We’ve been in Puerto Barrios for a week now and will be until November 6th when we travel to Guatemala City to meet up with the rest of the squad and head to Nicaragua. We’ve been working with Shofar ministries, a radio station ministry that has organized ministry opportunities for us. We love them and have had a blast hanging out with them. This past week we’ve been trying out different types of ministries each day.
On Monday morning, we went to the future site of a church and prayed over the land and for the pastors of the church. We then went to a bar and at first we prayed outside of it and as men came out we were able to pray with them and talk to them. On Monday night we headed to a park where a lot of drug use takes place in spite of the children and teenagers that use the park. We spent a little while praying in the park and then played basketball with some of the people there.
On Tuesday we went to a poor neighbourhood and prayed and visited with families there. Team Logos was able to pray and visit with a sweet older couple where the wife was sick and the husband had breathing problems, I think asthma, and couldn’t get any more medication. As soon as we met them, we could feel the love this man had for his wife and you could just tell that his wife was a sweet lady. We then visited another family and prayed for the grandfather who was suffering from the after effects of a stroke. He told us that He used to believe that God loved him but didn’t anymore. We got to talk to him and read him verses from the Bible. I felt like God wanted me to ask him what his name was and he told us it was Pedro, Peter in Spanish. We thought it was cool because Peter in the Bible went through times of doubting and yet God used him as the foundation of the church.
We had offered to help the family make tortillas but before we were done talking to Pedro they had finished. So, they made more mix and taught us how to make them and then they gave them to us for lunch. It was a lot of fun, even if tortilla making probably isn’t my calling in life. The generosity of people here is awesome – that family probably didn’t have the resources to just give us those tortillas but they did anyway in order to bless us. And they were delicious.
Later in the afternoon, we headed to the orphanage to hang out with the kids there. When I went to the orphanage in Tobago the kids flocked to you as soon as you walked in but here it felt like they weren’t all that interested in us. The first twenty minutes were pretty awkward to be honest, especially because I couldn’t communicate with them. We eventually started playing soccer and they just became like normal kids for a while. It was probably the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been here. It turns out you don’t need to speak the same language to trash talk each other. And I love how easily they laughed while we were playing soccer, especially after how reserved they were when we first arrived. They really are amazing kids and I get the sense that they have just been hurt and disappointed too many times. I’m really excited to go back and get to know them more.
Wednesday morning we went to the dump to deliver some food and juice and clothes and pray for the people that live and work there. It was a pretty overwhelming environment. It was hot and smelly and dirty and the kids worked right along with the adults. But the people there were beautiful and I just felt the overwhelming sense that God is there just as much as He is anywhere else.
On Wednesday night, we went to a youth service at a house. We were in charge of leading the service and I did games. We also did worship and then we invited the Holy Spirit to come and do His stuff. It was awesome, God was definitely working and I think a lot of freedom happened that night. It’s amazing what God will do when you invite Him to do what He wants instead of asking Him to bless what you want to do.
On Thursday we painted a church building in preparation for a big anniversary celebration they are having this Sunday. The pastor’s father in law passed away the night before we painted so the casket was just kind of hanging out in the church while we painted. Also, it’s tradition for the family of the deceased to gather and sit with the casket so we just had this huge family watching us paint. It sort of felt like we were on display. Anyway, we kind of felt frustrated by the lack of efficiency (a lot of waiting around and watered down paint) and feeling a bit useless but we found out later that the church had been worried about getting it done in time and then when they found out we were coming they expected just a few people so they’d been planning to help us do it. When the pastor’s father in law died it just added to the things they needed to do. So when we arrived with 13 people and were able to paint it all in one day, it was a huge blessing to them. It was cool that God used us to bless them even if we didn’t feel much like a blessing on that particular day.
Finally, yesterday we planned to go and talk to the women that work as prostitutes in the bars here. So we spent some of the day praying about the night and for the women (and men at the bar) and making cards to give to them with verses on them. We then went to the bar where we were able to pray with some of the women and pray over the bar and talk to some people that were there. I’m going to write another blog about this night.
So that’s a (really long) recap of the past week. For the next three weeks we will be more focused in our ministry. Some of us are going to be concentrating on the orphanage, some on the park and some on the dump and the whole group plans to continue going to the house youth group to encourage and pour into them. I’m excited about the prospect of beginning to build deeper relationships rather than just meeting people for a few hours, not that that hasn’t been good. Our direction for the next three weeks is on empowering and teaching and just meeting people where they’re at. Please pray for Team Logos and Team Rhema that we would have open hearts to where God is leading us and what He wants to do through us.
