This is a wrap-up video from our month in Guatemala! I will soon be posting one more video from Guatemala about how we celebrated our 2 teammates’ birthdays that were both on May 23rd this month, Allison and Katie!
Last month in Guatemala my team, The Gathering, helped teach English 5-6 days a week for 3 hours each day at a school in Pastores, Guatemala. A few days a week 2-3 of us would get a ride to a farther away school called SALEA (Salt and Light English Academy) to help teach English in Chimaltenango, Guatemala. At SALEA we had a little bit longer days teaching, either from around noon to getting back around 6:30 or 7:00pm, or earlier days when we went from around 6:30am to around 2:00pm. We were also staying with a Gap Year World Race team who was also on their second to last month of the Race (Month 8 for them and Month 10 for us) at our main ministry school so we got to know them over the month.
Our month in Guatemala we got to build relationships with the kids we worked with every day, as well as with local shop owners that we visited daily or every other day for meals. Since we had a lot of free time this month, it gave us time to be more intentional about getting to know each other on our team and on the Gap Year team, as well as spend time with God processing the end of the Race and what going home would look like for us.
In Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize, we got to see a lot of dreams coming true with plans for what my teammates were going to do after the Race! In Honduras, Madi accepted a job to be a high school English and Spanish teacher, as well as be a volleyball coach! She is going to be a teacher at the private school where she had gone to for Kindergarten through high school, a place definitely on her heart. In Guatemala, Des accepted an internship with CGA (Center for Global Action), which is a Christian discipleship and leadership training internship with Adventures in Missions! This is the next step towards her dream of leading a missions program in her church and bringing new young adults and teens to the mission field in other countries.
Hannah, Katie, and I filled out applications for the missions jobs we hope to pursue when we get back! Hannah hopes to serve with G42, a missions leadership training program similar to CGA but in Spain instead of Gainesville, Georgia! G42 is a Christian organization similar to Adventures in Missions and YWAM. In Guatemala Katie applied to an internship to be a youth pastor in Colorado, and in Belize she was accepted to that position! As I mentioned in a previous blog, I am applying to be a missionary staff member with Cru in New York! I can’t wait to submit everything once I get back to the States and can meet with my references!
Esther and Allison are our medically-inclined teammates who are pursuing what the Lord has for them in this next season by taking some time to go back home and rest after a year of mission work and pray into what next steps the Lord wants them to take. Esther hopes to be a doctor or a medical missionary someday and is applying to get into med school! Allison feels that the Lord has laid it on her heart to become a physical therapist, so she is looking into schools to become a physical therapy assistant!
