Life is for living- it really is!

When Audrey first proposed the title for the blog “Life is for living Guatemala”, I had my doubts. ‘Pretentious’ and ‘cheesy’ were the first thoughts that came to my mind. However, the name slowly grew on me, and within the last few weeks I have realized that it is the perfect idea for the months we spent in Guatemala and our approach towards life.

For us, selling everything we owned, moving far away from our families and friends, leaving steady jobs, and the comfortable lifestyle we knew to be together, serve a new community and broaden our perspective of the world, seemed risky but worth the trouble. As Audrey was trying to decide whether she should come and join me in SMT, a friend asked her how she would feel

when she was 80 if she hadn’t gone. The thought made her nauseous and she knew that although it was unconventional, taking this risk was the right decision for her. Throughout the time in Guatemala, both on my own and with Audrey, I always knew it to be the right decision for me, too. There may have been tarantulas and scorpions, bathing with buckets, carrying drinking water a quarter of a mile, and washing clothes by hand, but we felt invigorated by the challenges of life and the lessons we learned.

The blog title has now developed a deeper meaning in the last month as we have experienced the ending of several people’s lives. In September, there were two deaths in the Santa Maria Tzeja community. The first was an elderly woman, Magdalena, who suffered from cirrhosis and had been ill for many months. Two weeks later, a four year old girl, Jennifer, drowned as she was bathing. While both deaths were very sad, Audrey and I were given a new perspective of death, grieving and the importance of community through the lens of Guatemalan culture.

In each of these stories, we were struck by how the entire community came together to grieve and celebrate the lives of those who passed, for example those who gathered at Magdalena's house, above. Wakes in Santa Maria Tzeja are truly all night celebrations with the majority of the community present. Church musicians play and sing, and members of the community read spiritual texts and lead prayers. The day of the funeral, nearly the entire community forms a procession to accompany the family to the cemetery and lay the deceased to rest. In subsequent nights, community members join the family for the novena, a devotion consisting of prayer that lasts nine days. We found the entire experience to be a beautiful reflection of how a community is an extension of family and how important it is to support each other as we laugh, cry, grow and learn.

On October 9^th, I received news that my grandmother Ruth had passed away unexpectedly. After talking with my mother and Audrey, it was an obvious decision for us to return home to Pittsburgh to be with my family in this time of grieving. As we started to pack our things, we initially talked about coming back in a few weeks but as we kept packing, we realized that it would be unrealistic to return this fall so we gathered our most important things. We had one hour to pack and say good-bye to some of our students, like Domingo and Selvin, and our Guatemalan family – Randall, Juana, Kristina, Phoebe, Aida and Randall Jr. – with whom we shared meals and had become very, very close. Then we hopped on the bus out of town, knowing that we would maintain a relationship with this community for years to come.

Despite the twelve hours of bus rides and ten hours of flight, slightly jet-lagged and culture shocked, Audrey and I were able to make it back in time for my Grandmother’s memorial service and funeral. The memorial service was a beautiful celebration of Ruth’s life and how she shared her love of life and of God with everyone she knew, especially with her family. Through all the tears and sadness of losing someone so loved and so loving, we were repeatedly reminded by Ruth’s example of how important it is to live life as fully as possible with those you love.

Stripping away all the differences between the US and Guatemala that we encountered, we found that the resounding desire, the human desire, to unite with others and share the joy that is life, crossed cultural boundaries. This blog has given us the opportunity to process and share our experiences with all of you, friends and family around the world, as we grew and learned. You have helped us to live life more fully and we hope that you share our feeling that life, wherever we are, really is for living!