Thursday morning required a little more get-up-and-go so we
could eat breakfast, check out of the hotel, and load our luggage in the truck.
While we waited, I took a few last photos of the hotel grounds and also snapped
this photo of our team’s back rub train.
Taking one look at Katie’s eye, we realized the problem
wasn’t an irritation from the water party. It looked to me like pink eye had
set in. We showed her eye to Blanca, who conferred with Jaime. Katie hated
everyone looking at her swollen, red eye – and it was hurting her, too. Jaime
made a call to a pharmacy, planning to pick up some eye drops on the way to
Caballo Blanco.
We left the hotel, stopped at the pharmacy, and I gave Katie
her first dose in the parking lot of the pharmacy. She was already struggling a
bit with the pain and the belief that everyone would be staring at her red eye.
She decided to wear her sunglasses all day long to cover up her eye.
We got in the van and made our last drive to Caballo Blanco.
On the way, Nestor and Jaime agreed to let us stop at a beautiful overlook we
had passed every day. We got a quick group photo, then hopped back into the
car.
Also on the way, we stopped at another photo opportunity. We
had passed fields of these beautiful red flowers every day, and I always begged
Nestor to stop the van so I could take photos. Finally, Nestor agreed and I got
to snap a few photos through the van windows. Blanca jumped out of the van and
snagged one for us to see up close. It’s called Brain Celosia or commonly known
as Red Cockscomb. Jaime told me they’re grown once a year and sold specifically
for Day of the Dead.
Once we arrived at Iglesia Bethania, Jaime gathered us and
the pieces for the pump so we could assemble it and lower it into the well. But
before that, we got one last look into the hole before it was capped.
Then we got to work.
Each person grabbed a section of PVC pipe that was attached
to a rope held by Connie and Mary. The first pipe section was lowered and then
the second section was glued and fitted to the first section, then lowered. The
third section was added, and so on until we reached the bottom of the well.
Next, each team member grabbed a metal bar with a loop on
one end and a hook on the other. These bars were lowered piece by piece into
the PVC pipes we just installed in the same way – all the way down to the
bottom of the well.
Jaime and Nestor capped the well then added the pump handle.
While they worked, Sonja started teaching the kids who were hanging out with us
a few songs. Of course, they started with the Baby Shark Song! Then the kids
taught their own songs in Spanish, and Blanca helped translate the words.
When the handle was installed on the pump one of the men
started priming the pump, working the handle up and down until – FINALLY! –
clean water started pouring out. Once the water started flowing, all attention
turned to the well. Everyone crowded around and the kids took turns pumping out
clean water.
Someone produced a bar of soap and hand washing began in
earnest.
After a few minutes, one of our team members decided to fill
their water bottle at the pump. This was a really beautiful sight to see
because it was the proof the locals needed that the water from this well is
SAFE to drink. Every day we had been there, the gringos were careful to never
drink local water. The Guatemalans knew this was because the water wasn’t clean
and could make everyone (including them) sick. All of a sudden, the new well
was spewing water that was drinkable even for the gringos! The very next thing
to happen was one of the women approached the well with a glass and filled it
up, then drank from it. This was the moment when everything crystalized for me:
all these days of hard work, all the months spent preparing for the trip, and
all the years since Katie was seven years old and won this trip and started
saving to fund a well on her own. We got to see a dream come true as clean
water gushed forth from “our” well.
Everyone lined up for photos around the well: photos of
Katie and Hannah with the kids, photos of our team with the kids, and then a photo
of just our team.
In celebration of this moment, I pulled out a pineapple
stamp and an ink pad and asked Hannah to stamp each kid’s forearm while I took
photos. It was my way of passing on the love for my Hawaiian ohana, Leilani
(who is called the Pineapple Princess by her family).
It was time for us to head inside the church for our
dedication ceremony and worship service. The church members had reserved the
front row seats for our team and it took me a moment to realize the men were
separated from the women. After we sat, we were welcomed by the pastor and
elders and then a few soloists got up to lead us in worship songs.
Katie was very self-conscious during the service because she
removed her sunglasses to be respectful in church. She was also in pain from
her swollen eye and sweaty from being inside the hot church (we all were),
which made her pretty miserable. It was hard for her to enjoy the service.
After a while, our team members were asked to come stand at
the front of the church. I wasn’t exactly sure why, until every church member
stood and formed a line to hug us one by one. It was overwhelmingly beautiful
and such an honor.
At one point, I stepped out of line to take a photo and
happened to catch Dan’s eye. His chin was trembling and he was tearing up, just
like me. A thought popped into my head about the significance of this day in my
life: on October 26, 1996 my brother Jackson died from cancer. Now, 21 years
later, I was celebrating life on what has typically been one of the hardest
days of the year for me. I felt God redeeming this day in a way I never
expected.
After the line of hugs ended, everyone took their seats
again. The pastor asked any team members who wanted to speak to come to the
front and say some words. One by one, we spoke while Blanca translated for us.
As much as I hate public speaking, this was actually the most enjoyable public
speech I’ve ever made. Maybe because I had to slow down and wait for
translation? Or maybe because I felt like the room was full of people I could
consider friends and extended family.
When our speeches ended, boxes of Bibles appeared and each
team member grabbed a pile to hand deliver to every adult in the church. Every
person I handed a Bible to had this look of pure joy and gratitude on their
face. Not only had we helped this village access clean water, but we got to
give them God’s Word – the true living water that sustains eternally.
The pastor ended the service by asking everyone to step
outside and circle around the well. He prayed a dedication over it, gave it a
few pumps, and we all clapped when the ceremonial first water poured out. We
spent some more time taking photos around the pump. This family photo includes
a drawing Jackson made for us to take to Guatemala, so it’s the closest thing
to having Jackson there with us.
Just ten minutes later, it was time for us to say goodbye
and leave town. We gave countless hugs and many thank yous, and just as we were
about to depart our friend Alder ran up to give us one more goodbye. He didn’t
think he’d be able to see us before we left, but he got out of school and raced
to see us. It was the perfect farewell, then we loaded the van and waved
goodbye while some of the kids chased our van down the road.
We made a short stop on the side of the road when we were
talking about crops we were passing. Blanca told us the fields were full of
sesame seed plants, which made us very curious. She snatched a plant and showed
us the pods on it.
When you split the pods, you find tiny sesame seeds inside!
Blanca told us the farmers let the pods dry on the plants, then harvest the
seeds by walking along and shaking the plants to loosen the sesame seeds into
waiting baskets.
We drove an hour back to Retalhuleu and stopped at our hotel
for a potty break, then hit the road for Antigua. The time stamp on my last
photo in Retalhuleu said 12:51pm, which will become an important fact a bit
later.
Katie’s eye was hurting a lot, and she needed some quiet
time to withdraw. She sat in the van’s back row and listened to music on her
phone, while the rest of us chatted a bit and settled in to relax for the
two-hour drive.
About thirty minutes into the drive, traffic came to a
standstill. We sat patiently, then curiosity got the best of Dan and he opened
his Waze travel app on his phone to find out what the traffic issue was. He
could see an incident just a little bit up the road, and we realized this was a
good time to refuel, have one last bathroom break, and buy snacks at a gas
station right beside the road. While we waited for the bathroom and bought
snacks, rain started falling. All of a sudden, Nestor and Jaime started
hurrying us to get back into the van. Some of us were still buying snacks and
got flustered with converting the money, and I think we ended up spending WAY
too much money on Snickers and Cokes!
When we got back into the van, this was our view of the road
and the huge traffic jam that had only worsened while we stopped. Yes, traffic
was stopped both ways, with drivers making their own lanes on the road’s
shoulders.
Nestor and Blanca explained what Jaime found out at the gas
station: apparently there wasn’t a traffic accident up the road. It was a
highway shutdown! Local truck drivers were protesting working conditions by
simply stopping their trucks in the middle of the road and causing chaos for
the police to clear. Jaime was told the mess could take a few hours to clear or
maybe even a few DAYS. What?! Jaime’s plan was to slowly work his way through
the traffic and get to the area where the protests were centered, which is
where the traffic jam ended in one direction and started in the opposite
direction. We all hunkered down for a long drive, thinking it would just be a
slight delay. Yeah… right! Eventually, we passed a gas station where a bunch of
protestors were gathered. You can’t see it well in this photo, but this was it.
Katie had been steadily feeling worse because her eye kept
hurting, even with ibuprofen. She was still sitting in the back row of the van
and seemed to be caving into herself the longer our road trip took.
We kept driving slowly for what seemed like forever. The
traffic would clear just a little bit, only to get bogged down in other areas
because now the oncoming traffic had a huge jam. Once we cleared the major
messes, we stopped on the other side for a quick break. When we stopped, I asked
Katie to hop out of the van and let me add more drops to her eyes. By this
point, I had started putting drops in both eyes because I noticed her touching
the “good” one once in a while. She refused the drops until we were far enough
away from the van where no one could see her, then broke down crying on my
shoulder when I finally got them in her eyes. My heart ached, wishing I could
make this hurt less for her – or at least get us back to Antigua so she could
go to sleep.
When we got back in the van, Katie and I hogged the back row
so she could stretch out with her head on my lap and (hopefully) sleep. As we
started the last leg of our epic road trip, someone decided we should start
singing hymns to pass the time. This is when the holiest part of the entire
trip happened for me. At first, I barely sang in the back seat because I didn’t
want to wake Katie if she slept. Instead, I tried whispering the words as a
prayer to God to help her feel better. Pretty soon, the whispers turned into
shaky songs and then became full-out worship. From my seat I could see everyone
in the van, singing along and even raising their hands in praise to God. I had
my sweet daughter’s head in my lap, giving her comfort and stroking her hair.
Dan was in the front seat, nodding his head with the singing. In the midst of
this bizarre, endless road trip situation with our bodies crammed into a van, our
stomachs empty, pink eye spreading by the minute, and not knowing when we’d
make it home, we could actually turn it into a two-hour long worship service
unlike any I’d ever witnessed. I felt God’s presence in that van with every
song we sang in testimony of His glory.
I wish I could share photos of these moments, but the van
was dark and the roads were bumpy. I do have dark videos of the singing, but
only because the audio is something I wanted to capture so I could relive the
moment later. Of course, no video/audio recording could ever measure up to
those moments in the van on a dark Guatemalan highway.
We finally arrived at the Living Water compound in Antigua around 8:30pm, after leaving Caballo Blanco at 11:40am. What should have taken three hours took a total of nine hours. We were hungry and tired, and Katie was barely hanging on so I whisked her to our room and got her into bed. I wet paper towels for her to wipe her eyes (then throw away), and we curled into bed together. She finally fell asleep without eating dinner, so I went to grab a quick dinner before everyone headed to bed.
Click here to read about day 7 of our trip to Guatemala. (The link will work when the next blog is posted. Soon!)
