The Family and Home of Gilmar and Maria (Pics)

I am home in Georgia, but I have a few things left to post from my trip. In my previous post I spoke about Gilmar and Maria, but I didn't have my camera with me when we were at their home last Monday morning for breakfast. Pics have now been exchanged between David/Amy and me, so here are some pics from that Monday morning.

Here we are walking down the path to their home, which sits maybe 100 yards from the bumpy little dirt road:


They live in the outskirts of Quetzaltenango, the main city beginning just beyond the first hill visible in the picture. The church meets (and nearly all its members live) in this same neighborhood.

Their house is made of mud brick, a floor of concrete, and roofed with a single layer of corrugated metal.


The only door leads into the kitchen, and the exhaust chimney from the wood burning stove is visible at upper right. There are no windows. The far wall of the kitchen (the only concrete block wall) can be seen (barely) through the doorway. At bottom right are a few ears of the black maize they've grown.

Amy learning to make tortillas:


Maria was cheerfully making these tortillas when we arrived, and she got Amy in on the action also. I'm not sure if Amy was thinking of how close her skirt was to the open wood burning area of the stove - you can see the glow of embers - but there wasn't any real danger there, as the fire was quite well contained within. The cooking surface is a large metal plate laid across the top of the otherwise concrete structure. The chimney is visible at far right. White paint has been applied to the inner sides of the mud brick walls of the house.

The kids' table:


Breakfast was black(?) beans, scrambled eggs, and the tortillas from the earlier picture. Their kids seemed accustomed to not having chairs to sit on when visitors were there, but of course Sophie and Katie seemed at a loss as to what to do. Maria noticed and brought some concrete blocks and laid towels over them, for some of the kids to sit on.

Their daughter and younger boy:


The loom:


Visible are Gilmar, David, and Gilmar's daughter. This loom is in a separate building next to another home (I believe the home of Gilmar's sister), perhaps 50 yards away, beyond another little field of maize. This structure is just large enough (maybe 10'x15') to contain the loom, and formerly served for a time as Gilmar and Maria's home.



I really enjoyed spending time with them, and with the other Christians there as well, and wished I could stay longer to see more of their faith, service, and teaching.
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