spirit is really the one doing the ministry. This is in no way any form of excuse for running right along and not learning the language. I truly believe that the Lord wants to and will have us as good as we can possibly get before school is over for us. I guess what I am saying is something we have already blogged before...We need Jesus more than we need spanish. Like at the end of Mathew 6, we read something like "seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you". Free time, learning spanish, beautiful vistas (views), even ministry itself cannot become the most important objects in our lives...it would be an idol and God would not bless it. How wonderful that the pressure can be taken off, all I have to do is trust and keep walking. Put the Lord first and then the things that seem so big will seem to fall into place...according to how God wants them to look. It was so comforting to think in that moment on the roof that I had somehow placed spanish as the most important thing for the time being instead of God...then to put things into their proper perpective....The Sovereign Lord above all else. How good to remember this at a time when I was wondering how to learn certain concepts...and also wondering how life would look when we don't have a ministry to do for 6 months or so.....or do we have a ministry? Absolutely....God never calls you to a place....He always calls you to a people....He has called us to Antigua to prepare for Villa Nueva...but also to be faithful to Him while in Antigua. You wouldn't believe how this town is such a tourist hub and stopping point for travelers from all over the world. Canadians, Koreans, Chinese, Germans, Swedish, and many others including folks from all over the US as well...Florida, California, Washington, and the northeast. There are people here that we would never have seen at any other place in time....what a chance to share the gospel with the nations. Life is not on hold, it never is, God always has a purpose. Right now we learn spanish, but also we have a chance while in this place to pour out and to be poured into. Follow Him....follow Him hard....it is always interesting....and always a reward....and always Glory for the One Who deserves.

For the Name,

Lee and Staci

Wednesday...

We just fnished class for today and thought we give a brief update before lunch.

Chepe´s funeral was on Monday. We heard that it was of course a sad event, but that the preacher had an encouraging and healing message. On Sunday because of an autopsy, it was discovered that Chepe had a massive heartattack and did not drown (no water was discovered in his lungs). This news has helped relieve the self inflicted guilt from those who believed they could have done something. Still, there is a lot of grieving and saddness. Please continue to pray for those at the home.

The friend of our family did not have surgery on Saturday. The doctors were sure they would have lost him, and have sent him home, hoping that his blood will become better. His blood is very thin, and the incision they need to make is large. He has received a blood transfuion in hopes that his body would receive the platelets well.

We are doing well in school (though it´s incredibly challenging), and really enjoying the new host family. We are often reminded that we are in Guatemala by various activities that are happening around us...while studying in school we often watch an active volcano release smoke and ash, yesterday Lee saw a huge (ok, ginormous) swarm of bees about 50 yards away, and Sunday night while going to sleep a marching band decided to do it´s thing about 10:30 pm a half a block away from us...seriously, at 10:30 at night, is it really necessary?

We are thankful for your prayers, and are often reminded that though we´re in Antigua for language school, we need the Lord more than we need spanish.

More to come (in a day or 2).....

Join us in praying...

As we said in our last post, we moved Saturday morning. We really like our new place, we have a bit more room, warm showers, and a really nice family. We arrived at their house about 11:15 Satuday morning. The wife explained to us that we would eat lunch with them but that it would be nice if we could be responsible for dinner as she and her husband had a friend who was going to have surgery that afternoon. During lunch the husband got a phone call from the friend who explained that the doctor was afraid of complicaions during surgery and that there were great possibilities he would not make it through. The friend called to say that he loved him, and goodbye should he not make it through the surgery. This was within the first 2 hours we knew the family. We have not heard how the surgery went.

Later in the evening we got a call from Daniel who informed us that a group of older kids from the children´s home had got to the coast for the day with a set of home parents. When they got ready to leave they could not find Chepe. The looked for several hours last night until it was too dark to continue. This morning, Chepe´s body was found in the ocean. As feared, he drown yesterday. Chepe was 17 years old and has a younger brother, Juan, who lives at the children´s home.

As you can imagine, there are a lot of broken hearts. Please pray for the grieving process that each of the kids and workers at the children´s home are going through. There will be a memorial service tomorrow. After praying and thinking through the situation, we have decided not to go to the memorial service and stay in Antigua. We just belive that it is wise for us to stay here.

Thank you for joining in prayer with us.

Friday!

Today completes our first week of language school. We are enjoying our teachers and the challenge they are putting before us. We are in school every morning from 8-12 and then we have homework that we complete in the afternoon and evenings. We have had moments that we crave to hear some english and other moments that spanish is just fine - something that we had expected to have happen.

We know it's been a while since we've posted a blog, so hopefully this one will catch you up with us for this past week.

Tomorrow is Guatemala's independence day, and do they celebrate. Yesterday there were herds of kids running in groups in the streets all of them with whistles in their mouths practicing for their run with the torch today. Today the same herds of kids are running around the city, blowing cadences with their whistles and some groups are even followed by a truck or even a bus honking the same cadence.

Throughout the day begining at 6am and ending usually at 9pm the church near our house rings a bell every 15 minutes or so. Last night we were trying to finish our homework and the bell rang for 22 minutes, during which at one point someone lite a good 2 minutes work of blackcat fireworks. We laughed and laughed - this morning we asked our host family about it and they said it was normal and probably even slept through it.

Two days a week our school offers an excursion to various places around the city. Generally they last about 2-2.5 hours. On Tuesday we went to a macadamia nut farm, and yesterday we walked up to a cross on a hill that overlooks the city. While walking to the hill a man pulled up his shirt, pooched out his belly and pressed it against a concrete wall - lesson learned - when your belly needs to be cooled off, just press it against a concrete wall :) Also, should you need to use the restroom, no need to search for one, just stop on the sidewalk and take care of business!

We have enjoyed meeting all kinds of people from various countries too. Antigua is known for it's many language schools and attracts people from all over the world. A lady from Sweeden is staying in the same house as us. Also, at the school is a couple from Korea who is studying spanish - they are quite humorious. Also, we have met a guys named Pete who is also studying here at the school. Pete is from Canada and is here because he wanted to "fall off the grid". Would you join us in praying for Pete? We have the opportunity to spend about 20-30 minutes with him each morning.

Emails and comments. We LOVE them. We want to stay as connected as possible to your lives back home. You can leave comments here on the blog of send us emails at leemaroonjarvis@gmail.com, or stacijarvis@gmail.com. Texas Furniture folks, how are Thursday mornings? Single's class how are you? Wesley folks, how's the fall semester?

Tomorrow we are changing host family homes. The home we are currently living in is just fine - the people are nice and the food is good, however, hot water is only available in the early mornings and even then it is often ice cold. Lee deals with it pretty well, but I haven't been. We are moving in with a host family who our friends Daniel & Kara stayed with while they were in language school here.

We'll end here for now - and post more frequently in thet future!

Antigua : The First 24 hours

Oh man, up until this point we didn't really have note-worthy posts. We weren't living in Antigua either. So yesterday we went to church, ate lunch at the home, even had time for a little nap then made our way to Antigua. Kendon, Wendy, Daniel & Kara came with the 5 of us. We first arrived at the school. We met the director and then he led us to the first house where the other 3 interns are living. We got their bags to their rooms, got back in the van and went to our house. We dropped our bags in our room looked around a bit and then left to eat dinner.

When we got back from dinner we began to unpack our stuff and then the room got smaller. We began laughing a bit as it looked like our stuff just kept growing - about the time we unpacked everything we were really laughing. We decided that we should calculate how many square feet we are living in to help you all understand what we mean when we say small. Lee broke out his leatherman - it has a ruler on it. We measured a tile and then started counting...after a few calculations we can tell you that our bedroom and bathroom combined and including the shower is 115.5 square feet. Lee looked up and said "people go to jail in things bigger than this" I cracked up laughing and fell over on the bed that made a loud noise - which created more laughter.

We calmed down, and were just talking when we heard the lady who lives in the bedroom next to us hang up some clothes. We could hear the hanger clink against rod in her closet - it was then we realized that the walls are made of paper and that our host family was probably regretting that we moved in their house. Oh well.... we're much better guests now.

The story continues with breakfast this morning - we were supposed to be ready to eat at 7am - we walk in and find a mound of fruit with some yogurt and honey on top and peanut butter toast. The lady from Sweden who is also living in our house said "this must be for the Americans" then she proceeded to speak 90 miles an hour in spanish, which was fine as Lee and I were still decently sleepy.

School was fine - Lee is upstairs doing homework as I write this. I haven't started mine yet. We like our teachers and are looking forward to knowing the language well.

We returned from school just in time for lunch - we were first served a chicken soup that was delicious then we were served a plate with white rice, a Guatemalen style chili rellano, and a beet salad. Lee was a champ and ate all of the beet salad, I ate all I could. Again, our Sweedish friend spoke excellent spanish about 90 miles an hour in spanish.

Now, we're back at the school taking advantage of the free wireless internet and working on homework. Thank you to all who have prayed for us - for the past 3 nights I have slept so well (I've even taken a nap each afternoon!) Thank you for praying for our teachers and host family as well - we are blessed to have such support.

Language School....

We're leaving in about an hour for Antigua, where language school is. We'll update more as we know it, with pictures too.

Pray that we connect with our host family and teachers.

Friday....

Today we left at 6:30 this morning to go to the embassy to get our passports validated - one of the many processes to get long term visas for us. We were told that it was a possibility that we would have to leave our passports over night for that process to take place. This Sunday we are leaving for language school and it would be quite an issue for us to have to go back to the capital city on Monday to retrieve our passports. When we were submitting our passports for validation we asked if there was any possible way that they could be processed today, she said that it might be able to happen and sent us to a different room to pay the fee for validation. When we returned with our receipt we waited about 5 minutes, she called us to the window and handed us our paperwork!! We are so thankful that she understood our situation and that she took care of our need immediately!!

After we left the U. S. embassy we walked down the street a bit and saw a place where we could pictures made for our visa - just a few minutes later we left with pictures.

Then Kendon drove us to the Tigo (cellphone) store where in a matter of minutes we had a cell phone.

We got back here about 11:30 - with so much accomplished. Today school is cancelled because of elections so traffic was lighter which was nice.

We're learning lots in the first few days of being here like traffic lights are generally decoration, black beans are a sufficient sauce to top spaghetti noodles with, and long sleeves are just about a need at night with temps in the 50's a night.

Thank you all for contining to pray for us we felt your prayers so close to us. We are still adjusting to our new enviroment and would appreciate you to continue to pray for us in that way. This Sunday we will move to Antigua for language school. We will be living with a local Guatemalen family there. Would you pray that we would connect with our family quickly and that we would begin to soak the language in. Also, with the exception of last night, I (Staci) have not been sleeping well. Beyond just being physicaly tired, it's pretty emotionally exhausting as well. We spent some time in prayer over that matter and I slept pretty well last night. Would you pray that I continue to rest well?

Have a great Friday - we'll update the blog again before we leave for language school.

Wednesday Morning....

Ahhh, it's amazing what a shower and good night's sleep can do for a person. We were welcomed last night by Daniel and Kara Harris at the airport. We got to the children's home with little welcome notes from kiddos here and a sign on our door. The neighborhood rooster who has no sense of time welcomed us at 2:30 this morning - he realized that was too early and stopped about 3 :) The kids begin school each morning at 7:30 - we were woken up with music this morning and the sound of kids playing. Right now just outside of our door some girls are learning a dance so "Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord"

They're are 3 girls who are spending 3 months here this fall. We met all of them in Dallas as we were all on the same flight to Guatemala. This morning Daniel & Kara gave us all a tour of both properties. It was so fun to see some of the kids and workers around here. We got to walk around our apartment too! They are doing some finishing work on the inside and should be completely ready for us to live in once we finish language school.

Thank you so much for praying for our travels yesterday. We still have yet to have a drop of rain from the hurricane, our flights were good flights (with extra seats on our flight to Guatemala), all of our luggage got here - no problems at all. Today is a low-key day for us. We're pretty much free until lunch today - that will be the first time we get to see all of the kids.

We're here!

With little delays we made it here (with all of our bags) tonight about 1 hour past what was scheduled. Our friend, Felix is dumping rain and creating some havoc in other parts of Central America, but hasn't produced a drop here yet!

We're pretty tired, so we're going to bed. We'll update with more in the next couple of days.

Felix is just fine...

We were questioned about Felix, the hurricane in the gulf a few minutes ago. Yes, there's a hurricane, yes it's headed toward Central America, however, we'll be fine. The way the hurricane is travelling right now, we'll probably fly in tomorrow night to a rainy Guatemala, just ahead of the storm. Another thing is that Guatemala is on the west side of Central America, so the storm will have lessened quite a bit before it comes across Guatemala. Rain, lots and lots of rain, that's what we're expecting.

Unemployed, Homeless Nomads

That's exactly who we are :) On Monday we packed up the last of our belongings, cleaned the hut we've been living in for the past 3 months, and drove to Lee's parents. Since then we've put most everything is it's appropriate place for the next couple of years, spent an afternoon at the lake, had some good friends over, ran some errands, and even got to see a football game.

Today, Lee left with his parents for the mountains in New Mexico. I'm working on a bit of paperwork to be mailed out this afternoon and checking to make sure the wal-mart list is complete so I don't forget anything tomorrow while I'm in Amarillo.




'

On the Move...

We haven't posted anything in a few days because not too much has been happening. The first couple of days of no working was nice - after that we wern't quite sure what to do with ourselves.

Today, Lee's parents drove to Canyon with a trailor to load up our big furniture. Our little house now is pretty barron on the inside. We are both ready to be transisted - it's been a long 3 months.

On Monday we will load up the rest of our stuff and head north to finish storing all of our treasures for a couple of years.

counting down...

When we purchased our plane tickets, I began counting down the number of days until we leave for Guatemala. Somewhere in teh 30's I lost count. I don't know if it's because we had a lot going on during a few of those days, or if the reality of all that has to be done before we leave set in!

This Friday (the 10th) is our last day of work for both of us. After Friday we'll begin packing up all of our stuff to be moved to Lee's parents' house. They have been so gracious to let us leave all of our stuff there. Around the 26th we'll be out of Canyon and the on the 4th we'll leave the States.

We will begin to update our website more frequently...now that there's more happening!!

Until then,

Staci

One-Way Plane Tickets!!

Last night we purchased one-way plane tickets!!

On September 4th we will leave Amarillo just before noon, and if all flights are on time we'll arrive in Guatemala just before 8pm that evening. Buying the tickets was kind of a surreal experience - something we have been planning for so long - what we've been hoping for for so long now is a reality. How exciting.

Now, we change into "getting ready to leave" mode. Things like finishing our jobs, moving, getting our finances in order, saying goodbye to our friends and family, being sure that we don't leave physically exhausted, and being intentional about being ready spiritually top the list of things to do. In short, we've got a lot to do in 54 days!