Reflections on Guatemala

Before our trip to Guat, our team leader, John, asked us to read the first two chapters of a book called "When Helping Hurts" (and I realized after I started reading it that it's written by two professors from my sister's college in GA!). after reading the first chapter, I knew that I would want to finish the whole book. I am learning SO much, and I highly recommend it for everyone. It is very helpful for me in understanding poverty and how to make effective changes, and I think that you will find the same. I think it may be one of the best books ever written! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it if you've read it.

While I'm on the topic of books, my dad finished a little book that was given to him by his friend in Nicaragua, and on our flight down he gave it to me to read. It is called "How Good is Good Enough?" by Andy Stanley, and I also recommend this one. It's very short and to the point, but this is a perfect example of "big things come in little packages." It really helped me understand important things that I never really got or thought about.

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So, the rest of our week in Guatemala was amazing! I really enjoyed the first two days doing the VBS with the kids in the community of Santa Cecilia, and also visiting them at school and giving them valentine cards made by kids at a school in Colorado, which is where most of our team was from. We also got to give the three oldest classes letters written by some of these kids in Colorado, and the students in Guat responded to them with their own letters. This was a very special event for me to witness, seeing these kids writing beautiful letters to their brothers and sisters in Christ.

The third day we went way up into the very remote mountains to the community called Satacia to visit the sponsor children of some of the people from our group. This was definitely a highlight day! We split up into small groups and each went to different homes. Well, the home that our little group went to was quite a treck away! Being the rainy season, all the paths were very muddy, and being in mountainous Guatemala, it was very hilly and slippery! By the time our 20-30 minute muddy hike to this family's house was done, our shoes and the bottom of our pants were completely covered in mud! I didn't care though; I was just marveling the whole time that this is the treck that this family has to make ever time they go to church, the store, even to their neighbors! I was trying to imagine what it would be like to live there...it's amazing to me how small yet how huge and diverse the world we live in really is.

this is when we finally came to the clearing by the sponsor children's house that we were visiting; you can see the house way up on the hill! This is Amy's sister, Aura, who works for FH and has to make many, many house visits each month! She was a life saver in leading us and helping us not fall every other second!

This family has four children, and during our visit their eldest son, who was about 9 or 10, played us songs on the guitar while the family sang. Then the asked us to sing some of our church songs for them, and he still played his guitar right along with us! One of us asked who was teaching him to play so well, and he said that he just takes it to church every sunday and learns by watching the musicians!

David and Patty (who sponsor the eldest son) with three of the four siblings (their mother was holding the baby brother)

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That afternoon we went to the church of this community and had another fun time doing a VBS- playing games, sining songs, and doing our Noah skit again! What a blessing it was to be in such fun fellowship with these children and to bless them as they blessed us.

One last thing for now... at the church that day I found the baby that I wanted to bring home with me (don't mind my huge poncho; it was very cold and rainy that day!)

More about the lessons I've learned and experiences I had to come...