As I transition out of Guatemala and into Cambodia, it only seemed appropriate to transition my blogs in a similar way! Guatemala was a lot of things to me personally and to abandon that sweet country without a proper goodbye seems at best, unfair.
Guatemala for my team was an even split of time between teaching at a little school, hanging with folks in their homes, praying, encouraging each other, sharing food and too much Pepsi – and on the occasion getting to meet some physical need. The Adventures in Missions Base in Guatemala, outside of supporting local churches and sending teams to ministry within the villages also has a mission to provide water filters and stoves to families who are living without, in the villages that surround the base. Years of governmental and societal neglect of areas that house primarily indigenous peoples has resulted in little access to clean drinking water. For these families without filtered water, waterborne illness is common. Simultaneously, the traditional open aired fires used to cook for individual families coat the tin walls in inches of black tar – and similarly brutalize the lungs of the person making tortillas or the child running at their feet. For these families, lung issues are common.
Josefina, the lovely woman who hosted our little school, had been provided one of those stoves herself, where our team learned how to make tortillas and of how incredible Guatemalan food is. We drank water from one of the filters that the base supplied. These items were not only something that I think a good idea, but from my experience a necessity. Towards the end of our time in Guatemala our team had the pleasure of installing an energy efficient stove that both reduces smoke produced and redirects the remaining smoke out of the space. For our friend Rosa, it was life-changing. For me, it was eye opening.
A stove is 155 USD and a water filter is 55. The stoves that were being installed in the communities we worked in are from a town about an hour out from the village made by the company Estufa Chapin. It’s an insulated wood burning stove that heats a stovetop using a third of the wood necessary for open-air setups of the same nature. The water filters that are used come from Filter of Hope ( see filterofhope.org ) and are good for 10 years for carbon filtered clean water!
This is an invitation to unite you, with the base in Guatemala, with families who are in need. This is an invitation to be a part, financially of the global church! The only church! If you feel that stomach-clenching-sweet-holy-conviction you can donate here -> https://www.adventures.org/give/donate.asp?giveto=BASEALL and select the Guatemala base out of the base selections, and write ‘stove and water filter project’ in the note section!
Thank you so much for reading and being invested. Thank you for being generous in all ways. Thank you for reading, again.
Need someone to talk to? Have physical needs yourself? Want to chat about generosity and how we are being the church by being generous? Email me at [email protected]!
