A few updates...

First, if you want to see a girl from Sweden having a tarantula put on her face, you'll have to click this link to our YouTube video. The guide just picked her out of our group. Would you be so calm?

Next, if you want to experience some of our "Chicken Bus" rides, you should click here for this short video we did. These are buses that have exceeded their life expectancy in the U.S. (removed from service after 150,000 miles) which are driven across Mexico into Guatemala and other Central American countries where they're given a face-lift before tearing down oft narrow and curvy passage ways at break-neck speeds. Oh, and did I mention, there are no longer official "Capacity" restrictions. The laws of physics are suspended and somehow there's always room for more people.

Finally, if you're interested in knowing some "real" happenings in Guatemala, you can read the story we just posted on stjoan.com by clicking here. As Rita said, it was great to see 16-year-old Josephina who we had first met on our first trip five years ago... she escaped her abductors after being put to work two months packing drugs. Just days after our visit, three students from our community were kidnapped and found murdered.

We're glad to be home, feeling blessed with the simplest of gifts, but our thoughts are never far from the people we've met traveling around the world and their situations... Japan, Egypt, New Zealand, Greece, Haiti, etc.

Jeff