​Today we delivered three stoves and two water filters and visited both the Elderly Feeding Center and the San Jorge preschool in San Jorge La Laguna.

At the preschool, we got to do activities with the children.  Some of the group stayed downstairs with the younger children.  They colored pictures.  One member of our group decided to sponsor one of the children at this preschool while we were there!  What a blessing… for BOTH!

I was part of the group that went upstairs with the slightly older kids.  With them, we played a game with the bean bags that we brought with us  Some bean bags were colors.  Some were shapes, and some were numbers.  All of them were in Spanish.  We had planned on some sort of bean bag toss game, but thought that might get too crazy indoors.  Instead, we had Scott hold up one bean bag and then had the kids say what color or shape or number it was and then to find something else in the room that was the same color.  They seemed to really enjoy that game!  We left the set of bean bags for their classroom use.  Dylan, our guide, thought that it would be used for activities by future groups, too.  I’m glad they will enjoy them.

The first stove was delivered to Elder and his family.  They don’t live far from the Elderly Feeding Center in San Jorge, where his mother works.  Elder is a young man in 9th grade that would like to study accounting.  In Guatemala, a high school student uses their 10th, 11th, and 12th grade years doing a particular track, or field of study.  Elder wishes to study accounting.

We, as a group, decided to sponsor the remainder of Elder’s education so that he can stay in school.  When he heard the news, he was thrilled, and his entire family was happy to get a better stove!  In fact, his mother was so happy that she gave us a table cloth weaving that her mother (Elder’s grandmother) had made.  It is her handiwork.  It has a warm earthy feel to it just like the colors of the clothing worn by Elder’s mother.  She said they were typical of San Jorge La Laguna, the village where they live.

The stove donated to Elder’s family was paid for with part of the donated funds from Dan Miller.  Thank you Dan!  Sarah and Scott enjoyed playing an active role in the installation.  While Scott laid all of the concrete blocks in place and prepared the cook service, Sarah helped build the wings that would fit across both sides, giving a little more food prep or “counter” space.  These wings also keep little hands from getting close to the hot cook surface!

The second home we delivered to received both a stove and a water filter!  They had lots of needs!  In this home there lived three generations of females.  There was the grandmother, mother, and daughter.  The daughter, Natalie, had just turned one.  I don’t know if there were others living there, but they seemed to have a larger space than some other homes we visited, and the grandmother had collected some nice large pots for cooking.  In fact, they even had an existing stove, but it was no longer functional.  The nice thing about installing a new stove right next door, we could reuse the same ventilation hole and not have to cut a new hole in the ceiling.

Thank you Jake Roseberry for donating enough to buy Natalie’s family a stove!  Thanks also to Mike Koch and his family for donating a water filter!  Having a water filter will mean that Natalie’s drinking water will be free of contaminants and that means her overall health will be much better!  While in better health, Natalie will start to meet developmental benchmarks and have a leg up on many of her peers at school.

A healthy child is able to attend school, and a child that does not require constant medical attention (for stomach parasites or other waterborne illnesses) will not consume as much of the family’s budget for medical care.  That makes school, when she comes of age, a bit more affordable because the family is not spending as much on health-related issues.

So, think of it this way — when you donate a stove or water filter, you are not only giving them an immediate help from a health standpoint, but also the opportunity to receive more education in the long run!

After we were done with those stoves, we again chose to serve food at the Elderly Feeding Center and then we broke for our own small lunch of sandwiches, chips and chiky’s (a type of cookie) for dessert.

When we left San Jorge for the day, we enjoyed the beautiful views on the way back to Panajachel.  Once again, we enjoyed standing in the back of a pickup truck for the ride back.

Since we got back a little earlier than expected, I had the chance to blog a little bit, and I chose to do it poolside!  I could get used to this!