After 3 days in Atlanta filled with more training for the race, at 6am on September 9th, my squad and I began our journey to our new home!! By 3pm, we were all settled. My team of 7 girls, and two other teams had to make our way to our ministry site in Antigua. Our host, Luis, is so awesome!! He picked up us in Guatemala City and drove us 45 minutes to Antigua in his mini bus he named Nissi. That night we spent time getting everything situated and took time to relax. Our house is beautiful! We have a pretty big kitchen, living room and dining room. There is one huge room for all the girls and a smaller one for the guys. We have three fully functional bathrooms with sinks, showers and toilets. It may seem like a basic need, but it is actually a huge blessing. We also have an upstairs with a balcony with a breathtaking view of a ginormous volcano.
The second day, all 21 of us piled into Nissi and toured Antigua. Let me tell you that Guatemala is so breathtaking. We first visited the Mount of the Holy Cross. From here, you can see over the entire city of Antigua. We spent some time here praying over the city that we will be ministering to over the next 3 months. From there, we went too all different places. I don’t exactly know all of the names of the places we went to, but they were incredibly beautiful.
On Friday, we started our ministries. One team is working in a school teaching students about drug awareness while another team will be teaching English here at our house. My team is working on a house about 15 minutes away. There are four rooms in the house and they all have to have cement slabbed on all four walls. It is pretty hard work making the cement mix and then having to smear it on the walls and actually make it look really good. It is so much fun no matter how hard it might be. I can’t wait to see how big of an impact my team is going to make building this house for a family who does not have one. In the evening, we had a discipleship class at our house where about 15 youth came to have fun and learn more about the Word of God. It was so much fun getting to meet them and have an awesome time together no matter what language we spoke.
On Saturday we met up with another team and celebrated Shelbie’s birthday (one of my squad mates) We had delicious milkshakes on top of the roof and had a great view of the town square of Antigua. It was great seeing them even if it was only after just a few days. Sunday after church, we also met up with others from our squad. It was so much fun. Most of the time our transportation around Antigua is either Nissi, or taking the public buses, or as they are called here, chicken buses. These colorfully painted school buses fit about 60 people on average very uncomfortable, but it is definitely a fun experience, especially when its pouring!!
Monday (today) was very chaotic. We woke up early and dove right into ministry. All three of our teams went to work on the house. We sang country music and had a ton of fun together. When we got home we were able to be a part of a very cool Guatemalan tradition. September 15th is Guatemalan Independence Day and every year people run from their homes to the square in Antigua and light a torch and then run it all the way home. It is about 4 miles away from where we are and Nissi followed us just in case we got too tired to run all the way (I, of course, did not make it all the way) 
So far, we have only done a small portion of our ministry and have mainly been adjusting to the culture and city we are in. Guatemala is such a beautiful country and I can not imagine not being exactly here where I am in this moment. I am so blessed to have this wonderful country to call home for the next 3 months!
