Getting my feet wet... or something like that.

Alright, so Antigua is pretty much fantastic. The pace of life is just slow enough to be relaxing but not so slow that it is boring. There are coffee shops and art everywhere. Museums dot the city and the streets are all cobblestone with matching wrought-iron lamps. Sometimes I feel like I walked into a Charles Dickens novel. Outside of the two block radius where the tour buses run is where Antigua really pulls you in to stay.

We are surrounded by 3 volcanoes, only one of which is active. They said earthquakes are pretty common, usually one or two a month, so having another on top of the first one we felt will be an adventure! If you would like to see more photos of Antigua, please click on the link here to see the Facebook album. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2279217&l=96367&id=16805052

The home I live in is not really a home so much as an international house for language students. I love the setup and I think I got the good end of the deal. For now, I live with two girls from the US, both of which are leaving today to go do a couple months of volunteer work out in the villages and a Catholic priest from Korea. Everyone calls him “Padre”, and he doesn’t speak a word of English. It is really neat to think that we all sit down around the dinner table and none of us is communicating in our native tongue. He has been here for ten months and will be here for two more, so I am really excited to be able to pick his brain about the syncretism of Catholicism and Animism in Latin America.

Guatemala right now is experiencing the end of their rainy season, so it has been pretty wet most days, but the winter brings lots of blue sky, and they say the season should end next week or so. Its already a bit crisp and chilly at night, so it is perfect outdoor cafe weather. It is so beautiful the way the clouds swirl around the mountains with the steep slopes of the lush jungle and abundant flowers as a foreground. I had forgotten how blue the sky actually is.

We go to class in the mornings from 8-12 and then have the rest of the day off. The school we attend is one-on-one tutoring and the school offers cultural activities every day of the week such as visiting ancient ruins or museums, hiking up a volcano to roast marshmallows over lava, or going to a coffee mill. I was able to see the volcano erupt some from my roof and we had a small earthquake later the next day, so there are a lot of new experiences going on. My professor’s name is Mirian and she is hilarious. She picks at her fingernail polish a lot, but we'll work on it. I have already been able to share my testimony with her and tell her about Christ as part of my practice, so the Lord is really blessing things already.

Even though I am here as a missionary, you would be surprised how easy it is to become complacent down here. It is so easy to want to go out and discover a new part of the city, find a new cafe that I can escape to, explore an ancient ruin, or go pursue relationships for the sake of meeting new people (there are droves of young Europeans here with awesome accents. Sometimes I secretly wish I had one). Continue to pray for me to be intentional and to be always mindful of the task that Christ has given me. When I do get into the Word, all I can think about is why in the world I feel I could live life without it. Then the "Nation of Israel" in me forgets it as I look outside and see the ample opportunities on the slops beneath me and it all flies out of my mental window. Lame.

Missing all of you. Please continue to pray for me and update me on what has been going on in your lives!

Awaiting His Return,

Ryan