Thanksgiving Trip to Baja Verapaz - Cubulco

We headed out on Thursday morning for Cubulco, Baja Verapaz about 4 hours north of Guatemala City in the mountains.  This is where AMG operates a hospital and we have friends that are missionaries with FRMI, Ken and Jen VanMinnen.  We were excited to celebrate Thanksgiving in a very new and different way! We brought along a turkey and enjoyed the amazing views on the trip up.  The road through the mountains was amazing...sometimes with sheer dropoffs and no guardrails...a bit hairy! 

We arrived and I introduced Mary to Julio and Veronica, the directors of our hospital.  We stayed in the hospital guest house and our boys stayed at the VanMinnens.  Friday morning the plan was to head deep into the mountains and hike across a suspended bridge over a river then visit a remote village where Ken ministers to the Mayan people.  We arrived at the bridge only to find many Mayans there...Ken was very surprised telling us that normally noone was around! We soon learned that the President of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom was going to soon make a historic visit to this small village in order to pledge his support of the people and a new bridge for them... we were about to witness something no President had ever done!!!

We crossed the bridge, at 300 meter long and 70' high (above the river) this was quite the frightening experience.  Many other Mayans were attempting to cross along with us and at one point the bridge twisted to one side and gave us quite a shock! We made it across and then turned around to head back... about halfway across a helicopter came right down beside us and landed in a field.  We basically ran across and arrived just in time to see the President.  We listened to him a moment and then went down through the woods and visited with his security team.  We warmed up to them and they allowed us to cross the security line and get right up close so that we could meet the President when he returned to his helicopter.  The kids talked with the soldiers protecting him and one even gave Jordan a bullet from his automatic rifle.  We got to greet the President on the way out and thought the whole experience was just incredibly cool.  Afterwards we returned to Kens pickup truck only to find it full of Mayan people wanting a ride to town.  We obliged and had a nice ride back through the mountains.

We are incredibly thankful this year for our family, friends our ministry here in Guate and Gods goodness.  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!