I love Guatemala it’s very beautiful! I wake up every morning and make myself a pour over coffee. I walk out onto the roof and I am stunned by the view of two Volcanoes. The fresh air does not remind me of home.
Team Living Water is now in the second week of our ministry here in San Pedro, a small suburb on the edge of the touristy city, Antigua. Our ministry contact, Luis Carlos gave us a house to live in. Us and two other teams live here. Teams Living Water, Renown, and Valiant all living under one roof can be quite the challenge at times, but can also be so rewarding. The house has a kitchen, beds and even hot showers. We are truly blessed to have this haven to come home to everyday. Our ministry knows no bounds. We had the option to choose what ministry we would want to be in. Some of us help out at the Cerebral Palsy Home and some teach value classes with Luis’ organization, Nueva Generacion. We also teach English at public schools. There is also an opportunity to help build a house for a family of nine that lives on less than two dollars a day. Luis wants us to help organize a futbol tournament for the youth. This soccer tournament is a big event that will happen sometime in October. The winners get to go compete in the National Championships. Some of us guys are going to enter in and we hope to score at least one goal. Luis wants us to do something during the halftime to spread the love of Jesus. We are still planning it and a team of us are marketing and spreading the news about it throughout the city. We also pray for and with the community spreading love and healing, real physical and spiritual healing. The relationships we have formed so far amaze me.
My ministry is the construction with my teammates Bryan and Sam, and also my squadmate Rae. We catch the 8:30 bus Monday through Friday up to a small town, Santa Maria de Jesus, which is built right on the volcano. The father of the family, Juanito, is a small pudgy man and always has a smile on his face. We help construct his house with three other contractors: Hector, Miguel, and Miguel’s son Victor. The first couple days were rough. We shoveled dirt all day to level out the foundation, but yesterday was fun. We helped them build these metal structures that will support the brick and mortar house. I like to think of it as adult Legos, I loved Legos when I was a kid. The family we are building the house for is so sweet. Really, they are all super short and are always smiling. Most of their kids are very shy and smile at us, but don’t do or say much to us. A younger girl (5 or 6 years old), Rosalina comes home from school everyday while we are working on her house and she smiles at us and then runs to her mother. She’s my favorite. When we are done for that day we look at what we’ve accomplished and it is starting to look more and more like a house everyday. I love my ministry.
The past couple of days I have been struggling with some things back at home. I won’t go into detail about what that was, but I will say that God has come to my rescue. It’s crazy one second I will be crying and I will be praying “Jesus, come take this cup from me,” feeling like my world is ending and the next second I am staring into the ceiling with a confidence and peace that I know God laid onto me. My Jesus, I love Him.
