by Holly Boone
This past November, Ann Beck, Amanda Eap, Margaret Petersen, and I attended graduation ceremonies at Nicolás Christian School, one of the ministries Epiphany helps support through our annual gifts to the Nicolás Fund for Education.
Ann, Margaret, and I had traveled together to Guatemala many times in 2006–2011, when Epiphany sponsored a village through the Agros Foundation. (Margaret and her late husband Tim attended Epiphany for many years until their move to Idaho in 2010.) The friendships we forged in “our” village of Belén during these years eventually led to Epiphany’s current relationship with Nicolás Christian School.
Here are some highlights from our trip. Contact Amanda Eap at amanda@epiphanyseattle.org if you might like to go on a future trip.
First Stop: Antigua (Friday)
After our red-eye flight from SeaTac through LAX, we arrived in Guatemala City early Friday morning, November 8. A minibus took us straight to Antigua, the beautiful former capital of Guatemala, now a World Heritage site. With traffic, we were lucky the 24-mile trip took only an hour and half.
Here we are with our sister travelers, who also have ties to the region from their own churches’ past Agros sponsorships of Ixil villages. From left, Margaret, Joan, Kathy (a Nicolás Fund board member), Moi, Ann, Amanda, Kelly and Linda.
While most others in our party sensibly rested, Amanda and I explored an amusement park perched above Antigua. It was Amanda’s idea to get ourselves trussed up for a swing over the void. I admit it was fun.
On the road to Nebaj (Saturday)
After a decent night’s sleep, we set out for the Ixil (ǐ-shēēl), so-named for the Mayan dialect that is still the first language children learn in their homes, as few women speak Spanish. This mountainous region suffered the brunt of the violence during the Guatemalan civil war, which was precipitated by the military overthrow (supported by the CIA) of the democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954. The war, which officially lasted from 1960 to 1996, claimed more than 200,000 lives.
The Ixil is a roughly-triangular area bounded by its three largest towns: Nebaj, San Juan de Cotzal, and Chajul (circled). Nicolás Christian School formerly operated out of leased facilities near Nebaj. In January 2025, classes are being held for the first time at its new campus just outside of Cotzal, which is much closer to most students’ homes.
Our long drive included a stop for lunch at the beautiful Santo Tomás Hotel in Chichicastenango. Ann, Margaret, and I loved the overnight stays at Santo Tomás during our Agros years, when the roads were so poor the trip to Nebaj took two days.
Chichicastenango has been the major indigenous market town for the region for hundreds of years, well before the Spanish conquest.
The cathedral in Nebaj, our home base while in the Ixil. On its walls, I counted 475 small crosses memorializing victims of the civil war, similar to the 460 or so crosses (right) in the cathedral in Cotzal.
Preschool graduation and a brief visit to Belén (Sunday)
Our day started with the graduation ceremonies at a preschool in the tiny village of San Nicolás just beyond Cotzal. Nicolás Fund secured a grant to establish the preschool in 2018 as a pilot program, and it continues as an outreach program of Nicolás Christian School. After the lunch prepared by the graduates’ moms, we had a short visit in nearby.
Nicolás Toma Cruz: Although the village is named for Saint Nicolás, Nicolás Fund for Education and Nicolás Christian School are named for another saint, the late Nicolás Toma Cruz, a beloved former Agros agricultural advisor who worked closely with the area villages. Nicolás greatly valued education—like most of his generation, he was unable to go to school during the civil war. His granddaughter is a graduate of Nicolás Christian School and will complete her university degree in 2025.
Belén with the family of Lazaro and Portensiana, where (surprise!) we had more lunch.
This map is the best I could find of the Cotzal area showing the villages of San Nicolás and Belén. (The red triangles mark Mayan archeological sites).
The adorable soon-to-be graduates. Their preschool teacher is the young woman in the center. The other women are teachers at Nicolás Christian School. Ivan España (right) is the Guatemala National Director of Nicolás Fund for Education.
Group shot with gringos. Young man on the left, Noé, is the principal of Nicolás Christian School. The woman on the far right is the preschool teacher.
After the graduation, we had a little rest stop in this gorgeous field before visiting the family of Lazaro and Portensiana in Belén.
Lazaro and Portensiana and their three eldest on a visit in 2007. The Epiphany team would often have lunch in the family’s garden when we visited on our Agros trips. Their daughter Rosa Oneyda, the younger girl at left, graduated from Nicolás Christian School in 2019. Her older sister, Juana Esmirna, now has a daughter attending the Belén primary school.
Rosa Oneyda is now working part time at a school in Cotzal. A bad burn injury at the family’s propane stove and then Covid ended her university studies. She would like to return to college to study early childhood education. The other girls are her two younger sisters and her niece (Juana Esmirna’s daughter, in the white sweater).
Lazaro, the unofficial “mayor” of Belén, updates us on how families are doing. Some families still work their land in Belén but now live in Cotzal. Julie in the green blouse is our translator. She and her husband Arun were spending several weeks volunteering at the school.
After lunch we walked up the road to see Lazaro’s fields.
Our first visit to the new campus (Monday)
Ann, Margaret and I first attended a Nicolás Christian School graduation in 2018. It was our first visit to Guatemala since our Agros partnership with Belen ended in October of 2011. Then the school operated out of leased facilities in Nebaj, but plans were underway to build a school in Cotzal, closer to the villages where most of the students lived. During that trip, we walked the lovely, wooded plot of land Nicolás Fund for Education had just purchased from a local landowner. The seller was so impressed with the good reputation of the school that they asked a much lower price. It is a testament to the faith and determination of the small volunteer board of Nicolás Fund that they successfully raised more than $1 million to complete this first phase of the project.
The new campus of Nicolas Christian School. The school has the latest robust internet capabilities via Starlink satellite (capably installed by Julie’s husband, Arun). Under Ivan España’s entrepreneurial leadership, I believe the school has the potential to become an economic engine for the whole area.
Many students were at the school for the dress rehearsals for the graduation ceremonies. Here we are introducing ourselves to the students.
Ivan runs a tight ship during rehearsals. Here he models the proper respectful attitude for singing the Guatemala national anthem.
There was still much to do to get the school ready for the new term in January. Ivan wanted everything completed in November so that the teachers and staff could have December entirely free to be with their families. We pitched in to help move furniture and set up the computer lab.
We were more than ready for dinner that evening in Nebaj!
Graduation ceremonies (Tuesday and Wednesday)
Graduations are always moving events at Nicolas Christian School. We could see how grateful and proud the parents were for their child’s education. Two ceremonies were held over two days for the 9th and 11th grades. (Guatemala high schools end at grade 11.) Highlights for us were getting dressed up in the traditional skirt and blouse (corte and huipil) and seeing a friend from our Agros days.
This year’s graduations or “promocións” honored Joan Selvig. Her church (Encounter Church on Mercer Island) had sponsored the Agros village of Esperanza, a near neighbor of Belén. Joan has visited the Ixil many times and has close ties with several of the teachers whom she first met when they were children. She was a delight to travel with. Joan is a cellist who regularly enjoys Epiphany’s streamed Choral Evensong.
The teachers had so much fun dressing us up in traditional clothing (borrowed from family and friends) for the 11th grade ceremony that we had fun too.
We were delighted to see Andres when we recognized each other after the ceremony. Andres was the night watchman at the old Agros dormitory in Cotzal where we would stay on our early visits to Belén. He would hang out with us on the veranda any night that Mike Evans played his guitar. His son was an 11th grade graduate.
After Wednesday’s ceremony (and after changing into our civvies), we helped shut down and clean up.
Visit to Belén (Thursday)
Equally important to us this trip was visiting Belén. Our plan was to first visit the school and chat with Pedro, the local primary school teacher, and then visit as many families as we had time for. We were surprised that although school was out for the term, the children had prepared for us a great program of song and dance.
We were so touched by the children’s performances, which clearly they had spent a great deal of time preparing. Although girls usually wore traditional skirts and beautifully embroidered blouses, we had never seen the young boys in the white trousers and shirts.
Another surprise: we were expected to put on a program for them! Our translator Julie saved the day by inventing a game on the spot with the math flash cards Ann had brought for the school. The children raced to the board to write the answer.
Pedro was sick the day of our visit, but the assistant teacher Domingo (upper left photo) was there to oversee the show. The young girl in the center picture is thanking us for our visit and urging us to return soon. It was wonderful also to see the mothers and grandmothers watching from the rear of the classroom.
We had visited the families in these photos on our earlier visits to Belen. It was very moving to see how glad they were that we had returned to visit them.
One of the best things about the whole trip for me was seeing Carmelina again. In the large photo, she is the young woman at the far right with her son at her side. She now lives with her two sisters and mother (at left) in a village very near Belén. The photo at lower right was taken in February of 2006—she is the dimpled little girl holding the white calla lily. Carmelina was one of favorite children in the village for all the Epiphany teams, always smiling and wanting to talk to us. We had not seen her since our last Agros trip in 2011. I am afraid her life now is not easy.
Teacher appreciation lunch (Friday)
Each year Ivan rewards the hard work of the teachers and staff by preparing them a special feast of their choice. They always request steak. Ivan and sous chefs cooked 60 pounds of it this year.
Ann and Amanda, of course, pitched in to help with the food prep. We brought several red Epiphany aprons for the school cook Juanita (between Amanda and Ann in the picture) and her kitchen assistant Maria.
When the meal was ready, we helped serve the teachers, staff, and honored guests Ivan had invited.
We were thrilled to see one honored guest was Doña Alma, the principal of the Cotzal primary school. When we would stay in Cotzal on our early Agros trips, teams would walk down the hill to Doña Alma’s home café for our evening meals. A former Catholic nun who fled El Salvador during a political upheaval, she landed in Cotzal and adopted three children whom she raised and educated. Just another local saint…
Back to Antigua (Saturday)
After an early breakfast, we left Nebaj and were anticipating an early arrival in Antigua—until we heard ominous grinding sounds from our mini van. Our driver stopped at a roadside (literally) “garage,” where the mechanic discovered the front left wheel needed new brake pads and brake rotor. Fortunately, we could wait out the arrival of the needed parts at a comfortable gas station across the street. We were lucky that our wait was only about three hours.
After a stop for dinner along the way, we arrived in Antigua well after dark, when all of Guatemala seemed to be leaving the city after day tripping at the famous Flower Festival. Many streets were closed, but our driver drove in reverse several blocks to get us to our hotel. We gave him a really good tip!
Sunday, we “relaxed” by shopping at the big crafts market and squirming through the crowds.
Our big reward that night was dinner at the Hotel Santo Domingo, built in the gorgeous ruins of a 16th century Dominican monastery. Food was marvelous too.
While the rest of our group returned to Seattle on Monday, Ann, Margaret, and I spent some days chilling at Casa del Mundo on Lake Atitlan, a vast ancient caldera surrounded by active volcanos. It was a suitably beautiful ending to an unforgettable trip.