A little more mini-bum

A big apology to all of those who are not kitten fans
but with these little fur balls around I must admit that at least half of my photos are now kitten-related.
but honestly- how could I resist??

enjoy : )

(for those of you who have not yet seen a photo of david and suzannah, here they are in the top one)

a quick update

sorry that it has been so long since we have posted anything
I have all these great plans in my head of what i am going to put up here
but David and Suzannah work during the day and take their computers with them so access to the internet is limited.

I have a few minutes before they head off to work and just wanted to write a quick little post to let you all know that we are doing well
My nausea is completely gone (thank you for your prayers!) although i woke up this morning feeling like i have a cold coming on. prayer for that would be great

We are having many Salvadoran adventures that I am very excited to tell you about
and I will get a photo of David and Suzannah up here soon (people keep telling me they would like to see a photo of them)

I am glad you are all enjoying reading this blog
it is fun to write for it (when i have the time!)

Peace of Christ to you all

em and tom

La Casa de Nacho

Thomas and I are very happy to Call David and Suzannah Nacho's home here in San Salvador our OWN home for these three weeks
We couldn't have asked for better hosts, friends, and accomplices (!)
We are having a great time enjoying delicious meals, wonderful conversation, and LOTS of laughter.

Many of you who know David and Suzannah may NOT know about the new additions in their house
Two weeks ago (give or take) their cat, Lechita (playing on the word "leche" which is milk in spanish...kinda like "little milky" in english) gave birth to 5 kittens
and they are the CUTEST
I wanted to make sure you all got to enjoy them as much as tom and I have
so here are some photos

Lechita is a little crazy sometimes though- she will take the kittens and hide them around the house...like in the laundry room!

they have opened their eyes now too
very exciting.

thomas and i have chosen names for them all (although they will most likely change when they go to their new owners). It's kinda hard to tell them apart because 4 are orange and almost identical
we are also not yet sure if they are boys or girls
but
here are our names
the black one is cusi (pronounced coo-see) and the orange ones are mochachito, caramela, mandarina, and mini bum (mini bum is the runt of the litter- and his/her name has a story behind it which involves all of us driving home from Guatemala behind a big semi carrying boxes of candy inside. All of a sudden the back door flung open and all these boxes came crashing down on the highway in front of us! We were going really fast but david managed to swerve and miss the boxes - although he did run over some of the candy! We honked really loud but the truck didn't hear us. so we stopped and picked up some of the intact bags of candy off the road! hahaha. and some of the candy is called "mini bum". super weird. but funny. and that is the long explanation of the name. oh, and then we chased the truck like mad to catch up with it and got him to pull over and close his back door. talk about and adventure!)

Las Ruinas de las capuchinas - photos

(main entrance to the convent)



(this is the only photo we have right now of this INCREDIBLE room that, apparently, is the only structure like this in the world. SOD people will remember this- in the middle of this outside "room" is a nail. but not just any nail. if you stand on this nail and speak you will hear an echo in your head- sort of like you are talking into a microphone....BUT YOU are the only one who can hear this echo. no one else can. it is only if your own head. VERY cool and odd at the same time. Tom,Suzannah, and David were all a little skeptical when i told them about it but they all came back very amazed at this wonder of the world. They tried to figure out how it workd but the jury is still out on the decision...perhaps a result of the surrounding room, or the room under ground...who knows!)

Disclamer

I think disclamers are always disappointing
this is no exception

because of something we, or my camera, did a memory card full of our photos from Guatemala city and antigua now needs to be "formatted"
if we click "format" then we lose all the photos....which we clearly do not want to do
and we are not sure how to fix this problem- so we cannot post any of the pictures we took that correspond to the next few stories
this is frustrating because many of the photos were taking with the thought "hey! this will be great to put up on the blog!"

so you will have to bear with a few photo-less entries until we catch up to the photos on our other memory card (good thing we brought two)

hopefully these photos are not lost forever and we can get them back once we get home

bienvenidos a zona 6

Tom and I had the wonderful opportunity to stay with Guatemalan families while we were taking our Spanish classes at CASAS.
We were placed with families just across the street from each other in Zone 6 of the city (I do not know much about this area-other than the fact that it is residential and doesn't show up in the guide books as a place to visit. I believe it is a poorer area of the city, but Carina can correct me on this if i am wrong)

the families we were placed with were fantastic.
It was a challenge for tom at first being all by himself in a house full of people who don't speak the same language as him, but as time went on he learned to communicate better and he did really well.
We were welcomed into their homes so generously and were cared for very well with delicious meals (lots of beans and eggs....and i had my first chicken drumstick in who knows how long. i didn't want to refuse the food they were so graciously offering me so i was happy to eat the chicken, it was a little weird though.)

My "dad", i found out, used to be a soccer player in the national league in Guatemala and now he works in a factory where they make clothing. He cuts the fabric for someone to sew together. I asked him if liked the work (unable to get the thought out of my head that this wonderful man might be working in a sweat shop to make cheap clothing for us to buy at Zellers...) and i was incredibly relieved to hear him say that he enjoys the work quite a bit.
I think he is really proud of it. one night he brought out all these shirts he had made and showed them off to me. He was radiant about the fact that he could make clothing to then give to his two grand children (who were very very sweet and live above his house).

Every evening my "mom" went out to a little church a few blocks away. The first night i stayed at home and watched tv with my dad. After watching a bit of "Brave heart" dubbed into spanish (who knew mel gibson had such a great accent!) we watched some of the evening news. this was hard to watch, mostly because of how my dad responded to it. He kept telling me that Guatemala is really difficult right now. There are lots of issues with gang violence (mostly with the gang Barrio 18) and it really scares a lot of people. My dad constantly reminded me of the importance of never going anywhere alone. One day, after taking us to the central plaza, he made sure that we took a cab home because he wasn't comfortable with us taking the bus.
It was special to have him care for me so much, but it made my heart ache to think of all the pain in this country.
It feels like it is never ending....
so many years of war, immense poverty, and now these problems with gangs.
it made me feel quite hopeless and despairing to see the eyes of my father so ripe with tears.
I just don't understand suffering- How God deals with it, and how I should deal with it.
I trust God is working here in this country, but i can't grasp the idea of so many people having to suffer and die in the process.
it is hard to reconcile in my head and heart
I spent a long time journaling and drawing and turning over my questions and aching to God- He knows how to hold it far better than I.

On the last night I was there my mom asked tom and i (very excitedly) if we would like to go to church with her. She was especially excited because it was the birthday of two congregation members and birthdays mean (you guessed it) PASTEL (cake)!! We, of course, jumped at the invitation (not necessarily because of the cake- which ended up being all soggy. You could literally see water dripping off the cake as it was placed on a plastic plate. must have been frozen for a while!). At 7pm we wove our way through the darkened streets alive with kids, adults, dogs, and blaring radios. We arrived at the home of one of the members celebrating a birthday and found some seats as the room quickly filled up with people. Soon a HUGE speaker arrived which was placed at the back door facing INTO the room so that the music and singing could be EXTRA loud (just in case we couldn't already hear everything in this small living room- tom was pretty sure he heard the music every night in his bed room even though the church was blocks away!)
It is always a treat to be part of a church service in a different country and to witness how the people there worship. I loved seeing the immense devotion of the people sitting in these plastic maroon lawn chairs as they closed their eyes and sang passionately to God. The pastor's "short" message (which was longer than most i have heard) was a great reminder of how blessed we are to have so many years in our lives- that birthdays are not days to complain about getting older, but to rejoice and thank God for giving us one more year of life.
How often we need to remind ourselves of this.

On our last day tom and I bought roses for our "moms" in the market for a ridiculous price of only $4 for a DOZEN beautiful roses!
I had sneakily found out my mom's favourite flower before hand and was very excited to offer these to her as a thank you for her gratitude and hospitality.
Tom got some for his mom as well and they both loved them and promptly displayed them on their tables. (perhaps a bit out of place against the concrete walls, but a beautiful symbol of gratitude).

Overall the experience was wonderful.
Unfortunately i wasn't able to get photos of anyone in my family except my mom (who was just...the greatest. She told me that her home is my home if i am ever in Guatemala again...and i only knew her for 3 days!). Out of desperation i took photos of pictures hanging on the wall so at least i have SOMETHING to go by!
Tom got some great photos of his family when they (his mom and dad) were using the camera to see how it worked
but, alas, they are on that silly memory card so we will have to wait to show you them
que lastima (what a shame).

follow the cobble stone road...

We apologize that these blogs are a little out of order at times
allow us to take you back a few days so we can recount to you our Antiguan adventures!

On saturday morning tom and I said good bye to our wonderful Guatemalan moms and headed out to find bus number 203. After watching two number 84 buses pass us by we figured that we must be standing at the wrong place and sought help from a man in a nearby tienda (store). After a few more sets of directions we ended up walking a good 25 minutes with very heavy back packs on to find out bus stop.
Eventually (after a bit of a crazy bus change) we ended up at Tikal Futura (A HUGE mall which SOD folk will all remember). We decided to grab some lunch there before embarking on our trip to Antigua (Guatemala's old capital city).

Getting on the chicken bus was also a bit hectic as i attempted to squash my huge back pack into the over head compartment (which was clearly too small to fit it). In the end the helpful money collector tossed our bags up onto the roof of the bus. While the bus was already close to full when tom and I got on it quickly enlarged its occupancy.
In less than 5 minutes tom and I found ourselves seriously squished onto a bus seat with another guatemalan man. (these buses are old school buses- who would have known that the seats were actually intended for 3- if not 4- people to sit on!)
It just goes to show that space is something we in North America are VERY picky about.
There appears to be no such thing as a personal bubble down here. Any inch of space is room for someone else to squeeze into- and if driving a bus is the way you make a living then you are going to squeeze just as many people as you can onto that bus!

On our ride we started chatting with a guy who is here in Guatemala working with the US peace corps. neat guy.

When we arrived in Antigua a man who works for the city's tourism agency came up and offered us free information (and it really was free!). He suggested that we stay at a hostel run by guatemalans so that we are supporting the local economy rather than staying at a place run by international people.
we found a great spot where we could stay for only $5 each per night with free water included.
it was a little muggy at times because there were no windows...and there was a cockroach incident one night...but the owners were great and there was a parrot named Arturo downstairs which was fun.

Antigua is a BEAUTIFUL city- and the pride of many guatemalans
It is an old colonial city with beautiful arcitecture, cobble stone roads, bright colours, and filled with ruins and incredible churches.
The very first thing we noticed when we walked into the city was the number of tourists
Antigua is DEFINITELY the tourist hot spot of Guatemala. While in Guatemala city i don't think we ran into another white person, here it was as if tourists out numbered the local population.
a very odd change.

(tom really liked the construction of the streets)

(this is the arch that Antigua is famous for- when people see photos of this arch they automatically know it's Antigua....or so i am told.)


When i was in Bible school three years ago i spent almost every day for a month and a half in Antigua hanging out, checking e-mail, or wandering around
it was fun to take tom to the spots i had been before and to know good places to find banana bread or where to get cheap internet.

On our first night we went to a pretty hip restaurant for dinner
Tom says it was just like a place you would find on Commercial Drive- hippy folk, chalk board menu, live music, free internet, and a few yin-yang signs hanging here and there.

On our second morning tom and I went to one of the most lavish and exotic hotels we have ever seen. It is call the Casa Santo Domingo hotel and you can check out this link if you want to learn more about it. http://www.casasantodomingo.com.gt/
It is a five star hotel and one of it's claims to fame is that Bill Clinton stayed there a number of years back. It is a beautifully restored monastery still very ripe with history and culture. They have restored lots of the ruins and many tour groups stop here to take a tour of the property which includes a number of museums and art galleries, underground crypts, a candle making shop (the hotel uses over 5,000 candles a month!) and much more.
it was incredibly beautiful. wow.

Unfortunately the second day in Antigua was filled with less exciting activities which centered around nausea, upset stomachs, and frequent rest room stops. That night our "dinner" consisted of apple juice, chamomile tea and banana bread because both of us were feeling pretty under the weather.

The next morning David and Suzannah came to pick us up and whisk us away to El Salvador- but not before they went with tom to see Las Ruinas de las Capuchinas (a beautiful old convent). I was too ill to go so i hung out in the truck trying to contain my nausea.
Tom can write more about the ruins, but here are a few photos they took there. Suzannah thoughtfully carved "wish you were here" into a plant where lots of people had left messages.
I wish I had been there too.

unfortunately this computer is acting a little strange when i try and upload photos
so i am going to have to put all the photos of the ruins in a separate post....

so that is antigua
in a nutshell
we had more photos of our hostel and such but, alas, they are all on the memory card that is also acting up.
if we get it working we will put them on here too.

nervously diagnosing my system

it is now a rainy afternoon in San Salvador
it was sunny just a few minutes ago, but rain seems to come very quickly here- one minute blue skies and the next an outpouring of the heavens.

I have not posted for the past few days because I have managed to get quite sick
I am currently facing the third day of almost completely continual nausea.
From morning until evening (with a most welcomed break while i sleep) I have felt incredibly nauseous.
I do not know exactly what the reason for this is, but it started in Antigua the afternoon before David and Suzannah came to pick us up.
It was a rough ride to San Salvador speeding down winding roads for four hours, but the gravol (and God) somehow got me through it.

Yesterday I had an interesting experience
after almost 48 hours of nausea Suzannah took me to the doctor she goes to here
The woman is a licensed doctor...but she is also licensed in reflexology and some other more..."cosmic" practices.
She had me lie down in a darkened room with soothing music playing and poked around in my ear with a sort of wand
by the nerves in my ear she was able to diagnose me and she said that my nausea and stomach pain is a result of my nervous system being down...and something wrong with my gall bladder and colon.
She then put some crystal rocks on my stomach and chest and these little electric charges on my ears and had me lie there for a very long 15 minutes.
parts were a little bit funky, but Suzannah has said she's always been helpful in the past so i am giving it a go.
she also prescribed some medicine (don't worry- it's not "cosmic" in any way. just an over the counter drug) which i have started taking- we will see if it helps
i still feel nauseous today but it is much better than yesterday

I am trying to eat at least a little bit at every meal, although the idea of food is often not a welcome thought
Thomas and suzannah have been taking great care of me- making tea, driving me to the pharmacy, rubbing my tummy when i feel like i am going to throw up.
and i am looking forward to this sickness passing

in the mean time your prayers would be VERY much appreciated.
It is frustrating being here and not being able to get involved in anything
all i have really seen of El Salvador is the inside of this house it feels like!
I have been lying around for the past 2 days reading lots, watching a bit of tv, or just resting.

today, as i am feeling a bit better, I discovered a fun photo program on this computer
as you will see Tom and I had lots of fun
now, unfortunately, i feel nauseous again (the excitement was too much i guess!) but i am learning to deal with the feeling and am able to get a few things done.

Please keep both of us in your prayers with an added emphasis on health.

peace to you all.
enjoy the photos!

love em and tom

Guate.

here we are

the blog is finally beginning to take shape now that we have a bit of extra time and access to a computer that doesn't take 5 minutes to load a page.

Right now thomas and I are in Antigua, Guatemala (the old capital city) and are at La Fuente (for all those SOD folks who will remember this popular hang out).

But let's go back and start from the beginning...

here are tom and I on the place getting ready to take off from rainy vancouver to Las Angeles (check out the video at the bottom of las angelas at night as seen from our air plane...hopefully it's not too dark). The photo above is a bit blurry...but i think it's to visualize how our stomachs were feeling on that trip (and for a while afterwards)...a little bit queasy. *note: after being very careful about what he was eating a silly little "certs" candy managed to break one of thomas' braces...on the very first day! what a hassle*

with our seatbelts securily fastened we made our way to Las Angeles and then onto an overnight flight (which we will now NEVER do again) to Guatemala City- where we arrived at 4:30 in the morning.

I can't say that the ENTIRE plane trip was bad though. We did do a little bit of shopping at the "air mall" and found some pretty great bargains! Our favourites being "The marshmallow shooter". Which, as the name gives away, is a big gun that shoots...well...marshmallows. They will shoot over 30 feet and the handy LED sniper light guatantees acurate aim. (Geordan- we specifically thought of you for this one.) I figured it was a pretty sweet deal...real practical ya know? but then i found out the marshmallows weren't included.....so we decided to pass.

But NEXT we came across a "runaway alarm clock" that, when you hit the snooze button, will roll off of your dresser and go hide somewhere in your room (like under the bed). From there it will make annoying beeping sounds to coax you out of bed in order to find it and turn it off! any takers?? $50 is a steal really...
Upon arriving at the air port we managed to, groggily, get our luggage (which all arrived safely) and find a cab to take us to a place we'd arranged to stay at (Carina's old apartment). We got there at 5:30 and had a nap before heading off to SEMILLA Anapaptist seminary for Spanish Classes.

We had spanish classes for 3 afternoons and both tom and I found it really helpful. We were able to refresh our memories and remind ourselves of things like conjugating into the past tense and how to say simple phrases.

Which brings me to the part of our story when we go and stay with Guatemalan families in Zone 6...

(video of Las Angelas at night)

Bienvenido a Guatemala!

We are here
safely arrived after a long and difficult overnight trip that got us in at 4 30 am this morning with very tired eyes and sore tummies

but now, after a bit of a cat nap, a delicious lunch, and our first spanish class we are doing well
thomas has just left to purchase us a chocobanano (for all those who do not know what this is...you are missing out. it is a frozen banana dipped in chocolate....delicious!!)

we will write again soon and post up some of our travel photos when we have a bit more time and a computer that loads pages in faster than 5 minutes!!

peace and love to you all.
tom and em

p.s. i just had a bite of the chocobanano.....yummmm......

off to kayak

so as some of you may know I (thomas) have been building a kayak for quite some time now.
these past few weeks i have spent a good number of hours working on it in an attempt to have it partially finished for an exhibit of wooden creations that my highschool was putting on in order to create some interest in the program where the exhibit was being held, at the vancouver school board. As a form of thanks for all the encouragement i have received while building the kayak as well as the actual shop and machinery itself i wanted to have a good deal built before we left on this trip that we are off on today. Unfortunately i did not get it to where i wanted it to be, but still it has progressed very quickly and it still a very admirable piece of work thus far. It is being put in the show as a work in progress and for this i am very thankful.

i have put together some pictures of the process of building and you can check them out at this site: http://picasaweb.google.com/dickautom/Kayak

enjoy

there will hopefully be some captions up there explaining things later on......right now it is time to go over that last minute checklist of things to pack and do.....

peace
thomas

Last Minute Mayhem

You know you are in the final moments of preparation for a big trip when:

a) The floor of your room looks like this

b) you can hear the washing machine cleaning a last load of laundry as you scramble around your room looking for that t-shirt that you really want to bring but has mysteriously disappeared...

c) Your mom is downstairs generously hemming a pair of pants for you

d) You have still not packed anythign even though you are leaving tomorrow.

Ah...the joy of adventures!

"I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight"
Isaiah 45:2

A few who...what...when...how...and why's

The countdown has begun: 14 days to go.
that's only 336 hours (give or take)
or 20,160 minutes...

tick. tick. tick.

14 days to go and two colds to get over before the big day.

Here is a bit of an itinerary for those of you interested in our whereabouts this coming month

Departure Date: Tuesday, October 9th
Return Date: Monday, November 12th

Our first day of travel will take us from Vancouver, BC to Guatemala City, Guatemala where we will stay for 3 nights (2 nights with a local family) and attend a few afternoons of language school to get our Spanish tongues back in action.

With our Spanish in high gear we'll head off to Antigua (The old capital city of Guatemala) for a few days of puttering about and a chance for me (emily) to visit the town i lived in for 6 weeks while I was on SOD*.

The adventure continues as David and Suzannah Nacho swoop into Antigua for a day of exploring before driving us back to San Salvador, El Salvador (The capital city of El Salvador) where we will make our 'home base' with them for approx. 3 weeks.

The three weeks in El Salvador will bring unexpected adventures along with a few planned ones including: constructing a chicken coop for David and Suzannah (don't worry- tom will take the lead on this one- I will be the one befriending the chickens), travelling into Honduras to visit the Mayan ruins in Copan, and perhaps gallavanting back into Guatemala for a chance to kayak in beautiful volcano-lined Lake Atitlan.

The end of our trip, a six day section, is remaining unplanned in order for us to be open to God's movings and see where His spirit leads us. Perhaps it will be to Nicaragua (which we'd like to visit because both my brother and Tom's dad have both been before), or to somewhere else in El Salvador, or back to Guatemala again...who knows.

That's what adventures are all about.

sponteneity. trust. faith. excitement. anticipation. surprise.

We are both very excited that all of you will be joining us on this trip through your thoughts, prayers, e-mails, blog comments (i think there's a little button you can click on the bottom right of this message to write a response to us), and your incredibly large monetary donations.....hahah. just kidding.

For real though- we feel blessed to know that we will be uplifted and held by so many of you in many different ways. Thank you for all of this support in whatever form it has and will come. We both know that trusting in God is what got us on this trip and is what will sustain us through it. Please keep us in your prayers whenever we come to mind

You can pray for:

Safety, Health, Energy, Our relationships with God (that we will be open to the soft whisper of the Spirit and rely completely on God rather than ourselves), Our relationship with each other (that we might seek to love and serve each other in all circumstances and situations- that our roots may entangle even more as we grow closer to God and closer to each other), Our Spanish (may I have confidence in my speaking abilities and may tom absorb the language rapidly so he does not feel on the "outside" of conversations).

Christ, as a light illumine and guide us.

Christ, as a shield overshadow us.

Christ under us; Christ over us;

Christ beside us on our left and our right.

amen.

* (School of Discipleship- a 1 year Bible school out of the University of Winnipeg)