Santiago and San Pedro La Laguna

Last night's dancing and joyfulness.  

Instead of working side by side with the indigenous and speaking spanish all day, we are being gringos.

Lake Atitlan is a gorgeous sight to be seen.  Surrounded by peaks and mystical clouds, you can imagine what it must have been like years ago without many people, telephones or powerboats.  

We had a devotion given by Mike at the church in Santiago.  The church was founded by a missionary from Oklahoma (?) who's heart and blood was buried at the church, and body was sent to Oklahoma when he died in 1981.  I think I got that right, something like that.  

Group on our chartered boat.  

We also pumped a lot of money into the local economies, having fun shopping and bartering.  

It went by fast, and tomorrow we have a farewell dinner in Antigua.  Hopefully video's and more pictures will be posted in the near future for in depth coverage of the trip.  Thank you.

Despedida, Hugs, Farewells, and Panajachel

In memorial.

Filled with laughter, tears, hugs, and joy, today was a big one.  Everyone drove to see all three houses, culminating at a ceremony at house 2.  

House #3 in the mountains.

House #2

And each house family was presented with a photo album of pictures taken during the build.  Can you believe we were able to print these photos.  And the masons received one as well.  

We read a blessing, which our translator Andy recited in spanish as well.  And we also sang a few songs.  Then we had some food- chichitos (imagine a small tamale with chicken) and cake.  There were balloons in the house, everyone was taking photos, saying their goodbye's, crying, hugging.  We worked side by side with our masons, helpers, and families for the past two weeks.  Their houses are almost done, and it's emotional to say goodbye.  

House #1 The family of Olga and crew.

House #2 Seña and Estella, and crew

House #3 Soccoro Family and crew

The twenty four of us!  Thank you Thrivent, Habitat, and everyone else that made this possible for us, and the families!

And today we made it to Panajachel, where we feasted, laughed and danced a little!  More pictures tomorrow.  

Our work is done

But the lasting effects are yet to come.  And there is also some more work to do.  But hey- we made a lot of progress!

House 1 had block up to the top of the windows and doors.  And houses 2 and 3 have made it to the last row of block, and house 2 started on the gables.

Our help has made the construction much faster than it would have been without us.  At least we hope!


The end of the last day of work drew some emotion.  At house 1 the mason was so moved that he gave a little talk, and hugs around.  And the crew at House 1 came to tears when they wrote the names of which the build is in memorial.   They signed their own names as well.

"Ken Petersen,  Hans Petersen,  Lois Greason"

And the groups that didn't do that plan to as well.  Pictures tomorrow...

The last day being special, along with emotions and sentiment, House #3's driver took that group on a hike for some fun.  The hike went 20 minutes up to a mountaintop with a 360 view and natural freshwater springs!  Pictures tomorrow...

Carol at house 2, embracing Estella, the mother of the house.  

It's great to see what we have done in 9 and a half work days.  We've gone from sites like this:

To having rooms:

House 2, along with their mason in the blue, and the brother of Estella alongside.  

Once again, thanks to all those that have supported and made this trip possible.  

Last day of Work!

Almost done working!  Taking a break from work at the moment just to blog, since the internet and phones are down at our hotel. 

Everything is going well, and we have a house blessing tomorrow.  After that its time for vacation as we head to Panajachel. 

It´s really incredible to see a house go from the ground, as it was 9 days ago- to where they are now.  Above our heads, with doors and windows.  And they will be more than a construction site soon- a home. 

Rain Check

House 3, today, was rained off their worksite in the mountains, and came to assist House 2.  With the additional workers, and an extra mason, house 2 is up above the windows now!

(Left to right)  Augusto, Gordon, and Mike.  You can see the "scaffolding" in and around the house consists of beams of wood perched on cinderblock.  

Sebastian, our mason at House 2, and Carl, who has become his assistant.  

Calvin and Andy inspecting the fit of the window.  

While today House 1 had lunch with the family of their house!  The family of Olga all come over, and made lunch in the abode where they are currently living.  

Only 2 construction days left!  And we want to see a roof on at least one of the houses!

El fin de semana

Xela, Salcajá, St. Andres, and Momostenango!  We were all over the past 36 hours.

House #3 progresses the fastest- and that's the site with the hike to get materials to!

Saturday afternoon, after working for a few hours on the work sites, we boarded our little Toyota bus to Xela.  The hotel we checked into was Hotel Villa Real Plaza.  It was built in 1814, and functioned both as a prison and plaza for markets until around 1950, when it became a hotel.  It even came with its own ghost stories, as one of the employees told us.  He said he saw the hotel ghost just a few years ago.

Xela is such a fancy city- it has McInternet!

And that afternoon we had some time to wander around.  Then at dinner we had the fortunate opportunity to be graced by the Director of Habitat para la Humanidad Guatemala, Luis, and his wife.  They joined us at an italian restaurant, and then came back to the hotel to talk with us about their experiences and Habitat.

Gary, Luis, and Mike.

Luis gave us his story, of how he used to work with an artisan group, and then came to working for Habitat nearly thirteen years ago.

And Saturday night we had quite a different city-hotel experience than in Toto.  Xela was quite lively in the evening hours, and our hotel was in the center of the city.

Sunday was our tour day.  First we went to Salcajá, where the oldest church in Central America is located.  The Church of San Jacinto.  Founded in 1524.  Not too long after Columbus "found" the new world, and shortly after the first church in the new world was founded in 1510 in the Dominican Republic.

When we pulled up the church it was closed, but our bus driver, Eduardo, knew somebody who could open it up, and got us inside.

Following Salcajá was St. Andres.  There was a large service going on outside the church when we got there, and it was the Father's birthday.  But inside was a unique church, complete with neon lights, and light up Jesus'.

Us in front of the smaller western church in St Andres.  

Then we went for a drive to Momostenango, a village renowned for its textiles, specifically wool.  We explored the shops, and some of us watched a bit of the World Cup, and talked to some Guatemalans rooting for the netherlands just in spite of Spain.

And this afternoon we came back to what we almost call home here in Toto, Hotel MayaK'iche, where we held our own church service with communion and song.

Three days of work ahead, and a house blessing on Thursday morning before we leave for more fun.  May we be a light here in Totonicapan.

Llueve, llueve, llueve

Today it rained, and it rained hard.  Enough to stop two of the three sites from working this afternoon.  But work still progressed today.

We rise at 6 am, eat at 6:30, leave at 7, work till 4ish, eat at 6:30 pm, and clean and sleep sometime after we are back.  And that was the weeks routine.  Tomorrow we have a half day of work, and then leave to Quetzaltenango, also known as Xela (Pronounced Shay-lah) until Sunday afternoon.

Windows being sized at House 1!

The rain accumulating at House 2.  

And for kicks, a lady making the decorative trim for garmets at House 3 the other day.  

House 2 making "U" Block that can fit over the rebar in the walls.  Slowly tapping away at the rock with a hammer and a piece of pencil rebar.  

Cumpleaños y Pastel

Today we celebrated the 60th birthday of our own Gordon Henry!  House #2 sang Happy Birthday and Feliz Cumpleaños during lunch at the site, and when we left for the day, Estella, the mother, came out and handed Gordon a home made Bundt kind of cake, and a bar of chocolate!  Incredibly nice people here in Guatemala. 

And while house #2 was partying, House #1 was having fun with their hillside, of which I now have pictures of.  

Apparently the home owner wants the back side of that hill to be cut away, and leave a sheer face of the hill- with some extra land to plant trees on.  But that leaves one big dangerous hill face, and the mason is arguing with them that he won't do it, but they are willing to terrace it.  And as you can see, the group is having fun picking away at the hillside.  

Take care.

Block Brigade

The whole group went to house three today, in order to assist them in moving block- and lots of it.  And boy did they need help, as it was a long way from the street where the block was, to the house being built.

(Click to enlarge)

The path to the house was steep, slippery, and narrow.  You can see in the picture it was quite a haul.

Around 10:30 it began to rain, and groups 1 and 3 took a break, and headed to the hotel, but group 2 headed to their house in San Cristobal, where it was less rainy.  Eventually after lunch some others at the hotel left to work some at House 1, the house closest to the hotel.  

It will be something to see one of these houses completed.  Let's pray we can work hard.

Sore yet?

Only 6 and a half work days left, and we're crossing our fingers that we can get them close to done.

The groups consist of:

House 1- Grandpa Ken

Melissa Hnery

Gary Petersen

Linda Petersen

Jim Thoburn

Cy Johnson

Jamie Thoburn

Amy Thoburn

Carrie Petersen

House 2 - Cousin Hans

Gordon Henry

Gloria Thoburn

Carl Petersen

Alex Thoburn

Matthew Johnson

Glenn Petersen

Carol Petersen

Thea Petersen

House 3 - Lois and Global Village

Andy Casillas

Sue Casillas

Mike Farley

Jonathan Williams

Bruce Wilcox

Calvin Hewitt

Kathy Hewitt

Betty Farley

House 1 is the location where the property is cut into the hillside.  And house 3 is the house where in order to get materials to the site they have to be hiked in- but there are 2 masons.

After work some of us headed to the Toto Market.  We were the only gringoes around, and we could tell.  But the people were incredibly nice, and loved to talk.  Linda was our socializer extraordinaire, chatting with everyone in the city.  Some of the people recognized the name Habitat, and understood what we were doing. 

Tomorrow we are all going to House 3 in order to assist them in getting all the materials to the house.  Otherwise their work would only consist of lugging block up a hillside.  

Until tomorrow.  

Peace.  

(This is Augusto, chopping cinderblock with a machete.  Augusto is the brother to Estella, the mother of house number 2, and he must be around 70 years old and still lifting 45 lb. bags on cement.)

(The wonders of skype.  The family video chatting with Grandma Petersen and the rest of the Johnsons.)

The start...

of something good.  Today we entered in on our part of helping construct the three homes.  We are in three groups, with houses just at the beginning of building.  

One group has to make a significant hike with their building materials, another has to dig away at the hillside to make room for the building, and the other is proceeding well with its least amount of spanish language experience.  

After just one day of work, some of us have returned with blisters, stories and laughter.  Dinner was consumed quickly, followed by a presentation about Habitat para la Humanidad, Guatemala.  But apparently we weren't all too tired, because there was a yoga class hosted by our own Carol Petersen on the fourth floor this evening.  

(Wearing our custom group shirts)

The decision was made that we will get up and leave earlier in order to beat the rain, and get more work done tomorrow.  So ciao for now, and I'll get a list of the groups up tomorrow.

Totonicapán!

We have arrived at our destination.  After driving to Chichicastenango for lunch and a bit of sight seeing, we made it to Toto around 5.

The Department of Toto has a population of around 314,000. 
Altitude: 8,150 f.
8 Municipalities.
Languages: K'iche (mayan dialect) % Spanish
Territory: 1061 sq kilometers.
Fiesta: Sept 29, St. Michael the Archangel.
Temperature Range: 41 to 65 F

The Habitat Branch of tTotonicapan was founded in 1989.  Since then they have build 1,643 houses!  Hope fully that will be a full three more in two weeks.

When we got to Toto we met with the families we will be building for, along with the local habitat coordinators.  We met in the local cultural center, filled with pieces of Toto history.

We are building for three families:
Miguel Garcia, and Doña Socorro- whom have an adorable baby Socorro was carrying on her back in the local baby sling.  Their mason is Jose, and his helper is Santos Francisco.  This house is the furthest away, and they had to catch a taxi back right after they were introduced. 

Olga, who's husband and mason could not make it to the introduction.  That house already has a foundation laid.

And Migdalia, and Blanca Estella.  Sebastian as the mason.  That house already has a a slab, and has just started the block laying.

We have all decided it is a competition to see who can get the first house done. 

Our hotel is nicer than most of us expected.  As I write I am using the wi-fi, and the rooms all have televisions!  It will be nice to come back to after days of working, in likely rain.  So far, Toto has been rainy and cloudy,  and we won't have the time to stop when it drizzles.  Oorah!

Take care, and we'll write after our first day of "Working our buns off" as Andy the translator interpreted.

Here we all are with the local Habitat workers, and some of the families.

Our entire group at dinner in the hotel in Toto.  Including our coordinator Ed on the right, and Toto coordinator Beth at left.

Exploring in Chichi.  This is "The White Church," can ya believe it?

¡Hola de Antigua, Guatemala!

From California, Washington, and more we have all made it to Guatemala!  As of this afternoon we are at Hotel Hermano Pedro, in Antigua.  

This first day has had it's heat, humidity, and afternoon downpour.  It's going to be an exciting trip.

Our Habitat Coordinator Ed, and our group leader Gary held a meeting with all of us about the upcoming two weeks.  We talked about our goals, motivations, and desires for the trip.  And in what will surely seem like two weeks speeding by, these memorial plans will have finally been constructed.  

Tomorrow we head to Totonicapán, stopping for lunch in Chichicastenango where we will see the Chichi market.  And on Monday- we build!  Lets pray the weather is on our side.  

Peace from Antigua.  

-The Petersen Family and Friends

Habitat Guatemala Information

Pacaya's eruption and Storm Agatha causes alarm

During the last week of May, Guatemala has suffered two natural disasters simultaneously: The violent eruption of Pacaya and The Tropical Storm Agatha in the Pacific.

Once again the vulnerability of our country to natural phenomena, is affecting thousands of poor Guatemalan families who have nothing left.

Habitat for Humanity Guatemala in response to the situation facing the country, now is monitoring and assessing the damage. The latest figures on 31 May by the National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction provides the following numbers:

For the volcanic eruption of Pacaya the figures are:

3.614 people affected

3 people died

3 missing

59 wounded

2.130 evacuees

2.635 housed

Homes affected: 400

Houses with severe damage: 375

By floods caused by Tropical Storm Agatha:

128.149 people affected

152 people died

100 people missing

87 people injured

124.835 evacuees

64.383 people in shelters

Homes affected: 109.100

Houses with severe damage: 1,680

How we work

Habitat for Humanity Guatemala works for and with families in need of a safe and affordable place to live. Offering more than simply a handout, we support these families and improve their quality of life by facilitating their access to housing while at the same time, requiring their collaboration and commitment to changing their own lives. Our effect is a lasting one, meant to reverberate through generations of each family through the financial skills, security, and pride that result from working with Habitat.

HFH Guatemala has provided more than 30,000 housing solutions nationwide. This has made 2% impact on the housing deficit over 30 years.

Sweat Equity, or Ayuda Mutua

Just as in the States, in Guatemala futur

e Habitat homeowners must contribute their own hard work and time as part of the process of obtaining a home. We call this principle “ayuda mutua,” or in English, “sweat equity.” The idea is to promote cooperation between families in the construction of their homes, and to encourage their prolonged participation in the work of Habitat for Humanity in their local community. Ayuda mutua also helps us reduce the cost of building a home, promoting the principle that by working together, we all benefit. The time and type of collaboration varies in each affiliate and according to the abilities of each family.

Responsible and Transparent Stewardship:

While the average house price this year (2010) is around $4,800 USD, the cost varies according to the situation of each family, including the house design, the location of the house, and the preparation needed, such as retaining walls or leveling, before construction can begin. The loan recovery time i

s typically ten years, with monthly payments usually between Q365 to Q450 ($45 - $55 USD).

Rotative Fund
The monthly homeowners payments are used to build more houses according to the principle of “A House for a House,” meaning that by paying off their home, each Habitat family effectively provides a home for another family in need. Currently, 70% of the funds used to build homes come from the payments of our partner families. These funds are held in an account called the Fund for Humanity. New donations from tithe partners, individuals, Global Village participants, corporations, foundations, or institutions – national and international – represent growth, or brand new families served. We recognize the obligation we have to our partners - be they donors, other Habitat affiliates, volunteers, or partner families - to manage our programs and funds transparently, efficiently, and responsibly. Our success would not be possible without their fabulous support.

About Habitat Guatemala

Habitat for Humanity (HFH) Guatemala facilitates access to adequate housing for families of limited resources by offering non-profit loans to build a new house or improve the home in which they are already living.

HFH Guatemala was founded in 1979, three years after a devastating earthquake ripped across the country. Originally founded by a small group of caring and enthusiastic individuals, HFH Guatemala has since helped approximately 151,000 people in Guatemala live safer, healthier lives in their own homes. This work is the result of the collaboration and contribution between the staff, local and international volunteers, donors, and tithe partners who have blessed us with their support throughout these last 30 years.

HFH Guatemala History

The first home built by HFH Guatemala was dedicated on March 3rd, 1980 for the family of Francisco Mendoza in Aguacatán, Huehuetenango. Francisco still has his Habitat home.

After building about 160 homes in the department of Huehuetenango, local interest prompted the opening of other affiliates, in the departments (geographical states) of Retalhuleu and Sololá. Shortly thereafter, HFH Guatemala opened a national office in Quetzaltenango to support and organize the work of its affiliates and encourage the growth of the organization across Guatemala. To

date HFH Guatemala has 17 offices that cover all 22 geographical departments.

HFH Guatemala Milestones

1979 HFH Guatemala founded.

1980 The first Habitat home is built in Aguacatán, Huehuetenango for Francisco Mendoza and his family.

1993 Government Agreement 425-93 recognizes and legalizes Habitat for Humanity Guatemala as a national non-profit organization.

1994, House 1,000 is dedicated in Cantel, Quetzaltenango.

1998, Affiliate Quetzaltenango House 1,000 is dedicated with the event “Building on Faith”, building 25 houses with the participation of Millard Fuller.

1999, House 5,000 is dedicated in the department of Salamá, Baja Verapaz.

2000, The capital campaign, “More than Houses” starts, with the goal to build 25,000 houses by 2007.

2001, House 10,000 is dedicated in El Rosario, Retalhuleu.

2003, House 15,000 is dedicated in Santa Cruz Balanyá, Chimaltenango.

2006, HFH Guatemala celebrates its 27th anniversary with 17 affiliates and construction in all 22 departments of the country.

2007, HFH Guatemala reaches the its goal of 25,000 families served and House 25,000 is dedicated in Teculután, Zacapa.

2008, Habitat International House 300,001 is built in Cabañas, Zacapa.

2009, In May, Home 30,000 is dedicated in Sigüilá, Quetzaltenango.

HFH Guatemala has built 10% of all Habitat for Humanity houses in the world, thanks to the dedicated volunteers, donors, and staff who share our vision of reducing the housing deficit in Guatemala.

On our way.

Thanks to all those that have helped us in making this endeavor possible. Your assistance brings light during dark times.

It hasn't been an easy year for us, but hopefully our service can make something better of it. As the Southwestern Washington Synod of the ELCA put it:

Petersen Remembers Loved Ones by Building Houses for Poor

FIRCREST – The Rev. Dr. Gary Petersen of Redeemer Lutheran Church, his family

and circle of friends are turning tragedy and sadness into hope. Petersen’s father, Ken,

died in 2009 at age 87, and in his honor Pastor Petersen was planning to build a

Habitat for Humanity house in Totonicapan, Guatemala. Petersen has a long history

of building Habitat for Humanity homes there. Then Petersen got a double whammy.

His nephew, Hans, 30, died after falling off a construction platform four stories up. To

honor Hans, it was decided to build another Habitat house, and that number now has

grown to three houses. About 24 of Petersen family including wife Linda and daughter

Carrie and friends will travel to Totonicapan from July 3 to 18 to build the homes.

Thrivent Financial for Lutherans will help. “It will be a reunion; there will be tears.

But that love passes on, I think,”

In their memory we are going to serve in Guatemala, a country that is in more need of help especially after this year's headline disasters. More info on that soon.

We pray that as the twenty-four of us embark to Guatemala, that we all travel safely.

"But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind." Luke 14:13