We told you in our last posting that we had a wedding on Saturday night to attend. This wedding was for Rosa, a translator at the San Andres Clinic (see our posting from November 10th. Rosa is the second from the left.) Rosa's family has no money and in fact, her dad, Mateo, has been tempted to go to the United States in order to earn money to continue his daughters' education etc. However, they are very strong members of the church. Mateo is the leader of a group called Grupo Luz. They are prayer intercesors who we first met on our trip in 2003. Here is Rosa and her dad walking down the aisle. Mateo is a very humble man and often has his head down.
When Genaro, the groom, came to Mateo to ask if he could court Rosa, Mateo went to the elders of the church for approval. The Pastor and the church knew that Mateo's family has no money so the church body contributed to make this wedding happen. The Fickers were included on the preparations as well. The Pastor's wife asked Leslie to make the veil and to be in charge of the flowers. We had so much fun making the veil one night last week. Leslie did all the hard work - Katie and I just offered valuable advice and Rachel was the model!
Also, last Friday, we all were at the church "helping" Leslie arrange bouquets. I tried to tell her that I would be best at the grunt work and not actually arranging the bouquets, but she didn't listen. We had twelve bouquets to arrange. Leslie also made bouquets for the bride and bridesmaids. Here is one of the bouquets. They all had their own personality so it is best to see them one at a time!
So on Saturday we all dressed up and made it to the church a little bit before six. As you can imagine, there was really no need to hurry. The bride did not actually arrive until 7:20 pm. The wedding was very western in some aspects but they did have some Guatemala traditions as well. Many of the Indians will get married in their cortes; however, they did find a beautiful wedding dress for Rosa. They also found dresses for the bridesmaids in the city. They have a tradition using a bell suspended from the ceiling (we will talk more about this in our December Newsletter). While we were arranging flowers on Friday, many of the male family members were butchering pigs for the tamales that would be served after the wedding with cake and coffe. As the wedding started so late, we missed the food and actually stopped at the tienda on the way home for a snack of chips, peanuts and suckers!
The wedding was very pretty. Rosa is a such a sweet girl that I think many in the church were very excited about giving her this wedding to begin her married life with Genaro. We pray that they would keep the Lord at the center of their marriage and that the Lord would watch over them and bless them especially this first year. Here is a picture of them walking down the aisle (he is slightly shorter than her!)
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