My team and I have been living in Guatemala city woking with an organization called Mi Arca. We work at the center everyday playing with kids, painting, doing prevention and lots of other jobs.
My favorite part of every week is going to visit the street. We go to one street where we visit a group of guys and a few girls between the ages of 11 and around 35. They all live on a sidewalk with a few mattresses set up and all of there belongings stored in trash bags. Most of them are on and addicted to drugs so we try to do activities to get their hands and minds moving. We sit and talk, we play lots and lots of uno. We get to do art with them every few weeks. Ive gotten to teach two of the art workshops and taught them how to make friendship bracelets. They are some of the most kind and sweet people I have ever met and they just want to be loved and listened to.
A few weeks ago we got to celebrate Guatemalan independence day. We went with a huge group from the center and went into the city square to light a torch then we ran back, sang the national anthem (which is about 5min long by the way), and had a party. I have never seen a people so excited and so proud of their country it was amazing!
After Independence day we headed back to Antigua for debrief. The whole squad was back together and it was so good to have a week off to relax and recharge. We had worship and different sessions every night and in between we got to run around Antigua, eat lots of fast food, go on dates with my favorite girls to my favorite taco place and talk about what we had all been doing for the past two months of our lives.
We got to celebrate another National holiday here in Guatemala, Día del Niño (children’s day). Which when you work at a children’s center, children’s day is kind of a big deal. We had a huge party at the center with games and dancing and cake. The party was super hero themed so all the kids got to dress up like super heroes and we played super hero themed games.
Towards the end of children’s day we sat all the kids down and some volunteers from the center gave a lesson to all the kids. It was about how super hero’s are cool but Jesus is our real hero. We got to pray for all of the children individually and them give them their first Bible. They were so excited, they held their Bibles as their prized possessions and some immediately started to read in it.
The next day two of my teammates and I got to go with our friends Gabby and Anjel, who run their own ministry, to visit a rural school. Anjel explained this school didn’t have much and we were going to celebrate with them otherwise they weren’t going to have a celebration for children’s day. We again dressed as super heroes and played with the kids. We got to give out some of the leftover Bibles to kids at this school and pray for all of them. After leading dozens of rounds of red light green light I was asked by some children if I would pray for them. Later a mother who worked at the school asked if we would pray for her daughter. They stood her up out of her wheelchair and we laid hands on her and prayed for her.
Last week we had one of the most amazing days. We went to the Guatemala Zoo and took the “young volunteers” of the center with us. These boys are teenagers who come from bad homes, have lived on the streets or don’t have homes. They come and hang out at the center and volunteer to help with the kids and sometimes do ministry with us. These guys are probably who we have gotten the closest with at our ministry. We got to take all of them to the zoo, most of them it was their first time to a zoo. Watching their faces was definitely the best part of the day. I learned that teenage boys love bears, alligators and penguins the most.
This past weekend my team and I took a Saturday off and went to the beautiful Lake Atitlan. We got to take a boat around the lake and go swimming. Nothing that exciting happened it was just really beautiful and if you’re ever in Guatemala you should go to the lake.
This is my friend Josùe. He is one of the young volunteers we took to the zoo. He is at the center everyday almost and he always greets us with huge tight hugs. Josùe wants to be a christian singer when he grows up and he in the past two weeks or so began asking my teammate Melanie and I to sing songs with him. So we would go and sit in a room and sing different christian songs with him, until we learn he is practicing for a show he is going to be in. He tells us all about this show at his school he’s getting to sing in and he is going to the the songs oceans and this is amazing grace. We of course are excited for him and help him practice. He later begins asking us if we would be willing to sing at his school. We decline because neither of us go to his school and neither of us like to sing in front of lots of people like that. He continues to beg and we eventually agree just to please him. So yesterday was the day of his “show” at his school. We meet everyone at the center and get ready to go. When we arrive at the school we discover that no it is not a show but a graduation. Josùe was singing at his high school graduation and had somehow gotten us into the program to sing at this graduation to. We were surprised and mortified. Needless to say we did it despite the awkwardness and embarrassment and Josùe smiled the whole time and gave us huge hugs afterward.
Anyway Josùe graduated and I teared up a little despite my complete embarrassment from singing on stage at a Guatemalan high school graduation where I only knew the people I came with.
This was just a peak into the fun and exciting days Ive had here in Guatemala not so much the nitty gritty but Ill blog about that later.
I have about 16 days left here before heading to Africa and I am dreading leaving because I love these people and this ministry so much. If you would like to learn more about the amzing ministry we are working with here you can check out their websites.http://www.streetkidsdirect.org.uk/ http://www.miarca.org/
If you would like to check out all my pictures from these different fun days you can go to my website http://emilywestbrookphotography.pixieset.com/
Thanks for all of your support!
