I can’t believe it’s already Wednesday. It feels like I have been here for forever! We (my team and two others) arrived safely in Guatemala Thursday evening but had a long 6 six hour bus ride to Puerto Barrios. At midnight we had dinner in a little diner in the middle of nowhere. On the way we made several pull overs, our tarp covering our bags on top of the van flew off, we picked people up and dropped them off, the first bus rolled backwards down a hill so the van backed up to get a running start. We also lost sight of them. I learned that when someone is honking at you it means they are passing you. It seems as if there are general rules to driving here but you follow them very loosely here. It’s actually a little liberating. You can get creative.
The first few days were very relaxing. We toured the local area where the Shofar ministry is at. Here the ministry is called Casa Verde (Green House). They have a little store selling school supplies with a radio station in the back. Across from the street is another building where an YWAM completing their Outreach session is at. The Some leaders stay there and there is some internet there, but very limited. We are staying at a house down the street they just started to rent January 1st. The DTS group was cleaning it before we arrived. It has been abandoned for over a year and has an interesting story.
The next day we did a scavenger hunt at the local market and nearby parks, taking crazy pictures of the area and locals, learning Spanish along the way. We got to sit along the side of the bay for a little while. That night we had a talent show and celebrated a few birthdays: Jen, a former Racer who came back to do ministry, and Jacob from another team. A little tradition they have is to have the birthday person bite into the cake as fast as they can before someone face plants their head into it.
Sunday, yesterday, was by far my favorite day so far. We started off the day by going to our contacts’ (Paul and Ilda) church. It was at a beautiful hotel in a tiki room. There were pools with water slides running into it. The service was completely in Spanish but I could make out a few words: Jesu, Pasion, Mateo, Juan, Iglesia, Ephesos, and Apocalipsis. These words mean Jesus, Passion, Matthew, John, Church, Ephesus, and Revelations. The pastor was preaching Revelations 2 on the letter to the church in Ephesus with some supporting verses in Matthew and John. I asked Jen later what the service meant and it was not forgetting our first love. As in, when two people fall in love for the first time, they want to spend all their time together, get to know everything about them and there is so much Passion.
After service, we went back to the house and into the back yard to pray for the house and the land. We spoke of visions and blessings the Lord has for the host’s and their ministry in this place. It was amazing and awe inspiring to see God speak to so many people. There will be a blog posted later more in depth about my experience.
When we returned to the house, we decided to push back dinner and go to a local park for ministry. I wasn’t really excited because everyone was talking about playing sports. Yet I went anyway and had fun. With some DTS staff, I played with the local children; horseback rides, riding on my shoulders, spinning until we fell around dizzy. I got so dizzy at one point I had to lay down for a while for my head ached. Later on I played with a girl who had bubbles, making huge ones, little ones, trying to eat and catch them. Jade joined with me and Kyle tried once. She was such a cute girl. I never got her name but I wished I did. She was by herself with her mom and dad not paying attention to her. Others were break dancing or playing soccer/volley ball. Her face brightened when I started making faces at her from behind Jade. She was very assertive, telling me in rapid Spanish how to blow bubbles correctly and different ways to do it. Once I created a bubble that was as big as my head and the look of wonder on her face was priceless. Her eyes were so wide! I really did enjoy my time which taught me to not make assumptions about ministry. God always has a plan to expand his Kingdom, even if that’s just blowing bubbles with a girl.
