Moderator

So, dear reader, you may wonder what has happened to the moderator and his party over the last couple of weeks.  Is he alive?  Has he been kidnapped?  Did he and his party go over a mountain on a bus?  Has he simply decided to remain in Central America rather than returning to the responsibilities of life in Canada?  What has happened to the moderator!  After all, I had promised to give regular updates of our trip, and it is now over a week since my last blog.

Well, the good news is that we are all still alive and are now enjoying one day of R&R in Antigua before we fly out of Guatemala City tomorrow to return to Canada.  Ken Kim has just left to fly to Baltimore for a meeting tomorrow of  the North American members of the ACT Alliance (ACT is an alliance of 100 churches and church-related organisations that work together in humanitarian assistance and development), leaving the three of us (Barb Summers, the Communications Coordinator for PWS&D, my wife Shirley and me) to explore the city on our own.

Antigua is the colonial capital of Central America and a major tourist destination today.  We are staying in a beautiful hotel in the heart of the city and Barb is swimming in the pool as I write this blog.  The sun has just come out after a rainy night, and we will spend the day relaxing and touring this charming city nestled beneath three volcanoes.

The reader may be wondering why the silence over the last week or so.  The answer is a combination of a busy schedule, intermittent internet access, a run-in with gluten (I’ll share that experience in a subsequent blog) and 48 hours as the victim of Montezuma’s Revenge.  The good news is that with the help of Ken and Barb’s experience and wisdom and a dose of a potent antibiotic (what Barb described as an “internal nuclear explosion for any bacteria living in your body”) Shirley and I have not only survived the trip, we also come away with a deeper appreciation of the work of our church with our mission partners here in Nicaragua and Guatemala, lasting memories, hundreds of photographs and an extra suitcase filled with gifts from our mission partners and purchases from street vendors (they can see a receptive buyer – a.k.a. “sucker” – a mile away).

This will probably be my last blog before we return to Canada, but I’ll continue to give posts after we return to share some of our experiences and some of my own reflections from the trip.  I would like to share one major impression that I have before I close off today.  Before we left Guatemala City to continue our journey to visit some of our mission partners working in more rural areas of the country, we had breakfast with Dennis Smith, an American Missionary from the PCUSA.  Dennis has lived and worked in Guatemala for thirty-three years and has an in-depth knowledge of the region.  Near the end of our conversation Dennis asked us what our own impressions were after our time thus far.  I replied that for all of the incredible challenges facing the church and the people of Central America, I had a deep sense of hope after visiting with our mission partners and meeting the people with whom they work.  Their resilience is incredible, their faith is real and deep, and it is clear that God is at work among them and through them.  Dennis nodded and said, “Yes, your impression is the same as most people who visit the region.  The chief export of Nicaragua and Guatemala is not coffee or gold or handicrafts.  It is hope.”

And so I return to Canada exhausted yet energized with a renewed sense of hope and a clearer sense of the part The Presbyterian Church in Canada plays in nurturing that hope.  See you back in Canada!