Mid-May update

Mother’s Day Sunday half a dozen folks involved in Guatemala mission – Lowell, Soni, Sarah, Carlos, Claudia – helped solicit money from Crescent Hill church folks to sponsor our Guatemalan partners to travel by bus from the Izabal area to Coban and back again and for room and board at the Nazarene retreat center in Coban. This past Sunday Andrea led the effort, which will take a break on Pentecost Sunday. It’s not totally clear if the July mission team and planning group will need to spearhead an additional fund-raiser such as food sales or a yard sale.

This past week Perry and one of the mission co-workers in Coban, Roger Marriott, have been in discussion in about the trip schedule, including about whether the team and partners can go to the Semuc Champey waterfall area. Thursday night – on the eve of Layoff Day at the Presbyterian Center - Perry and Jane bought tickets for the last of the group, Andrea and Ana, after some additional communications with immigration specialists and Ana’s family. Four team members – Andrea, Claudia, Lowell, and Perry – are slated to leave Saturday, July 10, and return Saturday, July 17, on Continental through Houston. Ana and Jane will fly though Houston with the group, but Jane will stay an extra week in Antigua to go to language school and Ana will stay an extra month in Guatemala to visit family and friends. It is possible that immigration barriers will keep Ana in Guatemala until she is set to enroll in college and receives completed paper work about that.

Ellen will travel separately on Delta, and will meet the group in the Guatemala airport (she is slated to arrive first). She will stay for almost a month more, connecting with a mission team from her own Western North Carolina presbytery in early August.

Friday was Layoff Day at the Presbyterian Center. Crescent Hill folks were sad to see the departure of Stan DeVoogd, laid off as Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) area coordinator for Central America and Mexico, but happy to be connected with Maria Arroyo, of Crescent Hill church, who will not coordinate work not only in South America and the Caribbean, but also in Central America and Mexico.

This past week Andrea made supper for what turned out to be Monday and Wednesday nights at the joint James Lees-Covenant Community-Crescent Hill English as a foreign language teaching ministry, which is poised to finish the spring term next week.

-- Perry