Deep-friend Goodness at the OC Fair!

My church community group decided to go to the OC fair together :)

My pastor's kid Josh and me. The kid won't stand still!

Word to the wise: the fair is suicide for any healthy woman's diet! There was fried everything- onion rings, fries, twinkies, snickers, and even coke!

So much meat! :)

We gorged on food. Haha. His expression is priceless!

Oh the daring bite of the deep-fried snickers! It was actually good (or at least the grease-filled bite I had).

Josh and his human ride, Uncle Chae.

The world's largest cow. I was so disturbed after seeing this... Poor thing couldn't even stand in its tiny pen.

The OC group, plus my sister :D

impromptu

So my sister and I decided to take an impromptu evening-trip (can't even call it a daytrip since we left so late!) to her stamping grounds of San Diego!

The classy yet comfortable ambiance of Bombay Cafe, a tasty Indian restaurant in Hillcrest, an area in downtown sd.

A candid of a charming couple. I like to imagine that he's proposing to her...

Sarah and me. I'm seriously considering that I might be adopted. We look nothing alike.

What trip to SD is complete without making a run to Extraordinary desserts! Oh, Karen Krasne, how do you do it?

Tea for two.

White chocolate raspberry lignete. Or something delightful like that.

surprise

For my friend Julia's birthday, we held a surprise partyfor her at midnight!

What was left of a beautiful fruit cake after a dozen or so college kids got to it...

The unique hair tying sticks (i don't know what to call them) Scottie brought her from the UK.

Some of us hooligans late into the night.

Last day in Guate :(

So for breakfast in Panajachel, we went to this beautiful garden restaurant.

Sadly, a blurry picture of the group of us during breakfast. Apparently, people in Guate have a hard time using cameras cause a lot of my group pictures taken by waitresses, students, locals, etc. are blurry :(

My breakfast! Yum!

Panajachel's view of the volcanoes. Thanks to Chris and Janet for ruining my photostitch! (haha, I kid, I kid...)

The group in front of the lake.

The three of us chinos (according to everyone and their mother in guate).

Apparently, Chris got obsessed with the green chili sauce there and brought back two bottles.

When we returned from Pana to Guatemala City, Katie Eller gave us name bracelets. She'd spent her money to get bracelets made for us in Pana while we were shopping. What a sweetheart, I know... Katie has a heart for the muslim people and wants to someday be a missionary in the Middle East. (She's 13! I was pickin' my nose when I was her age...) God is going to work mightily in her. She's awesome!

Ivonne dropped by to say goodbye. She even brought us candy! Janet and I had some good girl talk with her that night! ;)

Panajachel... Starbucks' got nothin' on us.

I wish I took more pictures in Pana, the tourist city we stayed at for the day, debriefing and spending time shopping! It was fun, relaxing, and beautiful!

So we met this guy, Mike, who's this crazy hippie coffee guy (been working coffee for the past 20 years all over the world) while walking along the streets of Pana. He opened his coffee place up in 2000 in Panajachel. It was crazy to hear his testimony and how he told us that if he could do ministry with his coffee, we can do anything.

Inside this nook and cranny.

The pounds and pounds of coffee beans from all over the world in his roasting room.

Mike, Janet, me, Chris, and Fabio at Mike's coffee place. He's a good friend of our missionaries and even opened the place up for us so we could buy some beans!

Last day of ministry

Our last ministry opportunity was to run a children's program at Mely and Otto's church.

Kate teaching kids English before the program started! (I was so in love with the little boy with the soccer ball and bowl cut!)

We made wordless book bracelets (using pipe cleaners is an ingenious idea!).

While prepping to give my testimony, these girls, eye-ing my camera, asked to take a picture!

Daniel's wife, Ivonne, couldn't get off work to do work with us in Nenton.... so JANET replaced her as a clown! Here's the make-up prepping...

Tada! Janet, the payacita!

Pictures of just the girls before Janet, Chris, and I left the rest of the group! :( Julia, Kate, me, Janet, Laura, and Katie.

Chris stayed with Al and Pat Colton, another missionary family we were working with!

Angie, the girl on the right, is Mely and Otto's kid. She's a sweetheart!

Janet and me with the Eller kids! They are such amazing kids! God's going to do wonderful things through them!

During our stay, Chris became Ben's bestfriend. It was the cutest thing!

Pastors visits and Nenton!

We visited lots of Chuj villages to encourage the pastors and ask questions to their wives! Here are the pastor's kids from one of the villages!

After village visitations, we headed back to Nenton. With a little downtime, Julia and I went down to the river and had some girl talk. Regardless of where you're from, girl talk always revolves around career, boys/marriage, and weddings. Haha. How universal.

Afterwards, meeting with the group to talk about our ministry plans for the youth group program that night.

Here's us with Mely and Otto, the pastor we stayed with in Nenton. Mely's a missionary who used to serve in South Africa and Liberia. Hearing what she's been doing throughout her life as a missionary was so inspiring.

Chuj Bible Dedication!

So at the wee hours of the morning (er, night actually at 3:30 am) we loaded up our cars and headed out to San Mateo Ixtacan, where the Chuj Bible dedication would be taking place! For the first time, the Chuj people would hold a Bible written their language in their hands!

The view from the ride. It was amazing! We were above some of the clouds at 10,ooo feet up!

The reason we had to leave so early was that we were a part of this 40 car caravan! People from all these villages borrowed these big vans and headed up the mountain together!

Group picture at one of the stops. You wouldn't guess by the picture, but all the girls are freakin' cold because we had to wear skirts in the cold!

Pee stop became a viewpoint as people watched the vans struggling to make it up the muddy turns.

What should have been a 3.5 hour drive became an 8 hour drive because of the steep turns and the muddy roads. They got smart after a while and started pulling some of the vans up! Teamwork, at its finest! ;)

Me, Kate, and Janet at one of the stops (there were way too many with the vans not being able to climb the roads).

Eight hours later, at the Bible dedication! It was amazing to see everyone there!

Helen and David Ecstrom, honored for their translation work of the Chuj Bible!

Okay, so I didn't get any pictures, but we sold Bibles to the people. It was pure chaos! People were clawing and stampeding (I got annihilated!) to buy their copy! It was insane! And by the way, it started raining, so we were drenched and wedged between anxious Chuj people hungry for the Word! I've never seen so many people being so aggressive about getting Bibles! Ironically, it was awesome and humbling!