This morning I said good-bye to German (our host) and his family. Susie, his wife cried on my shoulder as we continued to hug each other. I asked German’s teenage daughter’s, Emily and Natalie, if I could stay and then asked German if we could take Susie to Belize with us. I didn’t want to leave this family that has become family to me this month. In my broken Spanish I told them that they were in my heart forever and I truly believe they will be.
As I climbed into the van I had tears in my eyes for the first time saying good-bye on the race. Sure I have built great relationships with previous hosts and now have family all over Asia and Africa who were equally hard to say good-bye to but today my heart was surprising soft. Surprising only because by this point in the race where good-byes are so common place it can be easy to not let them go to heart. However, thankfully, this morning’s good-bye did and I will consider that a pointer to how great of a month I had with German’s family and GO! Ministries.
On the outset it doesn’t seem like this month was too great, nothing really momentous happened, but in reality it did. The great moments of this month were just that, moments and each of the little moments matter just as much as the next.
We spent several mornings this month at a school in Ayapan, a village about 20 mins from Xenacoj, helping with a feeding program, playing with kids and teaching English. Oh and dancing, lots of dancing. During our time at the school each class was preparing a dance for their Independence Day celebration that we got the opportunity to take part in earlier this month. So we also danced a lot (maybe someday I’ll show you my Guatemalan dance moves).
After the school in the morning, lunch and siesta, most of our afternoons were spent visiting widows. Widow ministry is probably GO!’s main ministry as they seek to serve over 400 widows in 3 different towns. Widows are the lowest people group in Guatemala and thus tend to be extremely impoverished doing whatever they can and scrape by. We probably visited about 30 of these widows this month. Each time offering a bag of rice and a prayer. Something so small but yet so meaningful. We also got the chance to throw a party for the widows in Xenacoj last week and yesterday we were able to bless a widow in Ayapan with a bed. All these acts allowed us to remind these women that they are loved and not forgotten. They also gave us a chance to be in fellowship with fellow sisters in Christ. In all honesty I don’t know who was more blessed by these encounters.
Then during our free time I would often try to make a visit with German’s family, just to say hello, maybe help in the kitchen, or play with Gracie (German’s 3 year old daughter). I don’t speak much Spanish and German’s wife and kids don’t speak much English so we communicated a lot through hand signs and laughter.
All of this ministry took place in little moments and it was these simple acts of love and kindness that made for such a great month one that was difficult to pull away from.
Xenacoj will be in my heart forever.
