Estoreño partners

Pastor Jose Domingo (pictured above), pastors the Espiritu Santo church, the last church we visited during the 2007 and 2009 visits. We met his wife, Amelia, and a number of some eight kids of theirs during previous visits. Below is Armando, president of the presbytery's youth and young adult organization and a member of El Estor's Arca de Noe church, the largest in the presbytery. Stephanie and I talked with Armando at some length during the 2007 visit, and he has contacted us periodically in the past. I believe he is an unemployed, unmarried school teacher.

Maria (pictured below) is the president of the presbytery's Presbyterian Women organization. I believe I remember greeting her in the Arca de Noe church's kitchen during the 2007 and 2009 trips. Her youngest of three children, Freddie, was one of the two children on the trip, but I somehow failed to get a good picture of him. Maria spoke up during activities occasionally, and a couple of times appeared to chastise the Estoreño men in Q'eqchi'.

Fidel Juc (pictured below), pastor of the Peniel church in Boqueron, is also president of the presbytery. I remember his wife, Jesus, more from the 2007 trip. It's hard to get a picture of him smiling. He and Pastor Antonio (aka Tomo: an old friend of Roger and Ellen who now pastors the mission church at Chupon, west of El Estor, whom I got no decent picture of) were occasionally quiet. Even though Fidel was quiet, he also sometimes sat a little apart from the other Q'eqchi' men, and so I got to talk with him several times during meals.

Pictured below is the youngest part of the mission team, Marta, another Presbyterian Women officer, who brought her youngest of two, Jerson (also pictured below). Marta was very quiet and only spoke up a couple of times when we were doing some kind of round robin. Jerson was ill during their Coban stay. He woke up most mornings at 4 a.m. crying. Marta, Maria, Ellen, Claudia, and I all went to the outside of the low-end public hospital in Coban to seek treatment, but Marta decided to take him to the clinic in El Estor upon their return. I believe Marta is a member of El Estor's Altar de Noe church, pastored by the most prominent person from our 2007 visit who was not in Coban this time, Pastor Raul Contreras. Also missing were a couple of other people who apparently planned to go - mainly elders and deacons - including the presbytery's treasurer (Roberto?).

The most prominent person on the Estoreño delegation was the Arca de Noe church, who we call every month or two: Gerardo Pop Ich. The secretary of the prebytery and advisor to Presbyterian Women and the youth organiation, Gerardo (pictured below with Roger) was the most powerful person in the room with both of the teams were in there.

-- Perry