After tearful goodbyes, jet lag and 3 flights I have made it to the first destination of my World Race journey: Guatemala. It has been a long 30 hours of travel but being reunited with my squad has made the transition somewhat easier. I do have to keep reminding myself to leave all my expectations behind and just let God lead me.
After we landed in Guatemala we got our packs, went through customs, climbed into three 12 passenger vans and made it to our launch destination-Antigua. I have not seen much of Antigua yet but of the little I did see it is beautiful. Once we all arrived we had a squad meeting where the leaders made some important announcements about team changes. I am happy to report that Team Hineni has a wonderful new addition and her name is Anna LisaJ. After the meeting we broke up into our teams and walked around the city to find a place to eat. We ended up going to a small, somewhat ethnic restaurant where I had my first taste of Guatemalan cuisine, which was not a disappointment. However, it was when I was ordering my beef tostada that I realized the language barrier is going to make things rather interesting and because of this I have decided to make a list of commonly used Spanish phrases to aid me in my Spanish illiteracy.
Once we were finished with lunch we walked around a bit and went into a local market or bizarre. Luckily I have not exchanged any money yet so I was not able to purchase anything that caught my eye (which was pretty much everything). It is going to be hard to control my shopper’s gene while on this trip but I will have to learn to discipline myself…
I am feeling a sense of boldness and courage headed my way…and I am eager to see how the next few days here unfold.
<3
