Month one has come and gone so quickly. This month has been amazing! I was so blessed by the ministry we worked with. The kids were incredible and the staff/workers were all encouraging and inspirational.
Meet the kids and staff of Life Unlimited!
It was graduation day
This month included:
Went to a church all 4 Sundays that was completely in Spanish. During worship, the kids and youth would go up front and wave bright colored flags and sometimes do a little skipping step. I wish I had a picture to show of it… I loved worship there!
We climbed to the top of the water tower at our ministry site… amazing view!
We went zip lining and enjoyed the amazing view of Panjachel. Had so much fun with my team there!
Visited the Iximche Mayan ruin site
We took food to families at the local dump
We did a lot of physical work this month… picking beans, filling in holes on the playground, weeding some areas, cutting grass with machetes, shelling beans, and our last project… digging a ditch down the side of the mountain.
Wade and one of the boys, Alex, carried load after load of firewood up the mountain.
Here are a few of the precious boys I got to be a house mom for…
One of my favorite things was to push David on the swing… he would giggle the entire time! So precious!
The girls here are super sweet and fun! Liz and Jaime had the opportunity to be house moms for them.
This is Erica… Such a sweet girl!
Wade and Jake were house parents for the boys off and on throughout our month.
There were lots soccer games… mainly in the past few days that were fun to watch. World Racers vs. Guatemala.
This is Angel… He is awesome!
Meet Alex!
Alex is 18 and probably the person I bonded with most during our month. Back home I taught 2 year olds at a daycare and typically love the young age groups, but for some reason, I clicked with Alex. It was definitely a God thing. He walked up our first Sunday there while Jake and I watched the kids and Wade play soccer and he started conversation with us. From there… we hit it off. Alex would always heat the water for us girls the few times a week we had it (and yes… those are the only days us girls took showers). The shed where he heated the water was located right outside the house us girls stayed in and I would often times just go out there and talk while he worked on the fire.
This shed is a special place… This is where he opened up to me. Lots of good conversations happened there and this is where I learned all about Alex. He blows me away with his heart. He worked with us the entire time our team was at Life Unlimited. The guy is a beast…. Works crazy hard! But, he made our work times a lot of fun. I had many laughs with Alex. He would tell me funny stories all the time, went to the Mayan ruins with our team, did an awesome Michael Jackson dance for us, watched Dumb and Dumber with our team, and played many games of Sequence with me. I will miss Alex so much. Please be praying for him with me.
Saying goodbye to all of the kids last night was super hard! That is going to be the hardest thing about this trip… the heartbreaks of goodbyes every month. It is so hard to walk into the lives of these kids for only a month and then turn around and leave… To be just another person in and out of their lives.
In one of my quiet times this month I stumbled upon this scripture that is really helping me and my team with leaving each month…
Early the next morning Jesus went out to an isolated place. The crowds searched everywhere for him, and when they finally found him, they begged him not to leave them. But he replied, "I must preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God in other towns, too, because that is why I was sent." So he continued to travel around, preaching in synagogues througout Judea. -Luke 4:42-44
Life Unlimited was a wonderful place to spend our first month. I was blessed so much in my time there!
We left there at 4:00 this morning to head back to Antigua to meet up with the rest of our squad today. During the drive to Antigua I reflected on my past month and how much God and these kids have taught me. Our final goodbye to our ministry host, Alex, and Angel happened as they dropped us off here. We have today and tomorrow still in Guatemala, but with our ministry being done, I feel like my goodbye to them was the Goodbye to Guatemala.
Please be praying for my squad as we leave to travel to Honduras early Thursday morning. Sad to go… but, super excited for what God has in store for me, my team, and my whole squad next month. For all of you campers out there… we will be living out of our tents all next month. So… Please also pray for good weather for that haha.
