I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to give an overview of both Guatemala and Honduras, so that's what I'll do here…in addition to telling you a bit about what I know about our ministry in Nicaragua!
So, in Guatemala, our whole squad stayed together at Agape in Action. We slept in our tents in 'tent city'. Each team (or 2 teams) had a different ministry that they worked with. Another team with mine worked at a government funded day care loving on both the kids and the teachers there. We would help fix, serve and clean up from lunch, put on skits for the kids, teach them bible stories and songs and just love on them in sweet, sweet ways. We also built a playground for the day care. Our last few days there were my favorites. The school had a party in our honor! They presented us with awards, thanked us, and then brought in a CLOWN! It was so much fun. On the last day, the teachers and staff all cooked for us a traditional Guatemalan meal. Man, it was delicious! And it was such a blessing to be served by these people we had been serving all month.
I'm sure you can tell this by looking through my blog posts from Guatemala, but God taught showed me my pride and the barrier that it puts up between the two of us. I loved Guatemala. There were some other missionaries that came for a week while we were there that worked with a church on the other side of town. The relationships that I got to form with them were beautiful and I hope for them to continue to grow.
Here are some pictures of my favorite kids
(here's the playground…not finished however. We also got monkey bars, tires to crawl through, and mulch for the ground!)
My dear friend Ken has a great blog in depth about our ministry at the day care…check it out for more info! http://kenbetancourt.theworldrace.org/?filename=four-stories-of-guatemala-month-1-recap-ken-goes-world-wide
Honduras! I don't have many pictures from Honduras because we weren't allowed to really take our cameras out. So, our whole squad was together (except for one team) and we again were staying in our tents at Zion's Gate! This is a ministry that works a lot with street boys. Tony and his wife Nidia take in boys off the street to live in their house and just do life with them. And that's exactly what we did. Monday-Thursday my team went down to the school for an hour every morning and taught the 6th grade class English. I had three students of my own: Yenifer, Any and Keylin.
(Any, Yenifer, and myself)
(Keylin and me)
Spiritually, Honduras was a difficult month for me, but I'm posting another blog about that in a bit. Some beautiful things that happened in Honduras: my team got very close, we bought clothes and shoes for two new boys off the streets (who have recently voluntarily returned to the streets, please be praying for Wilder and Bryan), we built a beautiful relationship with a 20 yr. old deaf and mute girl named Karen. Our team had a movie night with her with her favorite foods- coffee and waffles and took her out to eat. I got to spend lots of quiet times in a hammock :-). Although it was tough, it was great.
Now, my team and I are in Managua, Nicaragua working with an organization called Breaking Chains. I don't have too many details as to exactly what this month will look like because we just arrived yesterday, but goodness am I excited. Our first night here we had worship with the wife of the program director, three Mexican missionaries and the 4 live-in girls and I think it was the most beautiful and pure worship I've had in a while. The girls that live in the house have all been rescued from sex trafficking in some fashion. There also is a day program with 18 women ages 17-48 who were trapped in sex slavary/prostitution. As I learn more about this organization I will surely be updating you all.
Thank you so much to each of you who are supporting me through prayer, financially, or by spreading the word of this crazy adventure! God is working, that's for sure. You are each blessing me in great ways, THANK YOU!
"But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead!!!!"
Ephesians 2:4-5
