Dear Friends and Family,

Mom's trip to Guatemala was incredible.  It was such a treat for me to be able to share all that Guatemala has to offer, to introduce Mom to the wonderful people that make up my community, and to eat the "indulgent" trail mix she brought!  One of the sweetest parts of Mom's trip was seeing how excited my friends here were to meet her; their excitement to meet my mom made me realize how cared about I am by so many here by the grace of God. 

Since mom's trip, English classes have started up again and I've moved houses. 

English is going well so far.  Six girls from the neighboring town of Tactic (not all of them Christians) came to class at the church because of a short conversation I had with one of them on the way from Tactic to Cobàn.  Praise God for giving me the opportunity to minister to these girls as I teach them!

My new host family makes for a very different environment than the one in which I was living before.  The house is beautiful, a little bit outside of Cobàn with a quaint view of the city from my new front door.  My new host mom is the only Christian in the house, and is also an incredibly kind, funny, warm, and down-to-earth lady. 

Her oldest daughter, Claudia, is married with two boys and doesn't live in the house but comes over with her family for lunch several times a week. 

The second daughter is named Fabiola.  Her husband has passed away, and she has two children, Franz (4) and Diana (7).  They all live in the house, which is wonderful because Fabiola is an excellent cook and her kids are adorable.  (Franz is particularly enthralled with having a "gringa" in the house, and even waits for me to play with him outside the bathroom door!) 

The next daughter is named Nidia and lives in the United States.  Her daughter, Isabel, is 9 and lives in the house.  She hasn't seen Nidia in almost 5 years. 

The next child is a son, Hugo.  I haven't met his wife or three children yet.  Their family lives in a house nearby. 

The next daughter is named Jaqueline and is 17.  She, like her mother, is warm and funny and has already done a great job of welcoming me into their home. 

Needless to say, with all those people, there's a lot more family noise!  This has been a nice change and, although it will most probably become annoying soon enough, for now it´s nice to wake up to kids dressing for school and banging forks on breakfast dishes.  Living with this family also offers a new set of challenges:  getting to know a new neighborhood, learning how to love new people, and most importantly learning how to live as a light for Christ amongst a family who doesn't know him. 

Now that I'm back in Cobàn for awhile, these updates will be much more frequent.

Thank you all for your continued prayer support and financial giving!  And please let me know how I can be praying for you and your families. (sarah.lunceford@gmail.com)

PEACE

Thank you for praying for Cobán and for Guatemala....  The violence against bus drivers is now under control and the delinquency here in Cobán has also died down.

I just got back from leading a group from Queens University in Charlotte, NC.  In addition to meeting with individuals and groups to learn more about Guatemalan realities, the group build a bunny hutch and planted a potato field.  The best part for me was getting to see students encounter God in a new way and let their hearts and minds be changed by that encounter... and they had American candy!

This week is Holy Week, so our church has organized lots of activities as alternatives to traditional Catholic celebrations. Yesterday we went swimming in a beautiful river near Cobán. Friday we have a bonfire in Tactic, the village where I work at the assylum for elderly persons, and Saturday the youth are spending the day in the countryside playing soccer and swimming.  Sunday morning we have a sunrise service on a hill.

Monday I travel to another YAV retreat, and directly after that, Mom comes to visit!  yay! 

Peace

Family and Friends,

Please pray for Guatemala.  We came back from our wonderful and rejuvenating retreat in Belize to news of violence.  Some bus drivers around the country decided to no longer pay off gang members and ended up paying with their lives.  Transportation, especially in the capital, is becoming increasingly unsafe.  Conflicts between different drug cartels are escalating into violence and shootings all over the country.  Cobán is an especially sensitive area, because most drugs that pass through Guatemala and on to Mexico and the U.S. make their way through Cobán rather than the capital.  This message is not to alarm, but an atmosphere of danger has taken hold.  Please pray that Guatemalans would fear only the Lord, and that the God of Life would rain peace on this place. 

I also covet your prayers for a specific female youth who has not been a part of the church community lately because of a personal problem that has turned into a family crisis.  Please email me for more details about the situation if you want to intercede for her and her family.

Life here is settling back into a routine after my trip with Cedepca and retreat to Belize.  I am now teaching one English class on the weekends and offering tutoring during the week.  My work at the Asilo de Ancianos continues as well.  We made Valentine's Day cards togehter on the 14th and talked about how Love comes from and begins with God. 

Last night after church I walked with some of the youth to the central park, where we bought a Guatemalan drink called Atol, maide from corn, and "Chuchitos", like mini-tomales.  We sat on a park bench and ate and laughed.  It was so nice to relax and just be with friends :)

Hello! 

Well I'm back in Cobán after a whirlwind trip through Guatemala City, Xela, Panajachel, Santa Catarina Palopó, Chichicastenango, Chimaltenango, and Antigua!  I accompanied a delegation of women (and one man) from the United States, working as a sort of cultural interpretor and language translator for both official meetings and informal communication (like bargaining at a market or ordering food at a restaurant).  All of the U.S. participants work in the U.S. in some capacity with women who are experiencing violence in their homes, children suffering from abuse/neglect, and/or persons struggling with chemical dependancy, or work on the prevention side of these issues.  They came to Guatemala through the Women's Pastoral program, run by CEDEPCA (Centro Evangelico De Estudios Pastorales de Centro America), to meet women here, sharing meals, stories, tears, and laughter.

This trip opened my eyes to the reality of voilence that still exists structurally and individually against women, girls, indigenous people, and indigenous women and girls.  It was overwhelming.  Also overwhelming was the spirit and grace and determination of so many women we met who are praying and working to really bring about change, to really liberate their sisters and fellow human beings.  I'm definitely still processing the experience.

One awkward thing about the trip was that it was the first time I'd been around so many other "gringas" for such a long time.  Eating in nice restaurants for every meal, staying in hotels, shopping almost every day... I felt very out of place.  I even ordered beans and tortillas at a restaurant towards the end of the trip!  It was hard for me to realize that while I'm not totally integrated into Guatemalan life or my community here (skin color really does mean something, not to mention that I grew up in a whole other world than my Guatemalan companions), neither do I feel right among my fellow countrymen and countrywomen.  And not just in lifestyle, but in worldview, in spirit.  I feel very much in between two worlds right now.

One highlight was taking communion as a group under the rising moon in Antigua.  Another was being moved to tears by a room of women erupting in laughter at something as simple and wonderful as a puppet.

Now that I'm back in Cobán I'm getting ready for my Nazarene church's 24th anniversary celebration (February 1-3).  This is apparently the biggest celebration that the church has all year, bigger than Christmas, bigger than New Year, and bigger than Easter.  One of the wealthier members of the congregation donated a cow to provide meat for this three day feast.  Some of the women have been making tortillas since yesterday.  All the youth are spending the night in the church (girls upstairs, boys downstairs :) on Saturday, and then we will all rise before dawn to walk from the old church site to the current one, annoying the neighbors with joyful trumpet music as we go.  While I defnitely am uncomfortable with all the money that is going into this celebration when it could be used elsewhere to help this hurting city, and with the fact that the church's celebration of itself is bigger than its celebration of any moment in Christ's life/death/resurrection, I am looking forward to giggling all night with the girl youth and chowing down on some grilled beef with the other sisters and brothers.

We have another retreat Feb. 4-9.  We have to leave the country (but not return to the U.S.) to renew our visas.  So, I might be out of touch for awhile. 

I sent some letters home with one of the women in the Cedepca group, and should be sending some postcards from beautiful Lake Atitlán this week.  And Andrew, look out for your birthday card!

love

Dear friends and family,

Thursday morning I am leaving Cobán to travel all around Guatemala (Xela, Panajachel, Chicimula, and Antigua) with a group from the United States.  I'll be translating various worshops and seminars that the gruop is going to be participating in, all related to women´s issues in Guatemala.  Please pray for the safety of all participants, as we will be doing quite a lot of travelling.  Please also pray that God would strenghthen my translation skills - if he used Moses to speak to Pharoah, surely he can use my Spanish!  Another request is that all of us in the group would have open eyes and open hearts to what God wants to teach us, and that we would be a community of love for each other.