God is not only in the church

On Sunday, I had one of the coolest spiritual and cultural experiences of my life. 

It was Sunday which meant it was Mass (I moved!  Now, I'm living with a great Catholic family... more on that in another blog).  Anyways, this mass was incredibly special, it was a Mass to pray for rain.  The municipality began a tradition years ago that on a certain Sunday, the entire Catholic community (9 churches from each of the 9 pueblos in the municipality) would hike up and have mass on top of the highest mountain in the area.  It's like the FIUCC boat-in service, but a lot more work (4 hours of hiking up a mountain cuesta mas que 30 minutes in a speedboat!).  Anyways, the last priest didn't like the tradition; he said that God was only in the church. He was wrong.  The people still did it, but the new priest now really supports it and he joined his 9 parishes and had a full mass, sound system, generator, and all (bless the poor souls who hiked up a mountain with those on their heads).  It was even televised.  What was even cooler (if possible) was that he is from Solala, the area by Lake Atitlan, and that community had their equivalent of a rain mass on top of their highest mountain at the same time.  What a cool sense of community.

Here's a bit more information about the day....

We woke up at 5am and saw the beautiful sunrise.  Any day that begins with seeing the sunrise, especially if it's on your way to the bathroom (we don't have a roof over the center of the house), is going to be an amazing day.  Porfilio pequeno (my host brother) and I had breakfast and then Marie pequeno (host sister) and Carlos came over and we began walking.

Looking from Xecam at Pueblo where I now live

We walked down the killer hill from the Pueblo (where we live) to the Fabrica.  Then, we crossed the highway and walked up another killer hill through Pasac 1 to Xecam.  That was our first hour.  There, we met some friends and continued on our way.  The next 2.5 hours were pretty much straight up the mountain.  Hardwork, but incredibly moving.  Because people were coming from all nine neighboring communities and these people live off these forests and know them incredibly well, people appeared from all sorts of directions.  A walk that began with the 4 of us grew to 6 and then to 10 and then to at least 100 walking up the hill toward the sound of the service.  One nun looked back (yep!  nuns!) and said, "Hay mucha gente, que bonita!" (there are lots of people - how beautiful).  She was totally right. 

 When we got up to the top, our cluster of 12 or so 20somethings found an area to sit and wait for the service.  There were a lot of people when it started, and by 1/2 way through, there were easily 1000 people, sitting, kneeling, and standing in the trees, united in prayer for rain and general admiration towards God.  As the priest went around and asked each pueblo represented to shout out and nine different communities hollered, I got a whole new sense for who God is.   He is the God of every community no matter if they're in the western highland mountains of Guatemala or on the Puget Sound in the USA.  He is the God of every person no matter if they're indigenous, wearing traditional clothing, old, young, or are the sole gringo in the group.  He is the God that cares about rain (it rained both yesterday and today... man does he listen!) and food and people's well-being.  He is the God who is everywhere.  He is the God I want to know intimately and be known by. 

Making a fire proved a bit challenging

After the service, we stayed up on the mountain and made a fire (because it was really cold!) and ate our lunch.  I had chocolate cake and Carlos' two little sisters and I greatly enjoyed it.  We hung out on top of the mountain waiting for a while because Marie appointed our group of friends as the self-appointed trash cleaner-uppers. Amazing!  So, we went around and picked up all the trash and continued doing that as we ran down the mountain (somethings are just easier to run down than slide on the dirt the entire way). 

The Altar

When we got to the bottom, my conviction of God's omnipresence was even more greatly confirmed.  At this point, after mass and hanging out all day with Spanish speakers, my translating part of my brain was getting tired, so I surrendered all knowledge of what was going on to my friends and continued to follow.  We walked to a middle-aged woman's house and then followed her to her mother's house.  Her mother was clearly sick and bedridden.  The 12 of us went into her room and someone found a guitar and songbooks and they had a prayer and healing service for this woman.  It was so authentic and so moving.  And, as I'm working on figuring out what I want in my next step of life, so inspiring.  I want to have a group of friends like this who can frolic and joke the entire way down a mountain and then take our dirty selves to a woman's house and bestow some of the best pastoral care on her that I've ever seen.  It's incredible.

God is not just in the church.  He does not need to work through a pastor, priest, trained person, or someone who is really special.  He is on the mountain.  He is in that room.  He works through 20somethings.  It's cool.