House Hunting in Tactic

We had two visitors to our ministry over the weekend. One of them sponsors a girl, Olga, and so I ventured to take her yesterday to see her. It went like this.

1. Stop by Oscar and Evelin's to see if they know where Olga lives. They don't know, so they direct me to Olga's aunt's house (Alma), close to Tienda Amarilis (store).

2. Stop by Tienda Amarilis where the lady at the counter sends me next door to Alma's house.

3. Stop by Alma's house/store. She tells me that Olga just recently moved. She doesn't know where she lives now except that it's in a small village up the mountain. The road there has a sign that reads "Salam."

4. Stop by the SDA Church because Olga's father is the pastor there. It's Sunday and no one is there, so I ask the owner of the store across the street if he knows where the pastor lives. He doesn't know, but he knows that Porfilio Ayala knows where the pastor lives. I get directions to Porfilio's house.

5. Stop by Porfilio's street and ask a teenager where the Ayala house is. He says that no Ayala's live on this street. I should try the street over.

6. Stop by the street over and ask a woman there if she knows which house is the Ayala house. She says the Ayalas live on the street I was just on. The teenager was wrong.

7. Stop by the Ayala house and no one is home. They've just left according to a neighbour. They went to their other property on the highway next to the Telgua phone tower. They have a white car.

8. Stop by the white car parked on the highway and ask three neighbours and several pedestrians if they know where the people are that came in the white car. No one knows any Ayalas nor to whom the car belongs.

9. Drive down the road leaving town looking for the "Salam" sign. We don't see it anywhere.

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10. We meet Olga at school this morning with her sponsor. After the morning devotional, Olga carries a flag in the morning's civic ceremony that happens once a month. It's her class's turn to lead the service. Olga also proudly leads the school in the Guatemalan National Anthem.

I guess I could have been pro-active and talked to Olga on Friday and gotten directions to her house. It's usually not that tricky to find a house though. Usually it's 2-4 stops.