runlindsayrun

Update from Guatemala

from Mike in Guatemala - Mar 29.06

this is the best i can do from a spanish keyboard :)

wow, we have only been here 2 full days and there is already soo much to talk about. yesterday morning we woke up to a veiw that most of us could hardly imagine. from the 10th floor of our hotel we could see 3 volcanos and the most incrediable green lushish mountains. lets say that climate does not seem to be a part of the ´suffering´of a missions trip. lol, the weather is amazing!

still yesterday morning a few people from compassion guatemala came and did a welcome to guatemala presentation. altough interesting, most of the group seemed much more interested in getting out to the project.

in the afternoon we had the first taste of the week to come. when we arrived at the project there were only about 20 children there, but within 20 mins there were for sure 100+ children. i was so very proud of our group yesterday, almost immeaditely after we got there all of our youth were mixing with and connecting with the children. we play soccer, we tried to talk to each other, we laugh together & Amy had 10 girls running around holding her hands chasing people down to tickle them. after a few hours of soccer we popped our ball, but this hardly slowed things down as Jon gave a piggy-back ride to 1 child and then 30 children wanted piggy-back rides from all of us which were a blast to give.

the children had put together this whole welcome canada program including a big sign in the front of the church.
in the evening our youth shared how they couldn{t believe how much fun they had playing with the children! it was simply an awesome first day, i was soo proud of everybody.

today began our work project at the church. for the next 3 days we are going to be spending the mornings painting the church. though our equipment is challenging to work with at times, we made significantly more progress then the people had expected us to. a bunch of children from the project came and volunteered to work alongside us as we painted. most of the time they made a huge mess and there was paint everywhere, but it was a blast having them there. the hot guatemalain sun helped dry the paint quickly as well as give me and a very red nose. because of this i told the 'youth' to where sunscreen tomorrow.

in the afternoon we had our first chance to do some home visits. we split into 4 groups that each went and visited 2 or 3 homes. shevon, larissa, amy, jessica, steph and myself had the amazing experience of meeting our sponsor children. my group also went and visited Bill & Maggie{s sponsor child. tonight as we spent time debreifing the youth shared for an hour until i had to cut them off (we have limited time in our group room) about the many things they saw, learned and experienced. many of the youth shared how praying with the people, and seeing how grateful the people were caused them to cry, and how the pictures i showed them in november just simply did not do justice to seeing firsthand. larissa shared with the group how she just didn{´t know how she was going to explain to people back home the things that she had seen, and i think many felt the same way.

for all the mom{s out there, we are drinking lots of water, nobody had got hurt more then scratches and sun burn, and everybody is healthy except for Ryan{s cold he still has from last week.

i am personally very proud of our group so far, many have made a variety of small sacrificies, and all of them are working very hard. praise God for the absolutely amazing first two days we have had, there have been so many 'God moments.' please pray for thursday and friday as both days our morning are spent painting (pray that we have strenght and energy) and in the afternoons we will be joining the children as they come to the project (thursday) and going on more home visits (friday). please pray that all of our youth will get a chance to see their sponsor child. please pray that our spanish songs and puppet plays will go well. pray that ryan gets better, and those with sun burn will be able to sleep. tomorrow we are hoping to hand out all the gifts we have brought for the children, pray that that goes well. lastly, many in our group had a blast playing soccer on tuesday with the kids, but since we popped our ball we need a new one. please pray that we can find a soccer ball for sale as today we couldn{t find one.

posted by Lindsay @ 12:31 PM