Hola from Los Robles, Guatemala!!! As promised, here is some more info about our current ministry site, Casa de Sion.(<— click link for more info!) We are in a small Mayan village in the highlands of Guatemala – for those of you looking at a map the closest marked spot is Panajachel and we are about a 40 minute bus ride away from there. In which direction, I have no idea. haha. We have been at this site for about 1 1/2 weeks, and have gotten to do lots of fun projects since being here!
The core of this organization is nutrition and education to the children and women of Los Robles. On Mon, Wed and Fri tons of precious children come to our site after school and eat a healthy lunch and then get 3 additional hours of classes taught by Gil, the full time Professor. On Tue and Thur a group of expecting mothers and mothers with young babies come for lunch and to recieve prenatal supplements and formula for their little cuties. Of course I am falling in love with the kids so don't be surprised if I come home with 1 or 42. Mom we have room, right?!
In addition to the recurring programs we have been able to do some other projects around the site including cleaning the building, organizing all the clothing donations and working in the organic garden. Last week we got to go to the local school and size all of the childrens feet so that they can recieve new shoes for Christmas! Many of the kids at the school are the same ones that come to our programs so it was fun to see them outside of the site and to feel like we actually know some people in Guatemala.
Our current project is building gaviones – or rock walls – that help to disperse the massive amounts of rain and prevent places from flooding. I would never attempt to build something of such a magnitude in the States, but apparantly here I am completely qualified to do such a thing. Scary! It's been fun to get a little dirty and haul thousands of lbs of rocks around. As my dad would say, 'it puts hair on your chest.' Not exactly my goal in life but you know what I mean.
We spent this weekend in Panajachel celebrating my teammate Kenra's 24th birthday. Yesterday we went ziplining in the national reserve and it has def made my list of the most beautiful places i've ever seen. The course we did was 8 lines, and we hiked to the top of a mountain, over waaaay too many rickety suspension bridges and up all kinds of random contraptions to get there. Aka, it was amazing. A few of those bridges were scarier than the zipline itself, but we all decided if they broke at least it was a cool way to die. (sorry mom).
I have pictures of everything but the interent connection here isn't strong enough to load them, so they will be coming (hopefully) soon. As always, thank you so much for all of your prayers, love and support! I would love to know what is going on with everyone, so please email me updates!!! [email protected]
