Wednesday church visits

Wednesday represented a full day of church visits for executive committee members, Alfredo, and a rotating group of nine different CHPC team members (when not involved in pastoral care):

-Puerta del Cielo church in La Union.  Pastor Leonel was away working, but the team was met and worshiped with mainly women there, along with Antonio who had been there at Tuesday's workshops.  This is a relatively small church west of town, close to the nickel mine.

-Espiritu Santo church, where the 2007 visit team had their send-off service, was held.  Pastor Jose Domingo, whom CHPC folks had seen at length in 2010 at the Coban retreat, and his family and parishioners greeted, eventually with sodas.  The team met Jose' Domingo's mother-in-law, Angelica, who had figured prominently in a photo in front of the church, from the 2012 visit.  Espiritu Santo folks have built a front porch on the church, have rebuilt the walls, and were busy re-habing the altar.  In her remarks, Jane recalled that the initial CHPC-Estore   o partnership discussions took place around a table in this church.

-Lirio de los Valles church, Pastor Mario's church, was the last church vistied Wednesday morning.  It was CHPC folks' third time visiting the church, and every time Lirio de los Valles has been in a totally different building.  In 2009 music blared at very loud from the open-air ramshackle building.  This time Pastor Mario, Pastor Raul, and the women of the church sang a prayer for the team's one sick member, and Pastor Mario showed team members his home and plied them with more sodas.

-After lunch the team visited two more churches.  The Galilea church in the outlying northeastern Esfuerza neighborhood of El Estor. Some members of the 2012 CHPC team visited this congregation when it was much smaller, had no name, and was led by Antonio, from outside Coban.  Angel Sacul, son of the deceased presbytery leader Pablo Sacul, is the pastor now.  Once again a women's chorus sung for the team.  It was a little warm out there.  Pastor Jane got eager nods when she drew the parallel between the topography of the area around the Galilea church and that around its namesake, the Holy Land's Sea of Galilee.

-The final church visited, the Familia de Noe church, was the second church visited during the 2009 visit, when the team ate there and Ben Langley preached there.  Three years later a subgroup visited the church, with a totally new sanctuary built.  With some men working, this group was almost entirely women, who - once again - sang.  Pastor Benjamin and his family still live across town (the church is located in El Estor's Sinai neighborhood) and, with the church building a new parsonage, may need to decide whether to stick it out.  Benjamin is Angel's brother, another son of Pastor Pablo Sacul.  Like many Q'eqchi' Presbyterian families, Benjamin and wife Carlotta have a fair amount of children - in this case however, seven girls and only recently a boy.

-Perry