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