One of the outstanding hallmarks of Eagle's Nest orphanage is how they highlight being a part of the local community. Throughout our conversations with Pedro & Felis (the directors of the orphanage) they’ve emphasized the importance of connecting the lives of the children with their community. Recently the children helped organize and participated in the first ever breast cancer awareness walk in this area. Each participant was asked to donate Q5. The kids took the collections boxes and while they were walking asked for donations.  They raised about Q1000 and donated it to a local clinic which paid for eight mammograms (exchange rate is $1.00 to Q7.4).

Today we had a very eventful day -- if I can call it that --  since we went zip-lining. I was all primed for it… except that while talking with Job (Isaac) on the bus, this weird idea began creeping up on me that perhaps I should consider to whom I should leave my few earthly possessions before taking my life in my hands and letting it slip through them. I know that I am exaggerating, and that being up there was, perhaps, safer than walking down the streets of Guatemala City or taking the city buses, that I was being “irrational” and that they do take measures to make it relatively safe. I don’t know how much thought did I give to any of that, but I had this “hunch” or “gut feeling” gnawing inside me.

The work projected was finished today! I am so glad that we have finally completed it, now we will have even more time with the kids tomorrow, our last day at the orphanage.

In the morning English class we read the story of Adam and Eve, and their choice to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then, as a fun craft for the kids we made "harmonicas" (that acted more like kazoos) out of Popsicle sticks, pieces of paper, and rubber bands. The kids definitely enjoyed it, and the harmonicas were luckily rather quiet when played. The picture below is of Gabriel proudly and happily playing his harmonica, despite being deaf.

Haven’t had such a good Sabbath in a long time; I think it’s always refreshing to step out of the same old rut and I feel that having the Sabbath in a different place, with different people and with a different format for services, accomplished that purpose. I understand that these small things help to enliven the spirit.

Hermann Hesse lamented that “it is hard to find this track of the divine in the midst of this life we lead.” What follows is a bit negative, but I’ll put the rest of the phrase nonetheless: “in this besotted humdrum age of spiritual blindness, with its architecture, its business, its politics, its men!” I think the Sabbath is a good time to seek it.