Tikal

Temples, monkeys, and a breath-taking aerial view awaited mission team members on Thursday during a visit from Flores to Tikal, the area Peter dubbed the one-time “New York City” of the Mayan civilization. The night before the trip Peter described how Tikal was one of dozens of Mayan sites around Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, but was the leading site, with some 100,000 people living there at its height around 900 C.E. Apparently the city outgrew its resources and a drought may have helped wipe it out, with survivors spreading out to other Mayan communities.

During the Tikal visit, the guide who worked with the mission team, Jesus, showed the team members how many of the sites both symbolized and analyzed the calendar year and described the theory that it was the WINNERS of the Mayan ball game who were honored by being sacrificed/beheaded. He also showed team members the ramon, the super-nutritious nut that Mayans cooked with.  Peter also explained that the Mayans and other Amerindians were the first group to domesticate what became one of the world’s most important grains, corn/maize, which was one of the most difficult to domesticate and the only one domesticated outside of the Tigris/Euphrates valley. Jane reminded the team that the Tikal visit was part of educational activity that Crescent Hill folks had promised to do – to learn more about Guatemala and the Q’eqchi’ – and a reminder of the noble origins of the church’s Q’eqchi’ partners.

No visit to this world cultural site would be complete without contemporary cultural references. A scene from the tail end of the “Star Wars” 4 movie is what Doug (pictured above) saw from a Tikal high point, and Tavi pointed out that the screams of the zombies/vampires in “I Am Legend” sounded just like those of the howler monkeys at Tikal. And the ceiba, the sprawling Mayan tree of life (pictured below), harkens back to a similar tree of life – and civilization – in the movie “Avatar.”

-Perry

Other church visit views

Roadside stop

At various points Crescent Hill team members had hoped they could visit two outlying churches that have been part of the presbytery for several years: the Monte Sinai church in San Carlos El Porvenir, near Puerto Barrios, and the Hijo del Viviente Dios church in La Guitarra, which I thought was near Livingston. Long before the trip started, I realized that La Guitarra wasn’t really accessible from Livingston. And soon after we arrived, others confirmed that San Carlos was PAST Puerto Barrios and so at least four hours away. We soon nixed both trips, when it turned out that, although the road from Rio Dulce to Flores would take us a few miles from La Guitarra, the rain would clearly have made the muddy, rutted narrow dirt road from the highway to the hamlet accessible for our large van. Still, Pastor Fidel, who travels to La Guitarra to preach once a month, schemed that the team might visit with other Hijo church leaders. And so as the team prepared to leave El Estor Wednesday morning, Fidel gave team members a cell phone number for a church leader, and said that – hours before the team would near La Guitarra – a small group of church leaders was already waiting by the side of the road. After two hours, the van pulled into Semox, the tiny crossroads where the road to La Guitarra swung left, where four men were indeed waiting along the road for the team. A short conversation, presentation, and prayer – sped up by team members who were nervous about a van full of Yankees and disembarking along a highway that had once been branded too dangerous for tourists – and the team was off.

-Perry

School visit vistas

Children's activities images

The lake environment

In the five years since Crescent Hill folks first visited El Estor, the nickel mine has resumed operations (as well as essentially shutting down an Estoreño Presbytery congregation when it took over the land it and some of its worshipers were on) and a sugar cane plant has begun operating west of Panzos. Both of these have likely polluted Lake Izabal and the local water supply. Algae was very visible in the lake which probably has helped deplete the fish supply. The ratio between land using as plantation agriculture and ranching land, as well between plantation agriculture and subsistence farming, has apparently shifted in plantation agriculture’s favor. More and more land along the roadsides is now devoted to the growing and harvesting of coffee, fruit, timber, sugar cane, and palm oil, among others. All of this has reduced the amount of available land for people in the area to live on and farm on (and even to plant churches on).

-Perry

Women

In addition to the women’s workshop, mission team members encountered other women church leaders along the way. Visiting from the Monte Sinai church in San Carlos El Porvenir/Puerto Barrios were a female elder and a female deacon, the first such people we had met from the presbytery. These were all from a church the team had talked about visiting, but finally decided such a visit would have to wait until the next trip. When a group visited the Espiritu Santo church when its pastor, José Domingo, was at the theological training institute, his son encouraged the women to speak up, and Peter encouraged the group to permit silence to go on, which might leave space for others to pipe in. And so the group heard from several female leaders of the church, including from the leaders of the church’s women’s organization. And, in terms of women leaders, let’s not forgot the woman in Panzos who voiced concerned about the possible Catholicism of the Bibles and the women who prepared food for mission team members and others three days in a row at the Arca de Noe church (pictured in the “lunch” post).

Keep in mind that most Estoreño Presbytery congregations appear to have female majorities, some of them by wide margins.

-Perry