Jol Tulija Part 5 – El Tumbo

El Tumbo: Not sure how far away this is...but is takes 4 hours to walk to Diamante from here and Jol Tulija is 1 hr driving from Diamante. There is one baptized brother and his family living in El Tumbo and yes, they walk 4 hrs to the meeting in Diamante where there is a primitive Kingdom Hall and group. This day we decided to give convention invitations in El Tumbo so that we could begin by visiting this brother and encouraging him and his family. He and two of his daughter who are publishers joined us this day and were so happy to see us, 14 of us, half from Jol Tulija and half from Diamante group.
We drove the beast again, Grants huge truck that has the crazy wrap on it. Well, the night before I was wondering what one would do should one’s vehicle break down? There are no tow trucks, the only mechanics are in the larger cities hours away...what to do? Little did we know we would find out the very next day.
As Grant arrived in Jol Tulija to pick us up that morning he commented on the battery light coming on, Hmmmm?
Seven of us pile into the truck, we drive to Diamante, pick up 7 more passengers into the bed of the truck, drive to El Tumbo...now 2 hrs later. We walk up a tall hill and are told that the brother lives at the bottom of the other side, down a very wet, muddy path. The first 3 photos are of us on the hill and paths. Another rubber boot day!
As mentioned the family was so happy to see us, the teenage girls immediately got dressed to join us and one of them went to get Dad from the fields. In no time he too had joined us.





Here we are, some of us anyway, our isolated brother is next to Mike at the far right end.
So back to the story, we had a late start so we worked into the lunch hour and were very hungry, by 2 pm we had found everyone and were all back at the beginning to eat lunch. Grant had just moved the truck to a better location to park it and informed us that now it won’t start again. The men in the group begin putting their heads together to assess the problem. A helpful local man pulls up in his tractor and offers to help. We decide to eat lunch in the back of the truck since we were starving and obviously not going anywhere for the time being.
Starving and not going anywhere...the girls pick up some WIFI. Who knew?
After much deliberation and passersby stopping to offer their opinions...Oh, did I mention we don’t have jumper cables? Sorry, you were probably wondering why we didn’t just use them….we don’t have them, and neither does anyone in all of El Tumbo. But the brother quickly goes home, up and down the muddy hill, to cut some electrical wire from his house for us to try instead of cables. Yikes!

Here you see Mike and Felix helping to charge the battery with fake cables and rocks to press on the connections. We all prayed of course for this to work. Grant and Maritza say that real cable never could jump this truck for some reason, so the fake ones were a long shot. After about 5 minutes or so, they gave it a shot and it started right up! Grant saved the wire for future use. He said real cable would just get stolen, but maybe not this wire.
All good? We thought so ! We say our good byes to the brother, pile into the truck, all 14 of us and head down the road. Less than a 1/2 mile later, POP! Yep, we blow a tire, and would you like to know something else? It was the spare. So there is no spare!
So Grant tries to turn around and with no 4 wheel drive (it’s broke too) and no good front wheel, we get stuck. So we send two girls back on foot to find the helpful local man with the tractor and wait about 20 minutes for him to come help us. We also sent the 7 Diamante friends ahead on foot to find other transportation and continue with some nearby Bible studies. So now we are 7 again, it is getting late and we are cold. Tractor guy is amazing and literally pulls us out of our rut with one graceful move hooking his bucket to the hitch. Another Yikes! But it worked!

 
So we decide to park the truck back in town and take a Combi home, a large public van. Well, everything happens extremely slowly here for some reason and suddenly it is 5pm and no more Combis...however we are waiting right out front of the home of a Combi driver who has parked his van for the night. Maritza decides to go plead with him to take us home. Now remember we are almost 2 hrs from home...a lot to ask of a man who is home for the night.
Guess what? He says sure! He agreed to take all 7 of us for 300 pesos, a bargain for our request. ($24 dollars)
Well, 30 minutes out of town he pulls over and asks us to all get out and change into a pick up truck to take us the rest of the way, something he had evidently radioed ahead to arrange for us. We get moved over to the pick up now driven by a young fellow accompanied by his 3 little brothers, and 10 minutes later find all 7 of the Diamante friends just finishing their studies and waiting for a ride that was never coming. So they pile in the back, Mike said it looked like a circus car in reverse as they all climbed in.
We eventually get to Diamante and let off the 7, continue on to Jol Tulija, picking up a few random passengers and a couple of chickens along the way. By the way, Mike emptied his witnessing bag on the passengers and the drivers 3 little brothers. He asked the youngest, named Fred, if he enjoyed reading his Bible. Fred replied that he only gets to read it at church because he did not have one at home. So Mike offered to give him his copy from his bag if Fred would promise to read one chapter every day. He happily agreed and was so pleased to have his own Bible.
Finally we arrive and after all the extra passengers and the vehicle change we still only paid 300 pesos. Tired, cold, and ready for a hot bucket shower, we were never so happy to see our sad little shack. Yes, somewhere around week 3 this place and all of its quirks has started to grow on us. If you would like to plan a visit, we recommend at least 3 weeks to get you over the initial shock and to start enjoying it all.
We attend the Tzeltal District Convention this weekend, 6-8th in Chancala and return to Merida on or before Monday the 16th. I will try to write again before that. Sending our love to you all!

Jol Tulija Part 4 – San Jose

 

San Jose is the second closest village to Jol Tulija. A quick ride by car or truck. The truck in the photo is owned by one of the many unbaptized publishers in the congregation. Did we mention that most of the congregation are unbaptized publishers? They are at every meeting and support service zealously...this day would have been a typical day in the fields for these brothers. However, they responded well to encouragement earlier in the week to help us finish covering San Jose with the convention invitations before we run out of time. So 10 of us piled into the truck and headed up the road to the rugged village of San Jose, lots of hills and mud this day, it had rained the entire night before.

This is another typical home.

 

 

 

This was our lunch spot, the front porch of a Bible students home with the benches from the back of our truck. The meal was another potluck of course, we are starting to enjoy them.

 

See the rugged muddy terrain. No real driveways, as no one has vehicles, just foot paths. We wore our rubber boots! Glad to have them with us. We did not take notes of any kind, and frankly I don’t know how we would have. There are no names to the “streets” but the government did paint numbers on each home. You see a narrow path and just keep trekking through the hills and keep finding more homes. Finally you have to ask the householder if there are any more homes or you could just keep going...some foot paths belong to the pigs so they lead nowhere.

Jol Tulija Part 3 - Chancala Assembly Hall and “we need a truck!”

 

The Assembly Hall is located in Chancala, 45 minutes from Jol Tulija. Chancala is a small city with a market and vendors and internet cafes. Carina and the Lees are in both of the dramas for their convention in December so we accompanied them to one of their rehearsals at the Assembly Hall which they have every Saturday. This particular Saturday the Chol convention was also having their rehearsals so the group was large. The noon meal was another shared one, Carina prepared a seafood salad on tostadas that our group ate and shared with others and we nibbled on what the others brought as well. They put many mix matched tables end to end to seat all of us insisting that we all sit “together”, about 50 total. This day was very encouraging, to see the friends travel from hours away each week for these rehearsals, looking forward to the fellowship it will bring. They don’t view it as a sacrifice, rather a privilege! They have very little, yet they lovingly share it with one another. Many of these ones have moved from other parts of Mexico, leaving family and friends, to support the Tzeltal and Chol fields, their example was heartwarming.

The roof above is basically all there is to this Assembly Hall, a roof and concrete floors. Primitive bathrooms are in the side yard. A very nice Kingdom Hall sits on this property as well as a two story building with 2 overseer suites and storage rooms.

In the second photo I am in the green shirt standing at the street entrance of the property, notice the pink two story building behind me inside the wall? These are the CO suites. On a later occasion we spent the night in one of these when it was too late to catch a bus home. The CO was on the road and the guest bed was free, that room is currently storing drama props too. We had to used Queen Esthers purple velour pillows from her divan to sleep that night. Shhh don’t tell.

A few times since we arrived we have found ourselves in this predicament, away from home too late to find transportation and needing somewhere to sleep unexpectedly...not my idea of good planning and not something I want to continue doing. So we are working on that. Carina just keeps an extra toothbrush in her purse because she constantly finds herself in this situation, I however am determined not to adopt this practice, too stubborn I guess.

Well guess what, last night it happened again, we were in Palenque grocery shopping and using the internet (sending you Part 1 and 2 thank you very much!) The last van home leaves at 5pm. So by 4pm we arrive at the terminal like good responsible adults only to find that they were already closed and gone! Apparently not all of their drivers showed up and they just stopped running for the day at 3:30. Our veggies and water we purchased earlier that day were locked inside. Carina suggested we (4 of us) stay the night around the corner at a sisters tiny place...probably on the floor with no blankets. Remember, she has the toothbrush! For fear that I would have another mini meltdown, Mike kindly agreed that he and I get a cheap hotel room, so for $170 pesos or $14 we had privacy and a hot shower, a real one with a shower head and everything! These days the shower alone is worth $14, it was wonderful. We bought a toothbrush at the store and made the best of it with renewed determination to plan ahead better next time. We are continually finding that a vehicle of our own would solve most of these problems. Otherwise you are always in a group relying on someone else for transportation and whatever the group does, you do. Lots of waiting and late nights or unexpected sleepovers.

The third photo is the truck we rode home in the day of rehearsals. An elder from the neighboring congregation owns it and uses it to “haul” the friends around. Again we found ourselves away from home too late for public transport, but this brother agreed to squeeze us in as he had to pass Jol Tulija to take his group home. We were over 20 persons! Sisters get to sit on benches, brothers get to stand in the middle. A snug ride where you find yourself touching 4 people involuntarily at any given moment, but still better than a sleepover.

Hopefully you are getting the sense of what things are like here, there is definitely a flow and we are finding that you either go with the flow or find yourself struggling and uncomfortable. We are learning many things about ourselves, like the need for more flow :)

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Jol Tulija Part 2 - The Village and Field Service

The village and field service I said Jol Tulija was the most primitive of villages in this area...If you imagined a primitive village with huts and dirt paths...you are not too far off. Children and animals run wild with no boundaries. Everyone knows or is related to everyone and there are no strangers to be weary of. Children as young as 2 are seen running around with each other, no mother in sight. She is likely washing and grinding corn to make the days tortillas. Or scrubbing clothes in the river. The fathers are in the fields working the land, right now bringing in the crops of corn, beans or coffee. They travel on foot mostly and haul their crop home in large sacks on their backs! Some have horses or donkeys to carry the load, one or two have trucks. The day starts at the break of dawn and we wake each day to the sound of children laughing or crying, mothers washing dishes at the “tube” just 20 feet from our bedroom window...turkeys make a lot of noise, and not just gobble-gobble mind you. Yes, the village is lively until about 7pm when it is too dark to be productive. Most children are not in school, they swim and play in the river all day, run through the village discovering things, frequently stopping by “hermana Carina’s” house...yes, we are all Hermana, even Mike, they don’t realize he should be called Hermano! Some of the really timn ones just say Mana...they don’t realize what they are saying, remember Spanish is their second language. When they stop by it is to stare at us in the doorway of the house, ask us how to say things in English, sometimes they offer to help us get water. Once or twice they have asked us for a peso ($.12) Mike cleverly pretends they are asking for a beso (kiss) and he pretends he is going to kiss them, then they run and giggle. It works every time. These are photos of the homes in this village, and here are some beans drying, they will later open them and keep them for the family. They generally keep what they grow for themselves, there is not enough to sell.

A short walk through the village and along the rivers edge brings you to the “lagoon”, a nice swimming spot as you can see. Jol Tulija means “head” (jol) of the water (ja) the village sits near the start of this beautiful river that feeds many waterfalls and streams down the mountain.

Our first day in the ministry began with a 1 hr walk to the nearest village, La Siria. This town straddles the nearest paved main road so it is the closest access to a taxi or van to take you elsewhere. Although here in Chiapas, a “taxi” can mean any obliging driver...any car or truck will happily stop and ask where you are going and take you there for 10 pesos. Hitchhiking!?!? you might gasp...well, I guess so, but it is what everyone does...cars are rare and so are pesos, so the people are willing to share both! Win -win! Don’t worry mom we are always in groups of 4 or more when we do this, I promise! So as you can see from the photos, the area is quite lovely. There are misty mountain views around every corner. It continues to remind us of the rurals of Kentucky. Chiapas is one of the most impoverished states in Mexico, so much of what we see looks just like the unassigned territory of Eastern Kentucky. This day we visited a young woman who needed encouragement to continue coming to meetings. She has only had one formal Bible study, but had already attended all three days of a convention last year and has continued on her own to study and read whatever she could, she has a table filled with Bible literature and wanted the more recent items available. The following week we returned to do the campaign work in her town. We took lunch for all 11 of us and left it in her kitchen that morning. When we returned at 12 she had it all laid out and two large tables set to accommodate us in her families large kitchen. She prepared drinks and tortillas to go with our food and together we all enjoyed a trilingual meal. Lots of word sharing at meal time…”how do you say this?” or “this?” Mike even told the one Spanish joke he knows and it was a big hit! This woman was so happy to have us in her home as if we were her family! Her hospitality was heartwarming. That morning we probably met 10 former students, who long to resume their study. These were some who could not be studied with regularly because of the lack of teachers here to conduct the studies, so they didn’t make progress. However, they miss their studies and were so happy to have even a brief visit. It helped us to see firsthand what we had previously heard of, more students than the local congregation can handle. The bottom photos show you how we get to the territory when Grant and Maritza are with us using their large truck. There are 3 benches in back, up to 6 can fit in the cab creatively, and about 12 or more in the back, with room to pick up a few hitchhikers along the way :)

San Geronimo is a village about 1 hr away by truck. A neighboring congregation has been asked to assist in covering this area and they had their visit of the Circuit Overseer this week so we met with all of them in the front yard of a Bible student’s home for service. We later met back at 12 for lunch at her home as well, she spent the morning preparing tortillas and chicken for all of us, about 40 of us total. Here are photos of us making groups in the front yard, we arrived by trucks pictured below, and left on foot for the territory. In this territory we found the same thing as in La Siria, many potential students, missing the visits they used to have. This area needs more workers. One man is this village offered land for a house and kingdom hall if the friends would promise to stay.

Tortilla preparation in the large kitchen. You can see the used corn cobs in the green bucket below the counter. The brothers gathered the benches from the back of the trucks and created seating areas for most of us. Many friends pack food and lay it all out to share. When we first packed lunch, it was a huge pot of pasta and such...we asked, “why don’t we just make sandwiches?” Well, when we got to the lunch area and saw this custom, we understood that it is better to bring something that can be shared, and then we all get a little bit of everything! Different concept for us, but really nice. As mentioned this was a Circuit overseer week with two congregations meeting, so the group was unusually large. And remember all of this activity occurred out of the home of a dear student!

A bench under a tree was a good place to take a break during service.

Visiting one of many waterfalls in the surrounding area, swimming with new friends!

Jol Tulija Part 1 - Pioneer Home, Hall and Water!

Dear friends and family,

We have now been in Jol Tuliaja, Chiapas for 2 weeks! We have had a full two weeks of varied activities and experiences, I will try to share the highlights and some accompanying photos for your viewing pleasure :)

Our good friends, Manuel and Wendy drove us to the bus station early in the morning. Thanks guys!

Our luggage barely fit in the car, the largest bag squished between us in the back seat! This bag contains our bed and blankets and pillows, we are glad we brought it all!

There are 28 villages in the territory for this one Tzeltal congregation. Jol Tuliaja is known to be the poorest and most primitive village in the area, but it is  where the kingdom hall and pioneer home are located. This village does not have running water to each home, rather the river is very close by and there is a public water source or “tube” that brings water a bit closer for those farther from the river. The homes are very simple wood construction with metal roofs and concrete floors They look much like a shed or barn would look to those of you in the USA. There are a few concrete buildings in the village, however these are rare. Most of them look just like the Pioneer home we will show you. It is common for the “kitchen” to be a detached building because the people have a wood burning “stove” (an elevated pit for making tortillas, their main staple) Our kitchen does not have this but is still detached as you will see. The rest of this email will focus on the home, the hall and the water. Enjoy...

 

Mike in the kitchen doorway, just 3 steps from the door to our bedroom. Not very far from the main house.

 Interior of the kitchen: all clean items are stored in containers as well as pantry items to keep them clear of bugs and rodents, the buildings are all “open air” so many small visitors can come and go as they please.

Top right is the “sink”, an open window at which we stand and wash dishes with water from a bucket. We rinse them out of the window where the water drains down the hill. Carina loves to cook so Mike and I are often on dish duty.

This clever sink design is unique to this kitchen, the other families in the village carry their dishes to the river to wash.

This kitchen is small, but well equipped. As pioneers have come and gone, they leave behind many helpful tools for future pioneers to benefit from. Thank you!

Above: view of the pioneer home from the front. There are 3 interior rooms and one bathroom that is in the shorter part off to the left, and the detached kitchen is in the back right. Mike is at the front door.

Below: view of the pioneer home from the back sort of, the detached kitchen is now in the front left of the photo. The two doors on the main building are for the two bedrooms, ours is on the left.

The Kingdom Hall: known as the blue building, same simple construction. The right walls are removable for larger crowds or to obtain a nice breeze as pictured in the 3rd photo.

Mike giving the public talk just days after arriving, notice Carina seated on the stage, she translated the talk into Tzeltal from English.

Mike posing with his three new buddies, Santiago, Santiagito, and shy Jamin  who wouldn’t stand up. Santiago is one of only 6 baptized brothers in the hall.

Mike taking the lead one morning in service, in Spanish!

Our street: notice the blue Kingdom  Hall, and the “kitchen” behind it. Just outside our open gate and across this street is the public water source.

We thought the home had running water to be hooked up when we arrived. Well, something has since broken and  can’t be fixed, hence the Tube, it is a pipe , a really long pipe that brings water from up the mountain where the river starts. So it is gravity fed and pours out water onto the ground all the time even when no one is around.  That  is until it breaks. And it broke on our third day here! Good news? The river is just a block or two from the house, and we have plenty of buckets, and now we know why.

So for 9 days we trekked to the rivers edge and back fetching water, lots and lots of water. Remember, you use water for just about everything? Yeah, well, you realize just how much you use when you start to measure it in buckets. Thankfully, this past Saturday afternoon, the town fathers got together and fixed it. When the water began to flow once again it felt like manna from heaven! Is that wrong?

The following shots are of the “tube” prior to it turning off. As mentioned, it is public, which apparently includes stray children, pigs , chickens, and turkeys!  All of which randomly roam through our yard constantly.

FYI: Mike is the only male in the village who can be seen fetching water...this is a woman’s job and  so he gets a lot of smiles and stares as he  performs this task.

 

 

Mike preparing his talks in the “living room”, one of the 3 rooms in the home. As you can see it has a bed because it doubles as a bedroom Wednesday through Sunday for Grant and Maritza. They usually stay 45 minutes away on the property of the Assembly Hall but have been trying to spend more time down here with the friends to encourage them.

The table and chairs are where we eat our meals together, all 6 of us, it is snug. Below are shots of our room, we sleep under a mosquito net, because the tops of the walls are open to the outside and everything can potentially come in at night.

We hang damp things in the room to dry because it has been too rainy to dry things outside. Notice the open suitcase, that was temporary! On our 3rd day here, the same day the Tube stopped supplying water, we discovered that a rat had ravaged our suitcase. It disturbs me to imagine what may have happened, it actually happened at night while we slept. One morning I sorted laundry to wash and noticed one of Mike’s shirt collars was chewed off! And a pair of his underwear was hanging out of the suitcase, half in and half out, suspicious...then I couldn’t find a pair of my under wear! At this point, Mike believed I was going crazy and that I must have moved his underwear, and I must not have packed the missing pair of mine. Then we remembered the night before hearing a plastic bag rustle near the edge of the room and discovered it had been half eaten as well, the remnants of it were in a small hole. So to prove me wrong, Mike shines his flashlight down the same hole and to his surprise and my horror he pulls out 3 small remnants of my underwear! This was the point at which I had my mini melt down! I quickly recovered and now we laugh about this. Oh, and Jol Tulija has one less rat these days :)            

THE END

What have we been up to? September

Many of you are keenly interested in what we have been up to all this time...well, we have been crazy busy for months now and even we ask ourselves.."what have we been doing?" Well, let's go back to this past September:

We had our Safeguard Your Heart District Convention mid-month and enjoyed the "reunion" atmosphere it brought. Our District covers the entire Yucatan Peninsula and part of Southern Mexico. So we had brothers travel from as far as Chiapas and Tabasco! We had an average attendance of 800 each day and 12 were baptized!

Our Bible students joined us for the convention, siblings Francisco, Andres, Eva and their new baby niece.

Mike and Francisco, in our Kingdom Hall, the night of Franks first talk on the school! He is battling Leukemia.

In our Assembly Hall for the District Convention.
Siblings, left to right, Andres, Eva, Frank

Carla and Eva and her niece Sandra, 2 months!

Frank, Andres, Eva and baby Sandra.

Frank, Andres, Mike and baby Sandra.

As you can see in the photos, the Assembly Hall looks very much like one in the States. Some of the major differences are the plastic stadium seats with no cushions and no carpet, but we have found it to be comfortable and very practical to maintain. And those are not florescent lights you see shining from the ceiling...no, they are clear roof panels letting in the strong Yucatan sunshine! Saves on electric, so we can spend our few pesos more wisely on air conditioning, which we were extremely grateful for.


A highlight for us personally was attending the meeting for the Bible School for Christian Couples. Previously the branch in Mexico only held this meeting for the Spanish conventions, for a Spanish school in Mexico. So this was the first convention season that a meeting was held for the English also, making it possible for English speakers to apply and attend an English class in the USA. So many of the long-time needgreaters here in Mexico have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to apply for this school. Needless to say, the response was overwhelming, there was no count made, but we estimate well over 75 couples attended the meeting. (remember we only had 800 total that day, so over 150 of them attended this special meeting) In fact, the meeting was held in a section of the main auditorium so as to fit all who attended, and the Circuit Overseer ran out of applications for those who qualified! (I just got goose-bumps as I re-read that)

This was such a highlight for us because it encouraged us in an unexpected way. Seeing so many couples in a similar situation to us, or just like us, serving outside their home country, without children, on a shoe-string budget or on their last jar of peanut butter as we say....but truly happy! And as we scanned the "crowd", we felt emotional with hearts warmed. All of us in that meeting have struggled with feelings of loneliness because of leaving our homes, friends and families, but for those few minutes, as we listened to the overseer speak to us, we all had such a strong feeling of not being alone, of being surrounded by fellow workers who completely understand our struggles and who are ready to come to our aid, of being completely cared for by our loving Father and having his favor, of being in the only place we want to be and the place we hope to remain forever. It was just the encouragement many of us needed to help us carry on with joy. It was a privilege just to be there, and therefore to be here in the English field of Mexico.

Sights To See!

We hope you haven't lost faith in us! We are working on several posts as we speak, but decided to send this one in the meantime to let you know we haven't forgotten that we started this blog. While you wait for future posts from us, how about you send us an update on yourself. We miss all of you very much and would love to stay connected. Let us know how you are, what you have been doing or just let us know you are ok. Thanks!

Ok, so these are very random pictures, mostly funny or odd sights we have seen along the way. There are so many more that could not be captured fast enough by our camera. We feel very "at home" here, but some days we see the craziest things, here are a few that have made us smile or in some cases reminded us we were in Mexico. Enjoy! (hint..if you click on a picture it gets bigger)

very common, usually to accommodate a toddler.

keep walking Mike...

Knock knock! 

No comment

one of many modified bugs we see in our travels.

how sad.

another modified bug...

Yes...that is Tequila for $1.20!!

go ahead and laugh, you have our permission

In the Centro Mercado, selling banana leaves for cooking tamales, cochinita or other vaporcitas.

Almost the real thing.

That's one way to protect your bare legs when using a weed-eater!

Sound car?

Often we see entire families on motorcycles like this, no helmets. Sometimes infants and toddlers too.

These are the Dirt Boys! They travel all over selling dirt in bags for use in your potted plants. Quite the little hustlers might I add. Very shrewd businessmen.

that's a lot of trash!

Hospitality after a talk in Cancun....can you tell where?...Costco! We had delicious pizza and good times!

6 inch? Yep! 

Mike and his student Francisco, chillin in our living room.

House over house?? Whose turn is it...let's skip this one.

We could not get her to smile...but she was still too cute in her traditional dress.