If you read my last bog, you know that my parents got to come visit me for five days in Guatemala and experience ministry together.
I will admit that I was very nervous leading up to this week. I had many many doubts and found myself constantly thinking over every single thing that could happen. I kept asking myself if asking them to come was the right thing to do and of course it was.
Seeing my parents come up to the hostel in the chicken bus was an amazing moment. I had been waiting forever to hug them again, I will admit that I cried.
Getting to do life with them was better than ever before. It wasn’t strained , I didn’t feel like I had to act like somebody. I felt completely comfortable. My biggest concern was that I have changed so much and that life wouldn’t be the same. And life wasn’t the same it was so much better.
I have seen my parents do ministry my whole life. They show Jesus to middle schoolers and high schoolers constantly through Young Life. There was just something about doing ministry with them that week that changed my outlook on them. We first went to the only government funded Nursing home, that locals call Grandpa’s house. We got to sit and talk to them and then got to walk around central park. My parents each walked around with a little old man half their size and I walked round with the tiniest most lively 92 year-old grandma that I’ve ever seen. The next day we went to a Cerebral Palsy hospital where we wheeled grandmas around in their wheelchairs. We also got to read them books in Spanish, which is one of the more challenging things I’ve done in life. The last day of ministry we got to visit some homes near our hosts new church. We got to talk about life with them and meet their families. All three ministries were amazing and that week with my parents will definitely be one of my favorite weeks of the race. We ended up getting hike up one of the four volcanoes in Antigua called En Fuego
But a big part of PVT for me was the night I got to talk in front of all the parents. A part of PVT is worship every night and I got to help lead two of those nights. After worship on three of the five nights we had talks. I had zero desire to talk in front of 50 plus people, but when we were told we needed people to talk God put it on my heart to speak. Better yet he put it on my heart to speak about feedback. (i will be posting my notes from my talk next so look out for those!!!) I have a love/hate relationship with feedback and i can get very awkward when giving and receiving it. So you could imagine my discomfort about having to give a talk on it. It actually ended up going great and I didn’t freak out.
My favorite part of PVT though was the conversations I had with my parents. we talked about everything. At the end of that week I felt comfortable talking to my parents about anything and everything, but i also feel comfortable sitting in silence with them now.
I walked away from PVT replenished,
I walked away from PVT no longer homesick
I walked away from PVT ready for Africa.
I walked away from PVT with my parents feeling more like my best friends than anything.
AND then I got to see my siblings in Houston two days later.
